Erase the language to kill a nation
Walk into many homes, particularly in the villages, during school holidays and you will hear the same sentence, often said with a laugh to hide the pain: "Junior iha popi Oshiwambo" (Junior cannot speak Oshiwambo).
Lazarus Kwedhi
Walk into many homes, particularly in the villages, during school holidays and you will hear the same sentence, often said with a laugh to hide the pain: “Junior iha popi Oshiwambo” (Junior cannot speak Oshiwambo).
It sounds small and funny. It is not.
It means a grandchild cannot sit with a grandparent, with Kuku, and understand the stories, the proverbs, the warnings, and the prayers said in his mother’s native tongue.
It means a mother or father who only speaks their mother tongue cannot help their children with homework or a research project. It means a family’s knowledge, and a nation’s culture, is slowly being locked out of its own children. That is how you erase a language. And when that happens, you begin to kill a nation – the silent death of a nation.
