Can You imagine President Jakaya Kikwete speaking to Tanzanians on the Television and radio and during his speech he uses Hehe, Chagga, Nyamwezi, Kibena, Kiswahili and English languages to communicate ?
It would sound improper!
But in South Africa, it is a common way of life to hear broadcasts in mixed local and english languages because here official languages are ELEVEN (11) which are Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.
To prove to you that it is common, watch the National Anthem of SA above. It is sung using five of the eleven official languages.
So, don’t expect everybody in SA to be able to speak English, because that doesn’t matter as long as he/she knows one of the official languages, then he/she can communicate.
TV stations like etv and SABC broadcast news using Afrikaans, English, Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu. While sports broadcasts can also use the local languages such as Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa.
What I mean is, you can watch news broadcast in Zulu, but if you missed the news, you can wait for English broadcast, and if you missed that one, you can possibly watch the news in Xhosa language sometime later!
Therefore, knowing English alone will not help you communicate effectively here; there are places people don’t know English and South Africans are very proud of their culture including their local languages!!!
I am learning Xhosa here because I stay in a Xhosa community, sometimes I am lost in communication because some people can't communicate with me in English.
John, Eastern Cape, SA.
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