I am a South African 54 yrs old. My parents left, ...

2009-01-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

I am a South African 54 yrs old. My parents left, what was then Nyasaland in 1938 via Northern Rhodesia (Mdzwiti)and settled in South Africa in 1945. Two languages were taught to us by my mother ChiNyanja (my mother's) and Chisena (my father's). It is amazing what a semi-literate mother from Nsanje achieved through dedication and consistency.

As I approach my own end of my life it is amazing how the thirst for your own roots drives you. I have a considreable vocabulary of ChiNyanja words and ChiSena words. My deepest regret is the lack of resources in the internet. My own children are 110% South African and can hardly twist their toungue to pronounce ChiNyanja consonants such as "dzuwa ladoka" or Sena toungue twister such as "kupyapyadika ntima". Some words have changed with the passage of time I try not to dilute my vocabulary as I believe I could be a walking repository of somew words that were spoken around the 1920's and 1930's.

My mother spoke pidkin Zulu, hardly the language that could be passed off as the real thing. But at home she kept her language alive through instructions in her kitchen and the errands you were sent on: "uchite msanga" "umange lwilo" "udzwenge" etc etc . She was generous enough to teach us chiSena her husband's language.ChiSena is a rich earthy language for instance a wild goose chase was "kufela nkholo ilibe matudzwi." But with her dedication came a lot of oral history about the fairy tales, rivers, and mountains and chiefs alive in Nsanje during the 1900- 1938 era.

I would like to see a website that could handle all these languages as you have just mentioned in your blog. In the early 1960's it was intriguing how my mom could identify all the tribes men that worked in the coal mines e.g there were plenty Atswina's, alomwe (anguru), machewele, achipeta, angoni, that fathered children with South African women. These children hardly had any connection with their ancestral roots.

In 2009 most African children for the same reasons look to the west for many things, and indeed African knowledge and culture and languages are "not cool".

By my own reckoning there are about 80 souls where I live who could legitimately claim a Nyanja and Sena heritage. I am not a mother I can hardly teach them anything so I have resorted to writing down my wordlists and oral traditions and "myambo" as I know them as told to me by my parents. I dread the day I would die because this rich and inspiring history may disappear for ever.

I have never been to Nsanje but I know every little corner, mountain and stream there and all the ancient villages maintained by the Yao chiefs (Chimombo, Ng'gabu, Nkuzaduka, Chipwembwe, Mbenje, Sabawu etc etc). Maybe sometimes we underestimate what our own indigenous education and transmission systems could achieve.

I look forward to hear from you and keep in touch on this noble and sacred goal of preserving dying languages. I really think we could do much more in spite of lack of resources, to provide for the future. When your days are numbered the only thing that has meaning to you are your roots.

With much appreciation

Alefaya Caetano

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I am a South African 54 yrs old. My parents left, ...