Topic: Governance contribution to empowering the community about Heritage Month and the importance of indigenous languages as part of institutional transformation
Venue: Eden Grove Lecture Theatre, Rhodes University
Programme Director, Mr Sam;
Vice-Chancellor, Prof Sizwe Mabizela;
Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr Nomakwezi Mzilikazi;
Dean of Humanities, Prof Enocent Msindo;
Head of the School of Languages and Literatures, Prof Arthur Mukenge;
Head of the African Language Studies Section, Prof Linda Kwatsha;
Esteemed guests, members of the media, the student body;
And the Makhanda community.
Molweni nonke. Sanibonani. Dumelang. Goeienaand. Good evening.
It is a profound honour to return home as a Rhodes University alumna of African Language Studies and Journalism, to join you during Heritage Month for S.E.K. Mqhayi Week.
We gather to celebrate a giant of our letters, imbongi yeSizwe jikelele, whose work helped standardise isiXhosa, preserved its beauty, and expanded its possibilities during the 20th century.
Tonight, we also celebrate the institutional journey that brings African languages from the margins of our past of discrimination and devaluation to the very centre of knowledge, identity, and nation-building.
This commemoration affirms that our heritage is not only something we remember during September, but a living legacy we are called to carry forward through the systems and institutions that shape daily life.
This commemoration at this institution also affirms that S.E.K. Mqhayi, like our country itself, belongs to all South Africans, black and white. It also speaks to Mqhayi’s deep legacy as a national treasure, not a sectarian, exclusive phenomenon. It epitomises the poet’s traditional role, which was not just to praise the leaders, but also to criticise them on their waywardness.
Upon the occasion of the visit by the Prince of Wales in 1925, Mqhayi composed the poem, “Aah Zweliyazuza! Itshawe lamaBhilitane', wherein Mqhayi exposed the paradoxes and contradictions of Western Civilisation. He puts into question the intentions of the British colonisers, who bring a preacher as the paragon of peace, accompanied by a soldier who symbolises war. He did the same with his criticism of monarchs like Ngqika, whose dog, Mbambushe, became so big that it started undermining people, his courtiers and ultimately himself as the master.
As we commemorate his work 80 years since his passing in 1945, we celebrate a towering historian, biographer, novelist, dramatist and poet.
This year marks what would have been Mqhayi’s 150th birthday. This occasion is a testament to the enduring legacy, as his work will remain an integral part of our heritage for another 150 years and beyond.
Apart from his literary works, the constant reminder of Mqhayi’s legacy, even though many may not be aware, is South Africa’s national anthem. Mqhayi wrote some stanzas of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica, which today forms part of the national anthem of the Republic of South Africa.
Compatriots,
It is also fitting that this occasion is held as part of Heritage month, because Mqhayi is an integral part of our literary heritage.
Heritage Month is not simply about nostalgia or cultural rituals.
It is about understanding heritage as a living covenant between generations.
It is a promise to carry forward languages, memory, and meaning into the future.
The songs we sing, the proverbs we inherit, and the languages we dream in are not only cultural expressions, they are tools of human capability.
They shape how we learn, how we govern, how we innovate, and how we imagine a shared future.
When a community’s language is affirmed, people are seen.
When people are seen, they participate.
And when people participate, democracy deepens and development accelerates.
These are the ideals for which Mqhayi lived and devoted his life.
This is why governance must treat indigenous languages not as an afterthought, but as an essential infrastructure of citizenship and community empowerment.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Governance is often described in technical terms such as frameworks, regulations, and performance indicators.
But at its heart, governance is about answering a simple question: can all South African people access opportunity in the language of their preference and dignity?
As Government, our responsibility is to enable that access. We must implement policies that recognise indigenous languages in official communication, service delivery, and public engagement.
A policy is an intention, and implementation is integrity.
We must resource implementation by ensuring that budgets are available.
If access to state information is a crucial for participatory democracy and governance, language access is a priority; it must be visible in the budgetary line items, whether for translation and interpreting services, language units, terminology development, or accessible public information across multiple platforms.
Colleagues,
President Cyril Ramaphosa has strengthened our capability by recently proclaiming the South African Language Practitioners Act for implementation. This law will build professional pathways and professional recognition of linguists, translators, interpreters, terminologists, corpus developers, language technologists, and language teachers. We must ensure that this proclamation responds to Mqhayi’s lamentation when he writes:
“Mna ke Mbongi yakwaGompo,
Ndiyayihlabela lengoma,
Yobuhlwempu nobuphantsi,
Yosizi nembandezelo,
Yezivubeko nengozi,
Yokuphathwa gadalala,
Yengcikivo nentlekisa,
Yokucinywa kobukhulu,
Yokubharhiswa kwelizwe,
Yokudilika kwendonga.”
