“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela.
This serves as a mantra for Phakamani Ntentema, a PhD candidate in African languages and literature at the University of Cape Town (UCT) who provides isiXhosa translation, interpretation and teaching/tutoring services.
When he enrolled at UCT, he realised only in his second year that the university offered an isiXhosa language and literature course. He said it was not well-advertised and he assumed that the isiXhosa that he did in high school was going to be different to that offered at the university.
“I took isiXhosa the following year, a language that I enjoyed even while still at school. It speaks about my heritage, my people, our language and who we are,” he said.
He became increasingly involved in efforts of the isiXhosa department to promote the use of the language and to encourage young people to value their mother tongue. “I wanted to teach young people from rural areas and townships about the importance of their language, how well they can express themselves in the language they learned at home. Young people can express themselves more fully in their home language and need to understand the value of the indigenous languages better and the great opportunities that they come with,” he said.
Phakamani developed into a language practitioner after he enrolled into another program doing translation and transcription. He said the program provided him an opportunity to learn about the PanSALB book of 2007 which teaches one about translation, grammar and everything one needs to know in order to translate languages. In 2018 he took part in a Via Afrika program, learning digital editing of isiXhosa manuscripts. “I took everything I learned there to heart and wanted to specialise even further in language. Since then I’ve been doing translations to and from isiXhosa, among others translating Covid-19 information for people in the rural areas,” he said
It concerns him that President Cyril Ramaphosa generally used English to address the nation, switching to the indigenous languages only when he closing his addresses. “Our elders and those who don’t understand English are left out in this way. The information does not reach them and even the people who understand English had to learn new words such as quarantine. Because of that many people feel that he is not addressing them,” he said.
Phakamani works as a translator to give something back to the community, and to preserve his heritage and pass it down to the next generation, he said. Too often people fail at things such as job interviews not because they don’t do research on companies or are unskilled but because they struggle to fully express themselves in English. “We translate things in our minds before we speak, this is even worse for someone who is not used to speaking English daily. Companies should employ people who speak indigenous languages and allow customers to express themselves in their mother tongue,” he said.
He said it’s time the country took the multilingualism route and start to implement language policies. “Without language inclusivity, there’s no real inclusivity,” he said.
