The Setswana language is spoken by over 6 million speakers worldwide. Most of these speakers are found in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In the past ten years there has been an increased interest in the Setswana language. When the South Africans launched their Nedbank football cup, they turned to a Setswana motto “Ke yona”. The tournament is based on the idea of giving lower league and amateur teams a chance to compete with clubs from the top league for the cup. One of the world’s finest worship musicians, Chris Tomlin has had one of the most iconic worship songs “We fall down” translated into Setswana: “Re obama/ re ikoba/Naong tsa ‘go Jeso/ O boitshepo/O boitshepo”. In South Africa a Hip Hop artist by the name of Hip Hop Pantsula is leading a movement of trying to make Setswana fashionable by mixing Setswana with English by so doing ushering a new type of Hip Hop called Motswako. His real name is Jabulani Tsambo, the son of Theriso Tsambo, a lecturer in the Setswana language and literature at the North West University.
HHP’s mother is herself a gifted musician and a great promoter of the Setswana language who sits in the Setswana language commission of the African Union. Locally HT, Tautona, Eureka the Coverboy, Duncan Senyatso, KTM Choir, Matsieng, Tshepo Lesole, Mmereki Marakakgoro, Phempheretlhe, KayZee and many others have demonstrated that music in Setswana can be world class.
Other developments of the past 10 years include the translation of Google Search into Setswana and the publication of the first Setswana rhyming dictionary. A dictionary by MLA Kgasa and Tsonope was also revised during this period. One Setswana-English bilingual dictionary is being written at Oxford by the Oxford University Press while a Setswana monolingual dictionary is being put together locally. In the last 10 years a Setswana dictionary has also been put together by the Setswana National Lexicography Unit at the North West University edited by the eccentric but delightful G.B. Mareme.
Setswana has been chosen by ACALAN (The Academy of African Languages) as one of the first working cross-border languages and the vehicular cross-border languages which should be given priority in the southern African region. ACALAN is an arm of the African Union, created in 2001 to deal with the growing efforts of promoting the African languages as tools of development and regional integration in Africa. Out of the 2,130 languages spoken in Africa, it was discovered that 396 are cross-border languages, that is, they are spoken across national boundaries. Setswana was identified to be one of these languages. The African Union is interested in promoting and developing these 396 languages to use them in promoting regional development and integration. In southern Africa Setswana and Chinyanga have been selected as the first regional languages to play the role of regional development and integration. The two languages were chosen for the southern African region on the basis of their broad use in several countries. This includes their extensive use in public domains, their success in attracting second language speakers, their national/official status and their levels of technicalization and standardisation. Setswana now has an African Union Language Commission made up of language experts/promoters, writers/cultural promoters and members from regional organisations like SADC and The Linguistic Association for SADC Universities (LASU) and Association Of Teachers of Language and Literature of Southern Africa (ATOLL). Setswana has therefore overall African, and not just national relevance.
The news that Google has teamed up with Wikipedia to launch a university/college challenge which deals with translating online material into Setswana or authoring Setswana material for Wikipedia was very welcome indeed. In this competition local university/college students compete between each other in the development of Setswana material either through translation or through original authored articles about different topics such as medicine, history, village information, the life of a specific leader etc. The “Setswana Wikipedia Challenge” aims to “bring Africa’s information online by creating Wikipedia articles in Setswana”. This competition is open only to enrolled university or college students. The challenge will benefit students in that they will gain experience in using the Google Translator Toolkit and additionally learn about other useful Google products. Most importantly it will demonstrate to university students that they can write very well in the Setswana language. There is nothing fashionable about the statement “Setswana se thata” especially from people who have a poor command of the English language which they so much love. Enrolled university/college students are therefore encouraged to participate in this competition since there are institutional prizes as well as individual prizes to be won. Amongst these are a trip to the USA, laptops and multiple Android gadgets. To register, enrolled students should visit: www.google.com/events/setswana-wiki where they will receive additional guidelines on how to participate in the competition. While the competition is open to enrolled university/college students, every Motswana can contribute articles to the Setswana Wikipedia. If you wish to contribute or if you wish to see what already exists in the Setswana Wiki, visit:
http://tn.wikipedia.org/. Those who are interested on this project and wish to work collaboratively they may send me an email at [email protected]. If we who have a chance to contribute to the development of the Setswana language, don’t, then we should not blame those who will come after us if they despise their language and culture because when we should have, we didn’t. There is much that could be written in Setswana or translated into Setswana and then posted on Wikipedia so that information in the Setswana language could be enriched. It is not enough to write about Setswana in English. We should write about other matters such as science and technology, politics and religion in Setswana. This will dispel the myth that being learned is to speak English. It will demonstrate to our children that English is not synonymous with intelligence; that one can think, debate, research and publish scholarly and well researched articles in the Setswana language. Writing on the Setswana language will not be done by ministers and MPs, it will be done by ordinary Batswana, and of course in certain areas with the advice of the linguist. However a discussion of lenyalo la Setswana or matshwao a dikgomo doesn’t need any significant linguistic knowledge. Batswana must stand up and write about their language culture and knowledge systems. Such writing should not be left to expatriates who will write such a wealth of information English. Since Google and Wikipedia have made this opportunity available to all residents of Botswana, the question is whether we as native speakers of the language we will seize on this opportunity, or we will fold our arms and watch and do as that Sankomota song declares: “O phuthile matsogo,┬áo┬áshebile banna fa ba sebetsa”.