As language scholars, we will be dependent on yourselves to track the implementation of this piece of legislation and conduct further research which will positively contribute to the advancement of this crucial area of work.
As members of the public, we must measure what matters, reporting on language access with the same seriousness as we report on financial performance, tracking reach, quality, turnaround times, and public satisfaction.
Equally, we must partner for scale because Government cannot do this alone.
We must work with universities, civil society, traditional leadership, creative industries, and the private sector to unlock innovation and reach communities where they are, through their languages and cultures to end poverty and destitution.
Institutional transformation is not only about who sits at the table. It is also about the language of the conversation at that table.
When the language of learning, teaching, and assessment, research, administration, and community engagement is widened, inclusion deepens, and excellence grows.
In research, African languages are not only objects of study, but they are also instruments of original scholarship.
From law and ethics to public health and climate adaptation, indigenous languages carry concepts that can sharpen analysis and ground solutions in lived realities.
In government administration, a transformed institution answers the phone in multiple languages, sends notices in languages people understand, and creates feedback channels in community languages.
The values of Batho Pele – People First – include the value of communication.
And communication includes the element of engagement between Government and citizens not only for transactional purposes but with the understanding that the underlying services are relevant to the cultural contexts from which language originates.
That is not a “nice-to-have”, it is service quality imperative.
Colleagues,
I am mindful that I am speaking to a room of experts who do not need to be convinced that language access matters. The legislative and policy frameworks are already in place.
What we lack is not policy, but pace.
We need execution, coordination, and measurable impact.
That is why tonight I want to focus on how we can accelerate what is already Government policy to achieve systemic transformation.
Allow me, therefore, to outline five strategic actions that can help us move beyond compliance and drive real institutional change in the implementation of our indigenous language agenda.
First, we must move from symbolic compliance to measurable performance in language access.
South Africa already has a strong legislative base in the Pan South African Language Board Act (Act 59 of 1995), the Use of Official Languages Act (Act 12 of 2012), and the National Language Policy Framework (2003). However, implementation remains inconsistent and often superficial.
The Presidency should champion a National Language Access Performance Index to audit departments annually, publish public scorecards, and link budget allocations to performance. Indicators should include turnaround times for translations, user satisfaction, and minimum thresholds of public communication issued in at least three official languages per province.
Secondly, we must reposition community language hubs as economic and innovation nodes.
While language units and resource centres are envisaged in the National Language Policy Framework, many are under-resourced and underutilised. They must be transformed into Community Language and Innovation Hubs, housed at universities, libraries, or schools, and embedded within Local Economic Development strategies.
These hubs should receive sustainable funding to incubate language-tech start-ups, support small businesses with paid terminology and translation services, and provide accredited work-integrated learning opportunities for students. This would reposition language work as an engine of local economic development rather than a compliance burden.
Third, we must accelerate terminology and corpus development through open innovation.
The National Language Service and South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) have made commendable progress in terminology and corpus building, but the outputs are fragmented and often inaccessible. We need a national open-source terminology platform where Government, institutions of higher learning, and industry collaborate to co-create domain-specific terms in justice, health, climate, and digital technology.
Contributions should be credited like research outputs to incentivise academic participation, and the content must be integrated into curricula, public-sector systems, and emerging AI models so that African languages are part of the technologies shaping the future.
Fourth, we must professionalise and incentivise indigenous language capability within the Public Service.
The Use of Official Languages Act already requires Government departments to establish language units, yet very few exist. Indigenous language competence must be recognised as a scarce and incentivised skill, supported by bursaries, salary notches, and promotion pathways.
Departments should be required to maintain in-house language units staffed by certified practitioners. For all community-facing posts, conversational proficiency in a dominant local language must become a minimum appointment criterion, and for community-facing contracts, language capability should be considered in tender evaluations. This will embed language capability as a value-creating asset within the state.
Fifth, we must embed African languages directly into the digital systems Government uses and builds.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) are leading the state’s digital transformation, yet most tools are still English-only. Indigenous language readiness must become a mandatory scorecard criterion in government ICT procurement.
Every Government-funded platform, chatbot, e-learning system, and AI solution should launch with multilingual interfaces, not as later add-ons.
The DCTD can drive this by funding open datasets, speech corpora, and language models that enable African languages to function naturally in digital ecosystems.
This will ensure that voice notes, chatbots, and public portals speak South African languages naturally.
Rhodes University has already signalled leadership by celebrating S.E.K. Mqhayi Week as part of its official calendar, convening scholarship, performance, and public dialogue.
This is not symbolic, it is structural.
By placing African languages at the heart of academic life, you are nurturing the next generation of language professionals, knowledge producers, and civic leaders who will carry this work into the state, the market, and the community.
