We went to a museum with a group of high school students, and as we walked through the section dedicated to african mammals, the curator asked the students to translate some Xhosa. These phrases were "Even a cheetah can boast of its spots," the interpretation of this being that you are allowed to boast of your achievements. (As an interesting side note, most of the African-language lyrics in The Lion King are in Isizulu, which is a sister language to isiXhosa. And I'm pretty sure that this cheetah idiom is sung repeatedly during "The Circle of Life.")
Another phrase that was translated had to do with the buffalo. While I can't remember the direct translation, the interpretation means to seek wisdom from the wise. I have never associated wisdom with buffalo before, but I think they will be forever linked in my mind now.
The curator told us that "In Xhosa we speak through animals." I loved this. And I wondered what we speak through as Americans. And it came to me: baseball. "Let's touch base," "He hit it out of the park," etc. I mean no disrespect to America or baseball when I say I think I would rather speak through animals.
2 comments:
I really liked your comment about what America speaks through and definitely agree with it. Here in Tonga I feel like they speak through the land. Everything they do is so linked to the land and they really do survive completely off of the land. It is really interesting to learn about all the ways they use the land and what the different things they say mean. But I also think speaking through animals would be better than baseball....
agreed- speaking through animals is definitely cooler than baseball- or probably any other thing we might speak through.
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