Shashe

 It would take a lifetime to try and change place names back to their original Kalanga language form. Indeed the exercise is neither practicable nor desirable, because to the inhabitants of those places, the corrupted versions of the names are what now makes sense. However, now that we have news read in Kalanga here at home, we Kalanga speakers feel bombarded by constant mispronunciation of place names. Take the name “Molepolole” for example, which is a sprawling village/city some fifty kilometres west of our capital city, Gaborone. I put it to the news writers that if they ask an old (and I mean old) person in that village, what the name of the village is, the answer will be “Mulipulule”, which is the Kalanga pronunciation. The question now is: in reading the name “Molepolole” during Kalanga news cast, which pronunciation should be presented to listeners? Should Kalanga news writers not make an effort to do just a little research on the correct (Kalanga) pronunciation before givin...

 Last Friday, 14th November 2025 a friend of mine, Damien Uwe Hobona, told me a harrowing tale of what he had endured at the receiving end of a tongue lashing by the Tonota chief. Below I'll try to produce what he told me as closely to "verbatim" as I can remember. "Last Friday 14th November, I was subjected to absolute terror, public humiliation and ridicule at Mafungo-Hubona kgotla by a Kgosi from Tonota. I can’t remember very well who they introduced him as: Kgosi Raditladi or Radipitse, I’m not sure. The Kgosi had been expected a week or so earlier. The villagers had duly gathered at the Kgotla, but the Kgosi had failed to show up. It was announced that he had not been able to secure diesel for the sixty (60) Km journey from Tonota. So, on Friday 14th November, the Kgosi arrived to deliver his long awaited judgement. The venue is a leobo, which is basically a shed with wide openings in the walls to provide natural ventilation during gatherings. The architecture r...