Multilingualism

[Blizzard]

Okay, out of boredom, i watched Campus Connexcion last nite and they were shooting in PE (Nelson Mandela University)they interviewed this white dude (media student) and he was speaking Xhosa and he had all the right (infelctions)gestures and the way he was code switching was sooooo  perfect, ie sifuna ukuba groomisha ( we want to groom them)  
And during the Campus tour segment of the show they interviewed this Xhosa chick who butchered the Xhosa langauge like he was paid to do that, she would hesitate whenever she has to say a word that contains a click and you could see she was so ashamed of speaking the language and her phony accent made it worse.
If i was an editor/station manager i would not think twice before employing the white dude over the Xhosa chick, i know that a white person speaking an African langauge does not mean that he has experience life as a black person (discrimination, the working cla** life etc). my point is i would say f@£$ affirmative action come work with me!!!!

[briCK]

I am not sure I get your point...but if you talking bout black people that either hate they black heritage or are ashamed of it I know very well what you talking about...also if you talking about white folk that learn blackness and try to pa** it off a genuine I know what you talking about.


and hiring the "fluent" white guy would be rather...I dunno chances are the hesitant girl grew up around white folk and never spoke black languages before hence she is nevous and not confident enough to speak it it..but I gurantee if you send that child to EC with other Xhosa people within a month she will have a sufficient grasp of Xhosaness(the essense and language) which the white person can NEVER grasp.

[Papa ThReAdS]

I am not sure I get your point...but if you talking bout black people that either hate they black heritage or are ashamed of it I know very well what you talking about...also if you talking about white folk that learn blackness and try to pa** it off a genuine I know what you talking about.


and hiring the "fluent" white guy would be rather...I dunno chances are the hesitant girl grew up around white folk and never spoke black languages before hence she is nevous and not confident enough to speak it it..but I gurantee if you send that child to EC with other Xhosa people within a month she will have a sufficient grasp of Xhosaness(the essense and language) which the white person can NEVER grasp.

REALTALK

[truthkid]

VIVA BRICK VIVA... VIIIIVAAAA!!!!

[Blizzard]

Eish my English teacher still owes me some lessons, anyway my point is that how is it possible for a white guy to speak IsiXhosa with all the right inflections and isht but u get a Xhosa chick studying at UPE (majority of student are black and from the Eastern Cape) has a Xhosa name, speaks the langauge in a phony accent and as a result .........., the chick just butchered the langauge. Lastly a question, is it possible to separate a langauge from culture/ heritage?

[briCK]

Well thats wierd...but I can't tell you I have come cross black people that LOATHE they home languages so much so that well they butcher it well if thats the case thats her fault I guess and also remmber most University student come from "White Schools" and are prone to all sorts of Identity complexes she'll come around at varsity they always do...I seen black cats turn from token black kid around the white crowd till one day dude wisens up and turns EXTREME PRO BLACK or rather EXTREME ANTI-WHITE



in terms of language culture and heritage...that is complex...I suppose you can't most balanced blacks spoke some sort of black language at home and English at school.

[Beaker]

dude wisens up and turns EXTREME PRO BLACK or rather EXTREME ANTI-WHITE.

Sounds familiar. I come across these types more often than not. They make me laugh.

[blaqsouljah]

briCK, i will have to disagree with you on some of your points there. granted, the language plays a large role in who the person is - i think that's it's not about pa**ing off as anything other than yourself. white folk who speak african languages better than most blacks don't try and pa** themselves off as being anything other than who they are. i know a white boy who's family in soweto in the 70's and 80's - imagine a f***ing white family in soweto at that time - unthinkable really. the guy speaks all 11 languages fluently and he still maintains that it's the langauges he's perfected and nothing else.

i too speak fluently langauges that would not readily be a**ociated with a black south african male. but that does not mean that i pa** myself off as anything more than what i am at the moment. mannerisms as well - a friend of mine even remarked on saying that if he'd not known he would have figured me for a person who was reared in these cultures - but he also understands that it's just the fact that i've picked up on all the subtleties and nuances within the culture as a result. i am still black and south african at the end of the day.

what i'm trying to say is that, the black person not being able to pronounce their mother tongue well enough is either them being f***ed up - or they never learned to speak it properly. a family friend adopted a black south african kid - the friend (uruguayan woman) is married to a sudanese man who speaks french, the kid sounds like every south american, and french person i've met. what is the child's language of reference then?

maybe i did go a bit off track here - but language is not a means of losing and / or gaining identity.

[Blizzard]

Okay, i think what happened with that chick in that interview, is that she wanted to speak English............ but was told to respond in vernac...........  so  to prove that she speaks English fluently with high pitched vowels...... she had to speak Xhosa with a phucked-up accent and avoid words with clicks at all costs.......................................................................................  :idea:

[RearrangedReality]

Okay, i think what happened with that chick in that interview, is that she wanted to speak English............ but was told to respond in vernac...........  so  to prove that she speaks English fluently with high pitched vowels...... she had to speak Xhosa with a phucked-up accent and avoid words with clicks at all costs.......................................................................................  :idea:

If it is as you put it, it sounds like the girls ashamed of where she comes from. I've met a lot of these kinds of people in the past but less frequently now than then.

Some of my Xhosa people seem to be ashamed to speak their language because of the clicks. Or other people from cultures who seem to think their language sounds better because they have less clicks. :?  stupid. The most recent case of this is this girl who was invited by these guys I was chilling with in Bloem. Her name is Babalwa and she's Xhosa but she speaks Sotho/Tshwana and she claims she can understand and speak Zulu but doesnt understand Xhosa. What the f*** is that?? If you understand basic Zulu you understand basic Xhosa. The same applies to Sotho and Tshwana.

For some reason I took it personal and wanted to give my opinion about what I think she should know about where she and I come from but i was afraid I might embarra** this girl that I dont even know that well. who am I to do that anyway.

This self-hatred is a result of judging our selves too much by western standards to the point where we even think other African languages are better than others cause they have no clicks (just like English). It is true, for me, that there are languages that sound more beautiful than others to the ear but it doesn’t mean that they’re better. AND it doesn’t make you any better than anyone else.

off topic: what's up with this thing about everybody else not wanting to date a Xhosa guy? Funny enough I've dated girls (Zulu, foreign, etc) who have the same issue. what's up with that?

[Blizzard]

off topic: what's up with this thing about everybody else not wanting to date a Xhosa guy? Funny enough I've dated girls (Zulu, foreign, etc) who have the same issue. what's up with that?

This goes to show that we still have a long way to go before we can talk about African Renaissance. What is the diffrence between  a Xhosa guy and a Tswana guy, nada, ppl are just plain stupid, PERIOD!!!