EDITORIAL: We must arrest linguistic imperialism
President Hage Geingob, speaking at the King Nehale event at Namutoni last Saturday, said there is nothing wrong with Namibians speaking their vernacular languages. We agree – and in fact amplify his point by declaring that there is everything right with speaking our home languages more often and unapologetically.
Part of our contemporary socio-economic challenges is rooted in the history of how our own local languages were accorded low prestige compared to European ones – which in the end also parachuted the invaders’ culture into superiority.
Without their linguistic and cultural identities, Africans were then made to believe that everything about them was backward and inferior, thus making it easy to control all facets of their lives.
Colonialism was fought on many fronts, including the linguistic one. It was not just through the barrel of the gun.
Today, long after European colonisers have packed up and left, Africans themselves have taken over shaming and stigmatising their own languages. Having a piecemeal understanding of our own languages has been elevated to an urban status symbol, while those who comprehend and speak their vernaculars have become victims of their own success – such as being perceived as rural and even backwards.
Revolutionary Steve Biko wrote in 1971 that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”. Truer words have never been spoken.
Part of our contemporary socio-economic challenges is rooted in the history of how our own local languages were accorded low prestige compared to European ones – which in the end also parachuted the invaders’ culture into superiority.
Without their linguistic and cultural identities, Africans were then made to believe that everything about them was backward and inferior, thus making it easy to control all facets of their lives.
Colonialism was fought on many fronts, including the linguistic one. It was not just through the barrel of the gun.
Today, long after European colonisers have packed up and left, Africans themselves have taken over shaming and stigmatising their own languages. Having a piecemeal understanding of our own languages has been elevated to an urban status symbol, while those who comprehend and speak their vernaculars have become victims of their own success – such as being perceived as rural and even backwards.
Revolutionary Steve Biko wrote in 1971 that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”. Truer words have never been spoken.
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Namibian Sun
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