Lost in Translation

This is a bit about the local language, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.  The language is called TshiVenda, (pronounced “Chi-Ven-Da” meaning the language of Venda people.  Venda is a region in the Limpopo province of South Africa.  The place has high temperatures, beautiful mountains, delicious fruits and some interesting traditions which I’ll talk about later.  Venda people call themselves “VhaVenda” (plural) or “MuVenda” (Singular), and they call people like me “VhaKhuwa” or “MuKhuwa”.  So the word for English, or any other whitey language like German or Afrikaans is “TshiKhuwa”.  Tshivenda is a somewhat obscure and uncommonly known language.  There are many subtleties in pronunciation and every syllable ends with a vowel.  There are no gender nouns like with romantic languages, no gender specific pronouns even.  In fact, different pronouns confuse the living hell out of Venda students learning English, so they usually just pick one and go with it for everything.  Like “he”, for example: “James, my sister, he have got a problem with car.  He [the car] is not running because battery.  He [battery] is empty, so we must have cables.  Where is he? [the jumper cables].   This is typical, but if you’re laughing keep in mind that my Tshivenda must sound 100 times more messed up than that because I’m constantly missing subtle pronunciation syntax.  Now although the pronouns for “He” and “She” are the same in Tshivenda, men and women have different greetings.  When a man says hi, he says “Ndaa” when a woman says hi she says “Aa”.  There are also different ways of addressing someone, a respectful (formal) way which you should use when speaking to someone older than you, or the casual way which is used between friends of the same age.

Contrary to my severely analytical nature, I have stopped trying to translate Tshivenda literally in an attempt to understand it.  The reasons for this are as follows:  1) For me, it’s usually impossible.  2) The literal translation is usually ridiculous.  Take this basic conversation for example:  The Bold is Tshivenda, the Italics are the literal translation.  At the end I’ve recapped the conversation using non-literal, vernacular translation.

Ndaa, Ndou.

Hello, Elephant.

Ee Ndaa.

Yes hello.

Vho vuwa hani?

How are you waking up today?

Ndo vuwa zwavhudi.  Ndi vhudzisa ngeo?

I woke up nicely.  I am inquiring about you.

Na nne ndo vuwa.  Ndi khou humbela u vhudzisa?

And me I woke up.  I am politely asking to inquire.

Kha vha vhudzise.

You may inquire.

Madi ndi gaee?

Water is where?

Nga car wash [yes, they would actually say car wash with a slight accent]

At the car wash.

O Luga.  Ndo Livhuwa.

Divine.  I have thanked you.

Ndi zwone, tshimbila zwhavhudi.

You’re welcome, walk nicely.

Ndi zwone, re do vhonana.

Goodbye, we will see each other.

So that was really just: “Hello sir.” “Well hello.” “How’s it going?” “Pretty good, and yourself?” “Just fine.  Can I please ask you something?” “Sure, ask away” “Where can I find water?” “There’s some at the car wash” “Great.  Thank you.” “You’re welcome, go well.”  “OK bye, see you later”.

You may have noticed “Ndi Zwone” is a homonym, it means either “You’re welcome” or “Goodbye” depending on context.  It’s also interesting to note that although the literal translation sounds goofy, they were both using the polite and respectful form of addressing each other.  Make no mistake though, the informal is also goofy when translated literally.  And about that “Elephant” thing, men really do say that and it really does mean elephant.  The people of South Africa all have a different animal which designates their “clan” or something like that, and in the case of Venda it happens to be the elephant.  Even the big town in the Venda region, Thohoyandou, is literally Thoho (Head) ya (of) Ndou (Elephant).  So Thoho = head, which brings me to my next point: some words which are spelled the same have different meanings depending on pronunciation.  Thoho = head but if you give the “T” a little bit more of a plosive sound it becomes “monkey”.  Gezz!  Thoho ya mukhuwa hafta khou vhavha (This white man’s head/monkey hurts).