What's on Mthoko's mind?

From what is known, Afrikaans is said to be a sister dialect to 17th century Dutch. The people who formed the original Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic which became Transvaal) were still Dutch speakers & only became Afrikaans speakers later. I don't know when Cape Dutch became Afrikaans but there seems to be an indigenous influence. I'm guessing the Cochokhoe, who lived in Cape Town pidginized the Dutch language they were speaking & gave us Afrikaans.  Afrikaans is still seen as a language of the oppressor & is mostly spoken in the western half of South Africa. But what does this language mean to us today? Should it still be taught in schools seeing as to how developed it is? Or should it be forgotten as the language of a government that followed Nazi ideologies?  It's only spoken in two countries, Namibia & South Africa. Many Afrikaans speakers speak English so there's little need in learning the language today. Maybe Afrikaans (...

I always wondered which of the many Zulu dialects modern Zulu is & always thought it was Hlubi (isiMbo) & according to this thesis by a Mr. Isaac Sibusiso Kubeka written in what was apparently 1979, we see modern Zulu is more the original Ntungwa dialect. The Mthethwa dialect (isiLala) that was likely spoken by King Shaka looks more a Tsonga dialect from a Zulu-speaker's perspective. Despite the "Zulu area" speaking many dialects, I'm of the belief that these dialects were mutually intelligible & similar for the most part. This is the only way these Nguni tribes from southern Mozambique up to Umzimvubu River & inland into the Drakensberg Mountains up to Gauteng could understand each other because I, genuinely, think that it was seldom that an African travelled to a land where he couldn't speak the local language in precolonial times.  Mild differences between Zulu dialects. Writing Zulu   I remember reading a book written in 1930 by ...

How a language survives.  There are some languages I genuinely do envy because they have words for everything & are vibrant in every aspect. These languages have a board that ensures the language has a word for everything & it is written correctly. What I, genuinely, appreciate about Arabic & Far East Asian languages is that they're not so easily diluted because they have their own distinct writing system. Even though Arabic has become a little diluted by north Africans who speak French, Italian, Spanish & English - it's not as extreme as languages who use the Latin writing system. Languages that borrow words from other languages, borrow writing systems & don't have a board that regulates the language usually fade after time. They become almost pidginized & no longer spoken in the original form so lose respect. Radio   I, genuinely, enjoy radio. I've been listening to radio - frequently - for a long time. I think it's almost a nuisance to li...

Africa is said to be home to over a thousand languages, what they don't consider is that many of the languages are mutually intelligible & can be grouped under family groups. My right to compile this list stems from the fact that I am fluent in Zulu & speak Portuguese & French semi-fluently, I can barely maintain a conversation in Swahili (still learning) which means you could put me almost anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa (or Trans-Saharan Africa) & I'd be able to communicate with the locals to a certain degree. In this list, I'll exclude non-African languages & focus on indigenous languages. This is not from one source but from many sources so it's one of the more better researched lists you'll find on the internet.  LANGUAGE - NUMBER OF SPEAKERS  * 1) Arabic - 150 million 2) Swahili - 90 million** 3) Hausa - 50 million 4) Oromo - 37,4 million 5) Igbo -  30 million 6) Yoruba - 28 million 7) Amharic - 21,8 million 8) Zulu - 16 million 9) Shona - 7...