Africa-Press – Zambia. Mr Hichilema’s purposely attempts to impress Bemba voters by using polysilicon lexical icibemba particularities may badly backfire. “Ukuponoka”! Nikwisa aponokwe? Does he really understand the meaning of the Bemba word “ukuponoka” he was using in Kasama?
It’s not the first time he is using icibemba or Nyanja words he doesn’t properly understand. Our advice to him is that if he wants to use icibemba and icinyanja, let him be scripted.
If you don’t know what the words mean then there is obviously a very high chance you will use them incorrectly and inappropriately, and it will be painfully obvious you are clueless about what you are saying or tryig to say to everyone around you who does speak the language.
The danger is what you think it is “impressive language” is actually words misused that make you sound like a yo- yo or a clown. Can you say that you know a language even if you only know a few words? NO!
You can only say you know a language when you know how the language works, even if you’re not all that fluent. Knowing a language is knowing how it “thinks”, and just knowing a few words (or a hundred) doesn’t give you that.
Whenever Mr Hichilema has a burning desire to speak in ichibemba or ichinyanja, let him be scripted because some of the words he uses in public are not only incorrect but inappropriate and unpresidential in nature to express himself that way.
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