Not-so-secret translator

15.04.10

By Nthabi Sibanda

My daughter is now 5 years old, although she’ll tell you 5 and a half. Either way, that’s 5 years and 8 months (to be exact) of me speaking to her in Sesotho. It may be taken for granted by someone who was born and bred in South Africa and raised in their mother-tongue. But I wasn’t. As an exile-baby I did not grow up hearing Sesotho all around me – barring the 7 years we lived in Lesotho and for which I am grateful.

So deciding to speak to my children in Sesotho wasn’t as straightforward as it may seem. Yes, I’m fluent (but then again you can get away with anything in Joburg with its melting pot of languages) however having a conversation with an elder one feels compelled to use as correct and pure a language as possible, but that’s another discussion. Determined to speak to my daughter in the best Sesotho I could, when stuck for a word I turned to my trusted Sesotho translator – my mum.

So you can imagine how a conversation with my daughter would be temporarily interrupted by quick calls to my mum! Now not being born and bred here, I thought this was mine and my daughter’s little secret. Until on one occasion instead of calling my mum, I asked a friend who was born and bred in Lesotho for a translation, and she said “hold on I’ll have to ask my mum”!

Since then I have ‘outed’ other friends across different languages that do the same.
No longer a little secret, I now walk around with my pocket Sesotho/English dictionary and unashamedly pull it out when needed! My daughter, phone bill and I are all the better for it!