I’ve driven 10 hours today through a swirling maelstrom of trauma memories and have ended up sharing a small chalet in Richards Bay with my octogenarian father, soothed to sleep by his snoring and the distant sound of waves crashing while I contemplate a #bilingual#IsiZulu keynote that I will be delivering at 9:15 tomorrow, on the topic of Forgotten #indigenous Sustainabilities. #surreal#pastmewouldntbelievethis
I’ve finally admitted defeat with the #transcription and #translation project I’m working on. this is the first time in nearly 20 years of doing this that I have reached this point. In short, it’s not worth continuing.
@HarrietMonkhouse no fishing required from me - I am a generous author! I am doing it for pleasure and my PhD. And possibly my dear friend @worktheclock will publish it (as she has published my #isiZulu#scifi novel and #tweens#fantasy novel!)
Am I alone in feeling a sudden despair at the state of the world? Is this malaise just an #africa thing? or just #southafrica? Maybe it’s a #joburg thing? Maybe it’s just a Mabhengwane thing? I look at the way things are headed and it’s like staring into an abyss of dread. The world is on fire, and here I am trying to prepare a Grade 12 student for their #isiZulu exam.
Sunday morning, with a whole lot of #transcription and #translation ahead of me, and all the animals are fed and all the humans (except me) are still asleep.
I did my time with interviews, transcriptions and translations in #isiZulu on AIDS in the early 2000s, and there’s only so much I can take, really. I was hoping for other things. Alas. I am doomed to return to isitigma and Nevirapine and state failure to provide life-giving medication
yesterday’s performance of #indigenous#isiZulu#specfic#ukuThintana was amazing! Here’s the first thing, the Art made by @nnwhen and the Contact Collective, as well as some of my own notes and things. Zoom in for the start of a #conlang
@nnwhen The event began as a traditional reading, albeit a white man speaking in isiZulu, but this was interrupted and subverted by a desire for truth. #specfic#ukuThintana#scifi#isiZulu
these past three weeks, in the midst of a #climatecrisis that is actually a rolling disaster, I’ve been working with the amazing @nnwhen and Mpuma and the Windybrow JAM drama group to produce a play of my #dystopian#isiZulu#sci-fi novel. If you had told me I would be doing this ten years ago I would have been completely non-plussed. la vie est toujours très suprenant! #drama#agitprop#theatre#indigenous
Ngisenhlangweni yobulimiziningi eUFS eBloemfontein kuleli viki, kodwa kunokuningi okungumbhuqo nehlazo la. // I am at a conference on #multilingualism at UFS in Bloemfontein this week, but there is much that is ironic and disgraceful here. #languages#academia#IsiZulu
into yokuqala wukuthi abatoliki abekho, ngaphandle kwabo bolimi lwezandla. // first thing is that interpreters are absent, apart from those for sign language. #signlanguage#interpreters#multilingualism#isiZulu
Abatoliki bezandla bathi “abekho abasidingayo, siphawulela emoyeni-nje”, ngakho yihlazo lobuphawu-nje // Sign-language interpreters say “nobody needs us, we are just signing to the air”, so this is just a disgraceful show of tokenism”#tokenism#multilingualism#intrepretation#signlanguage#isiZulu
kwaba nomunye obesho ukuthi “iChatGPT ayikho ngaphandle kwesiNgisi”; ngaphikisana naye ngesiZulu ngokuthi “ikhona kuzo zonke izilimi ezisolwenjini” // there was someone who said that “#ChatGPT isn’t available in anything other than English”; so I refute in #isiZulu saying “it’s in all web languages”
Emva kokuphawula kwami ngesiNtu, ngishayelwe amahlombe; uSolwazi uthe “Oh, ushayelwa amahlombe ngoba umhlophe-nje” // After my commenting in #indigenous language, I was applauded; the Prof said “Oh, you’re getting applause only because you are white”. #multilingualism#isiZulu
Kule nkulumo yami bengigxeka uhulumeni nabaphathimandla ngobudedengu babo odabeni lwezilimi // in my presentation I critiqued the government and duty bearers for their negligence in the serious matter of #languages. #multilingualism#isiZulu
Bese omunye uze ematafuleni ethu, lapho kunezincwadi ze-Ancestral Voices nezichazamazwi, ethi “nisekelwe nguHulumeni kulo msebenzi obaluleke kangaka?” // then someone came up to our tables, where there were books from Ancestral Voices as well as dictionaries, saying “are you supported by Government in this crucially important work?” #multilingualism#decolonization#language#isiZulu