South Africans from all walks of life celebrated the country’s rich and diverse cultural heritage in various ways, during Heritage Day yesterday. The day, known by some as “Braai Day” brought together family and friends to share traditions, and enjoy food, fostering unity within the nation’s multicultural society.
But to some, Heritage Day is more than clothes, food, and songs. It’s around this time as well when words like legacy and history also come up during this time. An organisation that specifically promotes and protects the language rights and multilingualism within the country, Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) has encouraged the Setswana speaking people to document their literatures to reduce the possibility of diminishment.
While Setswana has official status in both Botswana and South Africa, several factors threaten its vitality, especially in educational and urban settings.It finds itself among the indigenous languages in Southern Africa facing challenges that could lead to its decline, particularly due to the dominance of English and the growth of the so-called code-mixed languages like “Sepitori” that is considered a threat to standard and unpolluted Setswana.Another research has noted that these variants interfere with students’ performance in standard Setswana, further complicating efforts to preserve the language.
The North West PANSALB Provincial Manager Willie Manana has encouraged Setswana speaking people (Batswana) to consider documenting their work to avoid the language further diminishing.
“As the language board (PANSALB) encourages people to write, we are still celebrating language awareness week led by the North West University. The national PANSALB leaders have been in the province to try and make people aware of various measures to preserve our languages and cultures. We also have the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADILAR) which is found at the Potchefstroom campus of the North West University that is entrusted with enlisting languages online, be it poems, cultures, etc,” advised Manana, who was speaking on YOU FM Newshour.
He encouraged Batswana to approach SADILAR with every piece of literature they have and information that could be enlisted after thorough investigations and verification to ensure that it is preserved for future generations.
“As your previous speaker was saying, we need to ensure that all the Setswana literatures are enlisted online so that they are preserved and everyone including someone as far as in America is able to access and read this on the internet so that it can also be passed from generation to the other,” added Manana.
He warned that if Setswana literatures are not documented and enlisted online, the language could face an unavoidable possibility of diminishing.
“It is true that if we are not writing our literature, we will face this possibility. Not because we are unable to preserve our languages and culture but because those who possess this knowledge are not willing to come forth and share it so that it can be recorded and preserved. Just yesterday we were listening to our elders at the traditional council offices (Kgotla) in Letlhakane near Mahikeng, where they were narrating how their forefathers in the past used to time their daily activities without a clock or a watch but always on time to prepare their everyday lives,” Manana expanded.
