Physics in Ndebele
A lecturer in physics at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo has embarked on a ground breaking project to take indigenous languages to a new level of instruction by translating physics texts into Ndebele.
When Dr. Themba Dlodlo obtained his PhD in physics from a Finnish university he realized that Africa needed to adop...t its mother tongues in teaching and using science. “Africa is so far behind in sciences because we are taught in languages that we do not speak at home,” argues Dr. Dlodlo. “It simply means that we cannot internalize science because we view it as an English subject. Unless we translate the concepts into the local languages we will never understand science itself.”
Dr. Dlodlo is currently working on a paper on the problems of translating scientific concepts into users’ the mother tongue. He remarks that colonialists deliberately did not translate science subjects into African languages. “It is funny that when the English came here, they translated the Bible in order for us to be able to understand it, but they did not translate geography and mathematics,” says Dr. Dlodlo. “And the history of our people as we know it from our grandparents was told in Ndebele, so why are we taught history in English?”
"The Ndebele language will no longer lag behind in research unless the people themselves decide not to take advantage of this monumental Ndebele language bank."
According to Dr. Dlodlo, Africa will be unable to generate knowledge as long as there are so very few people who write papers and publish in recognised journals. “We are not saying that people should not learn English or French; we need those languages so we can communicate with the rest of the world,” he says.
A lecturer in physics at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo has embarked on a ground breaking project to take indigenous languages to a new level of instruction by translating physics texts into Ndebele.
When Dr. Themba Dlodlo obtained his PhD in physics from a Finnish university he realized that Africa needed to adop...t its mother tongues in teaching and using science. “Africa is so far behind in sciences because we are taught in languages that we do not speak at home,” argues Dr. Dlodlo. “It simply means that we cannot internalize science because we view it as an English subject. Unless we translate the concepts into the local languages we will never understand science itself.”
Dr. Dlodlo is currently working on a paper on the problems of translating scientific concepts into users’ the mother tongue. He remarks that colonialists deliberately did not translate science subjects into African languages. “It is funny that when the English came here, they translated the Bible in order for us to be able to understand it, but they did not translate geography and mathematics,” says Dr. Dlodlo. “And the history of our people as we know it from our grandparents was told in Ndebele, so why are we taught history in English?”
"The Ndebele language will no longer lag behind in research unless the people themselves decide not to take advantage of this monumental Ndebele language bank."
According to Dr. Dlodlo, Africa will be unable to generate knowledge as long as there are so very few people who write papers and publish in recognised journals. “We are not saying that people should not learn English or French; we need those languages so we can communicate with the rest of the world,” he says.
Thanks to my F/b correspondents
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