Cute Afrikaans Toddler Speaks Fluent Xhosa
As former President Nelson Mandela said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” And this little two-year-old – JP Janse van Rensburg – sure knows how to talk to people’s hearts. A video […]
As former President Nelson Mandela said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” And this little two-year-old – JP Janse van Rensburg – sure knows how to talk to people’s hearts.
A video of the Afrikaans toddler, chatting fluently in Xhosa, has been viewed by over a quarter of a million people since it was uploaded in 2013 by Cape Town photographer Alex de Kock.
JP learnt Xhosa by travelling to Khayelitsha with his parent’s house keeper, Portia, on a regular basis.
De Kock told SAPeople his goal in uploading the video was to “inspire people to think positively… I think it’s absurd to still have racism in our country and besides the fact that JP is cute, I believe that the video can help people to reconcile.”
De Kock himself has learnt Xhosa by studying after hours at the Cape Technicon.
Watch Video: Amazing Afrikaans Toddler Speaks Xhosa
Some of the comments on YouTube include:
“Having the opportunity to grow up with this rich African culture… it’s really something!”
“Ja, this should be commonplace but it’s not… These parents are just doing what’s good for their kid and for the country… I feel encouraged to push the limits of my comfort zone. And that tells me that we are indeed getting somewhere. This is how we build South Africa. Individual connections between ordinary people.”
“Dearest JP, parents of JP and his second mother, I have NEVER been this proud of any parent, any child and any care-taking second mother!!… JP othandayo, you will grow up to do great things still because of the love of an isiXhosa woman and the great insight of loving parents!”
There’s no better time for the rest of us to start learning a new language than this weekend as we celebrate Heritage Day!
It’s the best way to understand someone else’s culture – by hearing it in their language, and the best way to show someone you respect them… by trying to grasp their language.
There’s already a trend growing in South Africa to get together for multilingual meet-ups, and with 11 official languages in South Africa, we have enough to choose from: Zulu (mother tongue of 22.7% of South Africa’s population), Xhosa (16%), Afrikaans (13.5%), English (9.6%), Sepedi (9.1%), Setswana (8%), Sesotho (7.6%) and then with less than 5% each: isiNdebele, SiSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga.
JP is all the inspiration we need. AND he’s now learning English!