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Ignatius Mabasa Shelling Nuts
At one time when I was visiting Scotland, I saw a huge billboard during the Edinburgh Festival. On the billboard were these words, “There is something special here. If you can’t see it, you are not looking hard enough.”I spent a couple of minutes studying the billboard, looking for that special thing, but I did not see it. The billboard did not have any images, but just the text. Looking for the “special thing” that I was supposed to see, yet I was failing to see, was so frustrating.

In the end, I gave up because I could not spend the whole day trying to solve a puzzle that had missing pieces.

Yet, when I look back now, I realise that the billboard was probably talking about the city of Edinburgh and the festival itself, and not necessarily something on the billboard.

There are things that happen and excite a few people, mainly because the majority may have eyes, but fail to see that which would have excited the few.

The recent 2014 Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) results had a hidden nugget and revelation for me as a Shona language enthusiast who all along has been thinking that Shona and other local languages are losing ground to English. Of the 8 000 people surveyed for ZAMPS who were asked what main language they use when they speak with other members in their homes, 84 percent said Shona.

The figure actually went up by 1 percent from last year’s. Although I know that Zimbabwe is not all Shona-speaking, the fact that the main language that the 84 percent people said they speak in their homes is one of the local languages is encouraging.

Although the high figure of 84 percent shows an increase in the number of people that use Shona in their households, it is necessary to establish from ZAMPS whether their survey had a fair geographical and language representation, so that we also know the percentage of Ndebele speakers in the survey sample? I know that besides getting clarification on the number of Ndebele speakers making up the 8 000 people surveyed, there are other issues that we must unpack when it comes to the position of the Shona language in Zimbabwe.

There are certain sections of society that view Shona as a dominant local language that “bullies” other smaller local languages, but that is a topic for another day. Today, I am just looking at the meaning and implications of the ZAMPS survey as far as Shona (representing local languages) is concerned.

If you tabulate figures from a survey that has not ensured fair language representation in the sample, and yet wants to comment on specific language patterns and indicators, you may get more questions than answers from the 84 percent figure for Shona speakers.

It is actually worrying to notice a decline in the number of people who use Ndebele in their households, especially when we consider that the 2014 results are based on a similar geographical area as the 2013 survey.

The question is, which Ndebele speaking geographical area did the survey cover, and how many people said they use Ndebele as their home language?

One wonders then, what is happening or contributing to the decline in Ndebele usage in the homes? What has changed? What factors are at play? I know this is outside the scope and mandate of ZAMPS, but is something that is worth investigating from a national planning point of view.

Going back to Shona, and not taking into consideration the issues to do with the survey not having been specific about how many Ndebele or Shona speakers formed the number of respondents, we are seeing an increase in the use of the Shona language. The increased use of the Shona language is matched by an increased readership of local Shona news in Kwayedza. What can we deduce from that? The biggest surprise of the ZAMPS survey when it comes to the news section that most people are drawn to in the weekly press is how Kwayedza newspaper is leading the pack.

Generally, people have traditionally associated Kwayedza with incredible and frivolous news, yet the number of people that are after Shona local news stands at a remarkable 67 percent.

This is way higher than other newspapers that are writing in English and are considered trendy and serious because of the language they use.

Does this mean Shona remains the preferred language even for news, or it is the type of news that Kwayedza carries that attracts readers?

The surge in people preferring media that use local languages is also seen in the high listenership of Radio Zimbabwe. If there is such a preference, captive market and demand for local and entertainment news in Shona, it means there are indeed opportunities for us to do more exciting things in our local languages?

It becomes important to investigate further the meaning of these tastes. It is also a sign to me that while there is a tendency for people to want to speak in English when they do business, the Shona language still holds a special place in people’s lives.

So, if there is such evidence that most people (assuming in Mashonaland) use Shona in their homes and prefer reading Kwayedza and watching/listening to programmes in Shona — then we should give people room to use languages that they are comfortable with, and go beyond just recognising them in the Constitution.

While there is high readership of Kwayedza, it is unfortunate that people prefer to borrow the paper instead of buying personal copies.

However, the spirit of borrowing and lending is very much an African thing. It shows that people just don’t read newspapers as isolated individuals, but that they share the newspaper and the stories, as well as discussing with others what they would have read.

The borrowing is good from a business and advertising point of view because it means through borrowing, more people have access to Kwayedza.

They are part of a readership that is bigger than what the Kwayedza print run says.

Advertisers want their products to be accessible and visible to more people and Kwayedza is offering them just that, but they seem not to see this opportunity.

Also because Kwayedza is a Shona newspaper, it is considered special and people keep it and read it for more weeks and even months after the publishing date. This is something I have seen personally when I take Kwayedza to my rural home, people will ask for the back issues and will read and share them with great enthusiasm.

Kwayedza’s potential as a newspaper is greater than most people realise. It should perhaps be published more than once a week. To me, Kwayedza is a natural and perfect partner for the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture because it can help the Government achieve the objectives it seeks to realise through the National Cultural, Heritage and Arts Policy such as:

Promoting Zimbabwean national identity by upholding respect for Zimbabwean cultural ideals and values embedded in the philosophy of ubuntu/ unhu.

Creating an enabling environment that ensures the safeguarding, development and promotion of Zimbabwean cultural ideals and values of ubuntu/ unhu. Mainstreaming the use of indigenous Zimbabwean languages in education, administration and commercial platforms.

Through Kwayedza, we can give our people more local content because they consume it and in the process discuss it, become better-informed, productive and active citizens.

I have made reference to the Welsh Language Act in the UK before, because I believe we have a lot that we can borrow, learn from and adapt from the Welsh.

In the UK, the Welsh Language Act 1993 asks that every UK public body providing services to the public in Wales has a scheme setting out how it will ensure that the Welsh and English languages are treated on a basis of equality in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales.

By implementing the Welsh Language Act, UK public bodies give a significant proportion of the population of the UK an opportunity to engage with them in their language of choice, often their native language.

This way, local languages will not die. A living language is a language that is healthy. As long as we have platforms that allow our languages to flourish because they have a role to play — we probably should be looking at policies that make it mandatory for the new radio and TV stations to have a certain percentage of local languages content.

This way, we will not just be patriotic, but securing the future of Zimbabwe also.