Is siSwati facing extinction?

MBOMBELA – Is siSwati facing extinction?

This comes amid growing concern from our readers who speak the language. The chairman of the siSwati National Language Body (NLB), Dr Mafika Lubisi had this to say, “I cannot agree with you more about the increase of people who prefer to communicate in English, compromising their mother tongue.”

Lubisi added that language like land, is something one can lay his or her life down for.

“More than 500 years ago, Africa was subjected to various forms of mental destructions by the slave trade and its twin brother, colonialism. The main aim of these terrible twins was to kill our culture, religion and language, which resulted in the sudden death of our identity and self-esteem,” he said.

He said that a nation is a nation because of its language, as it uses it as a tool to transmit its culture and heritage from one generation to another. “I just give you this background information in order to familiarise you with the seriousness of the predicament in which our languages are. This is an intrinsic web that needs mindset change of our people in order to come to terms with their pride and heritage,” he added.

Lubisi said that the purity of siSwati is facing a big challenge because of social media and the media in general, which does not cater for siSwati speakers.

“Our minds are intrigued in English as even in deep rural areas, you find our men of God still preaching in English, whereas the siSswati Bible was published in 1996 and the whole congruent is 100 per cent Swazis. What is worrying is that learners are expected to write the standardised form of siSwati that they only use at school,” he said.

Lubisi indicated that the NLB has tried many a times to be vocal, but unfortunately does not receive any publicity. “Institutions like Ligwalagwala FM are obliged by law to use the standardised form of siSwati. However, I have read two letters of complaint by your readers that point to the poor usage thereof.”

He added that as a result, this serves as an indication that indeed there are problems that need to be attended to as a matter of urgency.

“Penalties need to be imposed on institutions like Ligwalagwala FM, however, the approach of the siSwati NLB in particular and The Pan South African Language Board in general, is that we need each other for the development of siSwati. Hence, we will try to work with those institutions to improve their language proficiency, though we have legal recourse to remedy the situation,” he concluded.