Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

56

AUG/SEPT 2014 • www.cosatu.org.za

AFRICAN LANGUAGES - Time for power

“In everything that people do together they make use of Language , and all their thoughts , plans and aspirations , all their ideas about the world and about one another , come to birth only because they have language in which to express and communicate them ... A common territory , a common economic activity and tradition go with a common language ... and this is why a common language forms part of the very definition of peoples and nations” by Maurice Cornforth

Introduction W ords, if chosen wisely - can be celestial, heavenly and divine. When they are written in religious texts, they become deity. When they are written in a nation’s rulebook, they become law. When they go along with a musical composition, they become songs. And when they are delivered in style for a cause, with lots of passion - they become great speeches.Out of those great speeches, some become immortal. They change the course of history. They have a long lasting impact on a listener’s psyche. Not only this, but they also inspire the generations to come. They are timeless jewels. People of any age and in any era are moved by listening or reading them. But speech cannot only be understood in terms of its impact but its impact must be understood in its interconnectedness with the origins of speech in the first place. Speech arises in the social activity of man, as a product and instrument in the first place of social labour. From the very beginning it serves as a medium of human social communication. Speech did not develop as the personal or private possession of individuals. Speech arises through the formation of a language common to a social group (M .Cornforth:1971). It has become acceptable that great speeches are in the form of the English Language. The question is why is this easily accepted as a given? There are many speeches presented in African Languages but they never get recognised as being great. Actually the African Nation is known for its ability to creatively knit and combine words to produce timeless educative statements. This eloquence in speaking is not only the privilege of the educated but is like a shared natural endowment which like wine and diamond matures and gains taste and accuracy of natural hardness, hypnotic brilliance and glittery with age

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