Advertisement
Published: November 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
CLICKED ON PHONICS
Sometimes I wonder.
I wonder what South Africa would be like for us if only Afrikaans and Xhosa were spoken. No accented English. Just the throat clearing guttural sounds of the old Dutch, and the clicking, wood on wood sounds of this local African language.
If English were not universally spoken here we would no doubt resort to a little phrase book and muddle our way through. We have done so in countries that did not colonize this place, say France or Spain. This, of course, assumes that we could perform the comedy of reading the phonetic sentences in the first place and then, squirming, ask, “Where’s the loo?” Of course, the next logical linguistic progression would be the ability to pronounce the raw language itself, without the phonetic crutch.
Here in South Africa that would be a hilarious undertaking, altogether ridiculous, perhaps even bordering on the sadomasochistic. That’s because the written words of the locals look like encryption, communiqués to confuse the invaders put together by spies smoking Dunhills under the harsh light of basement hideaways. I have been sufficiently demoralized. The posters that I see could easily
be saying: “Dennis Cunningham, please come immediately to the Mayors Office to collect your prize money of six hundred trillion rand. Good Luck!” Instead of being able to buy a new Mercedes I only stare like a cow at the words and think, “Jeez, I wonder what the hell that says?”
The other day I called the Tourist Information Office in McGregor. Now just to find a town with the straightforward alternating consonant/vowel combination of “McGregor” was like finding a freshwater spring in the Mohave. And I was asking about the hike to Greyton, another two syllable domicile that won’t torture your tongue or grab your glottis.
But between McGregor and Greyton lies the town of Die Galg, where the trail begins. I can say “Die Galg.” I can even say it with some theatrical flourish. But when I did so over the phone the woman at the office laughed politely. She had undoubtedly heard this washed out, desiccated pronunciation before. When she responded to my question using the correct guttural pronunciation I was compelled to pass her a handkerchief through the phone, or at least to ask her if she had had a recent chest x-ray.
The Boesmanskloof Trail crosses the Riviersonderendberg range. Just typing this has sent my Spell Check into a seizure. But in fact these are relatively straightforward words. I hesitate to find the keys for Bronkhorstspruit or Witkleigat or Volstruisleegte.
We haven’t hiked the trail yet, although we came close this past weekend. The weather came in cold and snarly, a sou’easter as they call it here. The ranger told us that he wouldn’t recommend hiking it. Apparently it can become particularly nasty up in the pass. I could see a picture forming in his mind, of two soaked and shivering Americans calling on their cell phone just as it was getting dark, looking for hot chocolate and a ride down in a four wheeler. I don’t think his discouragement had anything to do with our command of the language, or lack thereof, but I couldn’t say for sure. In a few hours the skies cleared and the sun shone brilliantly.
So we drove from McGregor to Greyton, stayed in the B&B we had booked, and made a new reservation for a few weeks down the line. I am working on my pronunciation of “Die Galg.”
But I digress.
If we were required to communicate in Xhosa, the local African tribal language, we would certainly starve to death. I consider myself to have a certain facility for language, but this one has confounded me, at least the few times I have attempted to squeeze that click sound in among other letters of the alphabet. I can make the sound. Solo. I just can’t shim it between any other sounds I consider solid.
In the Xhosa language there are three basic click sounds which are triggered when speaking words that include the letters "x," "q," and "c." On the Internet I found the following attempt to explain how this is done:
“The "x" click is a "side click" produced by placing the tip of the tongue against the front part of the roof of the mouth, then pulling the tongue downward and backward, allowing air to escape on both sides of the tongue.
“The "q" click is a "top click" produced by placing the tongue in the middle of the roof of the mouth and pulling it down quickly while keeping the mouth in an open, "O" shape.
“The "c" click is a "front click" produced by placing the tip of the tongue behind the upper front teeth and then pulling the tongue downward while forming the lips into a slightly parted smile.
“As the clicks are sounded, the mouth prepares to form the vowel sound that follows.”
HAHAHAHA.
And this is just the Xhosa language. The full list of clicks in the other South African and African languages, and the intra-bocal gymnastics that must be mastered to speak these languages, is quite astounding.
According to a New York Times article published in 2003, “Clicks might have been part of the first fully articulate human language that appeared among some group of early humans 50,000 years ago.”
There are eleven official languages here in South Africa: English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana and Venda. There are also eight other “unofficial” languages in the country for a total of nineteen.
Imagine the task of the Public Health Department here in tying to put out information, for example, about HIV/AIDS!
Not to be outdone by Afrikaans, the words and names of the indigenous languages also give us pause, literally. We sound them out like first grade readers, “Hooked on Phonics,” tripping over diphthongs, grasping for some familiar verbal tongue-hold. It’s pitiful!
In Xhosa, if I wanted to ask someone if they spoke English, I would say: Uyakwazi ukuthetha sNgesi? Just to let someone know that I am lost would be a losing proposition: Ndilahlekile!
In the Province of Kwazulu-Natal, just south of Mpumalanga, you can drive from the quirkily pronounceable town of Paulpietersburg on the R33, though optimistic Dassieshoogte, proceeding past Mpungamhlophe, to park at the Indian Ocean in the little town of Velebandhle and Mbonambi Beach.
If you get lost, be thankful that someone speaks English.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.417s; Tpl: 0.028s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.1263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb