Tongues and Words

I sat at the back of the bus, uncomfortably of course as had become the norm during every bus ride. The lady next to me constantly peeking at my phone, I tilted it so  I could not feed her curiosity. We were approaching my usual stop and so in my best local language accent i reminded the conductor that I would be dropping off. Everyone turned to see the girl who spoke. I was quite used to this by now so I was not phased at all. However, one man quite elderly in appearance looked at me with a fleeting look of pity. He didn't need to tell me and I did not need to ask him what wrong I had committed. We both knew...
 
Growing up, my parents encouraged me to speak English and urged me to constantly improve my English vocabulary. Local languages were learned as a by the way thing. Therefore, before I was even in my pre-teens I spoke the Queen's language eloquently. But deep down I always felt a need to learn my very own language. So slowly I picked up Bemba and Nyanja till i became conversational. Although my newly acquired local language skills sufficed, I always felt insecure speaking it fearing that I would make some unforgivable error.

It was not until i grew up into my twenties, that i realised how beautiful my mother tongue is and just how much I was missing. Since then I have strived to learn new words and speak more of my mother tongue.

However, the truth is the world we live in seems to have no place for the african language. Our teachers speak to us in English so that we "pass our exams". We are told that in order to win people over we have to speak English like the English themselves. Our constitution honours the Queen with her language. And all these things beg the question "who is giving the Zambian language a chance to survive??"

Why can we not teach our children in our local language. Surely we would be preserving our culture right? Why should the document that governs our ways of life be written in another's language. If such great strides can not be made then perhaps it can be done at a micro level. Parents do your children know their heritage? Can they speak their language?

I hope one day I am blessed with children, and if I am I want to remind them that theirs was a language spoken by noblemen in their own right. Warriors and Heroes share their heritage. What have you done to preserve your heritage today??

Kuda.