SA still holding its African tongue
By Tessa Dowling

Business Day
May 7, 2007

AFRICAN languages departments at South African universities are funny things. Haunted by the apartheid past of white professors snapping their fingers for their badly paid black assistants to demonstrate the clicks that they themselves could not get their tongues around, they are now headed by brilliant black professors who often, sadly, are caught in a time warp, unaware of what is required by employers of language graduates. So now most young black South Africans would rather study Afrikaans or English than their mother tongues. Visit an African languages department in the late afternoon. The wind blows some chip packets along the passage; a notice on the wall tells you there is going to be a test on the past tense on Monday. Someone has wittily scribbled "free the bound morpheme" in the toilets.

By contrast, the English and Afrikaans departments are stuffed with students noisily debating their latest contemporary setwork. Advertisements for courses on media and publishing adorn the walls, and trendy young lecturers and tutors nod as they listen to their students talk about their dissertations.

African languages departments need help - and quickly, before they die out altogether. This year, only two students are studying Xhosa 3 as a mother tongue at the University of Cape Town. When I asked the secretary in Unisa's department of African languages if she could give me some figures for third-year enrolment, she sighed: "That would be too much work." Anyway, at least we know that Haiti's former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was recently awarded his PhD in African languages by that institution, which says something - I am not sure what.

One optimistic and brave person who believes that African languages departments can and should submit themselves to extreme makeovers is Prof Russell Kaschula - professor of the African language studies section (Xhosa) in the School of Languages at Rhodes University. Russell and I taught together at the University of Cape Town in the 1990s - when our white students were so stoned they used to say: "Shu, chill, man. You can ask me my first name in Xhosa but not my surname, hey. That's like pushing me beyond my limitations." The black students were angry and militant and would demand meetings, even if it was to discuss their take on the future tense in Xhosa, or whether the word "inja" (dog) should be broken up as "i-nja" or "in-ja".

I really, really want to believe that African language teaching can experience an extreme makeover. So I asked Russell a few questions, because I had heard exciting things about what he was doing at Rhodes.

Me:
So, Prof, would you say that the department of Xhosa at Rhodes is funky, alive and relevant? Why would anyone want to study Xhosa these days, and why with your department?

Russell:
The African language studies section (Xhosa) in the School of Languages at Rhodes is hip and happening. The only thing outdated about it would be the pictures on the walls, those of legendary African languages scholar Prof Wilhelm Bleek, deceased authors and ancestors.

Why does one want to study Xhosa? I think that you just need to pick up a newspaper and check the job ads. Many jobs state that knowledge of an African language is an advantage or a requirement. I think that mother-tongue students still need to cotton on to this. The interesting thing is that "whiteys", who major in Xhosa 3 second language, now qualify for these jobs.

Why with our department? We have had a massive injection of funds and are at the cutting edge of research in African languages, particularly Xhosa. New staff members have been appointed and the university is fully behind our programmes.

Me:
What kinds of things do you do at Rhodes that are different? I have always wondered why English and Afrikaans departments teach film, advertising, etc while African languages departments tend to teach the same grammar and setworks year after year. Do you have a vision for a more integrated, relevant department of Xhosa?

Russell:
Relevance and market-related courses are the name of the game and should be given high priority. Any African language course that does not take this into account is bound to fail.

We will be introducing Xhosa 1 mother tongue in 2008, Xhosa 2 in 2009 and Xhosa 3 in 2010. These courses will be totally radical, hip and market-related. There will be a literature component. But the emphasis will be on applied language studies and job-related courses.

We will introduce courses that emphasise acquisition of skills in publishing, broadcasting, drawing up policy documents, etc. We will introduce Xhosa media studies, plus courses in orthography and terminology development, editing and publishing, teaching first and second language Xhosa, contemporary socio-linguistics, and so on.

Me:
Can non-mother-tongue speakers of Xhosa - those who haven't even done any Xhosa at school - study Xhosa at Rhodes?

Russell:
They can most definitely study at Rhodes. We have specialised in these courses. The massive injection of funding has allowed us to put up a state-of-the-art multimedia computer language learning facility. This is aimed mainly at second-language teaching. We are also developing discipline-related courses for those students studying law and pharmacy at Rhodes.

Me:
Are you interested in contemporary Xhosa discourse - isicamtho (Tsotsi-taal), slang, code-switching? Is there such a thing as "pure" Xhosa, and who speaks it?

Russell:
Yes. This will form part of the mother tongue courses and it already forms part of the cultural aspect of the second and foreign language Xhosa courses. Not enough research has been done on this, as we have yet to work out the actual structure/grammar of isicamtho. Pure Xhosa remains now a dream of those linguists who see themselves as prescriptive. It remains only in the standard language - that language initially transcribed by the missionaries because it was spoken in the area in which they happened to land. Xhosa today is vibrant and ever-changing, like any other language. Our school is not intent on teaching a dead language; rather a language with a standard, but with all its vicissitudes.

Me:
How do you answer those who ask the question: "But isn't English the language of world commerce and industry? Why should we waste money on teaching Xhosa?"

Russell:
I think that is a pipe dream. We will end up being global language idiots - not speaking any language properly, including English. The reason for this is that we simply don't have the resources to teach English effectively. We do not have enough suitably qualified teachers and the system does not graduate scholars who are proficient in English - hence the high dropout rate from school. That said, I think it is important to develop skills in both the mother tongue and English. We owe our scholars this. It is for this reason that we are employed and have jobs. That is why we take the teaching of Xhosa so seriously.

Me:
How does your department liaise with other departments at Rhodes?

Russell:
We are already working with other faculties and departments to create language courses for them. For example, the law faculty needs assistance when their students practise in the law clinic, where we need to facilitate a process of understanding between client and lawyer.

Me:
How would you describe your leadership style?

Russell:
Gentle, yet disciplined. I believe that gentle coercion is more suited to a university environment. I also believe that you can only win people's trust and support by providing a good example in terms of work ethic and interpersonal relations. I am both manager and leader in my style and do not make excuses for my ideas. That is part of my leadership style. To encourage people to dream, be positive, to inspire them to greater heights. I believe that I am responsible for creating a vision and also managing that vision. This is very necessary when it comes to language studies at tertiary level today. We need to innovate, be proactive, to reposition languages in terms of what the country really needs.

Me:
What arguments would you use to encourage young South Africans to become multilingual?

Russell:
I think a multilingual citizen is a better citizen. It allows you to have a window into the world of fellow South Africans. It has enriched my own life immensely. I cannot imagine my life without it.

* Dowling has a PhD in African languages and is a director of African Voices, a multimedia development company that produces materials for the learning and teaching of South Africa's African languages. She uses the word "Xhosa" instead of "isiXhosa" because she is writing in English, a language that does not have noun prefixes. In the same way, when a Xhosa speaker talks about English, she has to introduce a prefix - "isiNgesi".