{"id":9246,"date":"2024-08-23T14:42:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T12:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/?p=9246"},"modified":"2024-09-17T13:25:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T11:25:58","slug":"speaking-your-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/archives\/9246","title":{"rendered":"Speaking your language\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In honour of Heritage Day on 24 September, our colleague Kaizer Michael Fourie<\/span> shares <\/span>his love for South Africa and tells us how he learned <\/span>to speak<\/span> seven <\/span>languages.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Growing up on the dusty streets of Potchefstroom in North-West Province, Kaizer says he identifies as human first, and anything else, be it race, gender or sexuality will follow.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Born to multi-racial parents (his dad is Coloured and his mom is Xhosa, so his official racial designation is Coloured), Kazier is fluent in both Afrikaans and Xhosa. As a youngster, he often visited is grandparents in Ikageng, where he learned to speak Tswana. \u201cIn Ikageng, my friends were Tswana speaking and that\u2019s how I was able to speak Tswana,\u201d he says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cI later went to live with my maternal grandparent on a full-time basis and had to join their church \u2013 singing and praising in five languages! So, I learned Sotho and changed from Afrikaans as a medium of instruction to English, still attending school at the Coloured area.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Kaizer then went on to work in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga where most people speak Swati, another language he then learned to speak. He says today he can still understand Swati but is not as fluent speaking it as he once was.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI later moved to Johannesburg, Gauteng or \u201cJozi Maboneng\u201d, where I\u2019ve never encountered such a diverse group of people \u2013 it\u2019s cosmopolitan at its best. There, I learned to speak isiZulu. I married Inkosikazi yam umZulu in our cozzzzzy house in Gauteng\u2019aleng <\/span>\ud83d\ude0a.<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

At work, Kaizer has Tsonga, Zulu, Tswana, Pedi, Venda, Xhosa, Sotho, Ndebele, Afrikaans and English friends. \u201cThe best is when we engage and speak to each other, or even on calls the sound of all these languages together is so unique, it\u2019s as if we\u2019re speaking in tongues.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWow, how beautiful to be South African \u2013 and even more so when you embrace the cultural diversity of the Rainbow Nation!\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span>Kaizer says there\u2019s no better place to live than in South Africa with her diversity, her beauty and her rich heritage. \u201cFor some weird reason I still don\u2019t know what I am, but <\/span>I KNOW WHO I AM<\/span> \u2013 diversity is me!\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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In honour of Heritage Day on 24 September, our colleague Kaizer Michael Fourie shares his love for South Africa and tells us how he learned to speak seven languages.\u00a0 Growing up on the dusty streets of Potchefstroom in North-West Province, Kaizer says he identifies as human first, and anything else, be it race, gender or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[292],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-9246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-people-afrocentric-11","tag-afrocentric-11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9246"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10127,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9246\/revisions\/10127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}