Time for that cement penis in the sky — the SAUK — to teach us sign language on TV

Iunderstand that the move to declare sign language our 12th official language is at an advanced stage. This is great and one hopes authentic sign language interpreters such as Andiswa Gebashe will be emboldened to seek our Thamsanqa “Bompie” Jantjie, the Obama misinterpreter, and teach him.

Of course, if we were being serious about linguistic inclusivity, we’d be having serious conversations about elevating Shona and Igbo to official status as well. But even rabid Afrophobes are entitled to stay inside their Operation Dudula denial bubbles.

SA is blessed with beautiful languages. It helps that most have, as their mother tongue, either the Nguni or Sotho cluster, which means the average Mopedi understands Setswana and Sesotho and the average Ndebele speaker understands isiSwati, isiXhosa and isiZulu reasonably well.

It’s easy to appreciate why Zimbabweans from Matabeleland settle here pretty seamlessly. And yet, in all the glory and splendour of linguistic Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat, there are folks who have decided they’ll stick to one language.

The first time I heard anyone speak Setswana, Sesotho or Sepedi, I was already 10 years old. This is because I grew up in homogeneous KZN where the only indigenous language is isiZulu. OK, if we’re being technical, there’s a sprinkling of

The first time I tried my Sesotho on Matshidiso he looked at me, frowned, and told me to stop saying I’ve wet my panties

fanakalo and whatever that language spoken in Chatsworth is called. You know, where “ballies” drive “cabs” and drink “mindrel”.

Yes, it’s a language and a beautiful one. Anyway, this Zulu boy had only heard his mother tongue and English and Afrikaans.

The occasion of breaking my Sotho language cherry; when the SAUK, the national broadcaster, unveiled the TV2 and TV3 channels in 1982. This is the precursor to the SABC1 Simunye TV channel. I remember it like it was yesterday, the day we all sat waiting to hear our languages spoken on TV.

One childhood friend even expressed his scepticism because, as he eloquently argued, TV is a “white people’s creation”, so when did they come to every TV and install the isiZulu and isiXhosa “software” in all the sets in black households?

At the time, he made a lot of sense. So you can imagine my relief when 6pm came and black people appeared, speaking funny, broken isiZulu that I would discover was isiXhosa. I remember that one of the isiXhosa newsreaders was Thandi Mesatywa and she greeted us with “Bhotani mawethu” (Hello folks) to which one of our neighbours, Mama uMajola, responded, “But why is she calling us Botha?”

We bitch a lot about the SABC, and probably justifiably so. After all, we’ve been subjected to a lot of cloudy and Hlaudi days. What a lot of us never acknowledge about

Auckland Park is that, for all the blunders that have emanated from that phallic block of cement jabbing into the sky, they have done pretty well with their educational mandate over the decades.

I went from zero Sesotho to walking around my neighbourhood, responding to everyone’s broken Sesotho. It was even better when my mother engaged a housekeeper from Matatiele, who had a son about my age, Matshidiso. The first time I tried my Sesotho on Matshidiso he looked at me, frowned, and told me to stop saying I’ve wet my panties. I thought I was telling him that the paint is wet. But you must appreciate the effort.

Courtesy of Mmampodi, a boxinginspired series starring Winston Gama, I quickly learnt how to count to 10 in Sesotho. And then there was Bophelo ke semphekgo, a Sepedi series I followed only to keep up with the devilish character Ponko, a Pedi version of JR Ewing from Dallas, whose signature line was “Le tla mpona!” (I’ll show you!).

And it’s not just other indigenous languages I picked up from TV. Granted, I was a vociferous reader from an early age, but my primary English and Afrikaans teacher was TV. I remember listening to the R&B singer TK Mhinga being interviewed by DJ Fresh on Yfm 20 years ago.

Quizzed about the hint of an American accent, she was refreshingly honest. “Television was my babysitter when I was a child. I watched a lot of American TV as a result.”

I had a VHS tape where I recorded all my favourite series to the point where I could probably reproduce the dialogue of the entire second season of The Cosby Show.

Like other tax money black holes, such as Eskom and Transnet, I hope the cement penis in the Auckland Park sky turns itself around and delivers more magic.