My Language is Beautiful
Interview to Thando Idebi, Student participating in the AfroCuration event.
Interviewer: What does the Constitution mean to you?
Tandra Idebi: The Constitution means freedom to me. It means healing; it means I have a voice; it means I’m listened to; it means that we’ve been healed as a nation and ì that everything is getting better slowly but surely.
Interviewer: Please complete the sentence “We, the People can…”
TI: We the people can be revolutionary.
Interviewer: What are you doing here today?
TI: I am helping out a friend, and I just wanted to come and have little bit of time out from school.
Interviewer: Do you use Wikipedia much?
TI: Yes, I do.
Interviewer: Have you ever edited on Wikipedia?
TI: Edited the actual Wikipedia page? No, I haven’t.
Interviewer: Do you speak many languages?
TI: I speak two languages.
Interviewer: Are your languages well represented on Wikipedia?
TI: No, they’re not.
Interviewer: How do you feel that people will start to represent your languages on Wikipedia today? That the world will be able to see and read knowledge in your languages?
TI: It makes me feel great because my language is beautiful, isiZulu is so beautiful and I’m so glad that other people will be able to experience the language and get to know the language — you know, it keeps it alive, it spreads it to other places and it makes me feel comfortable knowing that I can understand something in my mother-tongue instead of feeling different and trying to understand other languages. It just makes me feel that I can relate to the content more, if I’m reading it in my own language.
Discover more on WikiAfrica Education program on Moleskine Foundation website.
This article was originally published in March 2020 in Folios n.2 “We, The People”, the Moleskine Foundation cultural publication.