This is what Mqhayi strived for more than a century ago. In 1911, he resigned from Lovedale College because he refused to teach isiXhosa in English. He believed that the language had the capacity to stand on its own.
In an article published in Umteteli Wabantu on 27 August 1927, Mqhayi indicates that he also refuted the version of history that was taught because it represented the interests of Europeans. He felt that it portrayed Black people as heathens, cowards and thieves, whereas Europeans were depicted as heroic conquerors. As the old adage says, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
As an alumnus, I am proud that the School of Languages and Literatures and the African Language Studies Department are animating this legacy with research, teaching, and public engagement.
Your work under the National Research Foundation SARChI Chair on Intellectualisation is building the scaffolding our country needs for a truly multilingual knowledge system.
But I am however disappointed to hear that a student had to struggle to have a research proposal written in isiXhosa considered. This is a regrettable step from a university that had a PhD written in isiXhosa.
It took more than a century, for Rhodes University to produce the first Doctoral thesis written entirely in isiXhosa. I am proud to say that the first person to do that is my contemporary, Dr Hleze Kunju, with whom we struggled together as students on this campus.
uMqhayi taught us that language is not merely a tool, it is a home. The late Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who passed away earlier this year, put it eloquently when he said, “Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world.”
It is therefore encouraging to see young people continue with the legacy of Mqhayi through both oral and written poetry. I am delighted to learn that Akhona “Bhodlingqaka” Mafani, a young local poet, will be bringing together a collective of poets under the banner of “Ikhwelo Lityala” on 27 September, as part of Heritage Month celebrations.
It is particularly exciting to notice that women’s voices are recognised and rising to the occasion. Historically, women poets like Nontsizi Mgqwetho, who was Mqhayi’s contemporary, were suppressed and confined to the fringes.
I am particularly impressed that Inako Mateza, who captivated the nation with her praise poetry at this year’s State of the Nation Address, will be part of the lineup. In doing so, she follows in the footsteps of the late Jessica Mbangeni, a renowned poet and proponent of Xhosa culture who sadly passed away a year ago.
Mqhayi himself honoured prominent women’s voices like Charlotte Maxeke. On the occasion of her passing, Mqhayi penned a eulogy titled, “Umfikazi uCharlotte Manyhi Maxeke”, which partly reads:
Menzelen' ilitye lokukhunjulwa,
Ze siqhayisele ngal’ amavilakazi.
Az' angaz' alityalwe kowabo.
Az' angaz'alityalw' emhlabeni,
Az' angaz' alityalw'-eAfrika!
Apart from extoling Maxeke’s virtues, Mqhayi reminds us that great community builders like Maxeke must never be forgotten. He implores us to build monuments and ensure that Maxeke remains part of our heritage. He goes on to say she should never be forgotten in Africa and on earth. Mqhayi used his voice to fight against generational amnesia.
The emergence of the current generation of poets, who are determined to make their voices heard, is the fulfilment of Mqhayi’s dream and the continuation of his legacy. Mqhayi’s lineage lives wherever a young poet takes the stage in their mother tongue.
And as we continue to honour Mqhayi’s legacy, we must ensure that every child can learn, every patient can understand, every voter can decide, every entrepreneur can grow, and every artist can create in the language that gives them power.
Let this Heritage Month be a turning point where we elevate language from policy text to public practice.
Let us unite in our diversity. Let us set targets, allocate budgets, build capability, and measure outcomes. Let us fuse scholarship and governance so that research becomes regulation, and regulation becomes real change in people’s lives.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As Government, we will leverage the Government Communication and Information System and relevant departments to strengthen multilingual public information for priority programmes, including youth employment services, health prevention messages, and disaster-risk communication.
And we will engage industry partners in the creative and technology sectors to co-develop open tools and datasets for African-language speech and text solutions.
To the university, I say: keep opening doors for African languages across curricula, research, administration, and technology.
To academics and students, I say: publish, code, translate, and create because your work moves the dial.
To communities and cultural workers, I say: keep telling our stories in our languages because you are nation-builders
And to Government and partners, I say: let us deliver together, not in slogans, but in systems that speak to people where they are.
Heritage Month asks us one question: what will we bequeath? If we bequeath languages that are alive in classrooms, hospitals, courts, start-ups, studios, and council chambers, then we bequeath dignity and with it, development.
Allow me to close with the timeless words of S.E.K. Mqhayi, who reminded us:
“Isizwe asiphili ngaphandle kwenkcubeko yaso.”
(A nation cannot live without its culture.)
May the spirit of uMqhayi guide our courage, and may our governance honour and sustain the languages of our nation and help us, in our respective and shared tongues, to heal the divisions of our past.
Ndiyabulela. I thank you.
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