American writer, activist and feminist, Rita Brown, once remarked: "Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."
In the wake of musician Penny Penny's debut reality show on Mzansi Magic, Papa Penny Ahee, there have been mixed reactions about the show from different viewers. While others commended the show for being interesting, others lambasted Penny Penny's poor command of English. This prompted many people to come to his defence, stating that the musician should not be crucified for breaking the Queen's language because it is not his mother tongue.
I fully agree that Penny Penny owes no one perfect English and that it is not his first language but he had an option to speak Xitsonga in that show yet he opted for English, knowing exactly that it is not one of his strengths. I know how much we hate criticism but my view is that this is self-inflicted wound from Penny Penny’s part as he intentionally denied Xitsonga the opportunity to dominate national TV by withholding it in favour of a language that he cannot fluently speak.
It becomes our problem when we are given an opportunity to be on national media platforms to showcase our languages, cultures and traditions yet we choose to settle for practices that do not fully represent us. As Mutsonga, Penny Penny had the liberty to speak Xitsonga and show pride in his own language yet he did the opposite.
How are our indigenous languages going to grow and gain popularity if we, the custodians of these languages, do not even consider them as preferred mediums of communication? For a language like Xitsonga, which receives little coverage on national TV, how did Penny Penny resolve to settle for broken English when he would easily, comfortably and accordingly express himself in his own language?
These are some of the reasons why indigenous languages, particularly Xitsonga, are still lagging far behind in terms of popularity. There is nothing shameful about Xitsonga and speaking English does not necessarily make one to appear intelligent.
