Ubuntu in South Africa: a sociolinguistic perspective to a pan-African concept

During apartheid, language was used as an instrument of social control and division among the country's various ethnic groups. In the post-apartheid era, however, language seems to have become instrumental in the country's efforts to unite its previously divided communities. This is evident in, for instance, TV slogans such as Simunye, which are intended to emphasize the oneness of the new nation; and in concepts such as ubuntu, which of late seems to have attracted much attention particularly in the business sector. My aim is to discuss ubuntu from a sociolinguistic perspective. This is not the only perspective from which ubuntu could be studied. A socio-historical study would equally make an important contribution to understanding this pan-African concept. Such a study would have a wider scope to include an analysis of ubuntu not only in the African context but also in the Western context. It would, for instance, focus on the roots of notions such as humanitas (humanity), humanismus (humanism) and caritas (dearness, affection, caring), for they are related in many ways to the concept of ubuntu. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first part considers some of the tenets of ubuntu, with a focus on `interdependence' and `communalism'. To underline the sociolinguistic nature of ubuntu, these tenets will be illustrated with a selection of Bantu proverbs, for proverbs constitute one of the media through which the virtues of ubuntu were transferred from one generation to another. This paper stresses, as does Tshimpaka Yanga (1996: 12), that "the relevance of ubuntu as a universal African conception of life should not be blurred in unstated attempts to sacrifice a continental ideal for some form of ethnic philosophy". The second section critically examines the uses to which ubuntu has been put in South Africa, especially in the business sector. I argue that for a society where ubuntu has been eroded as a result of apartheid, what is needed, is revival rather than commercialization of the virtues of ubuntu. Suggestions are made for a bottom-up revival, so that the country can bring first its communities, not its business sector, together and build a new nation, based on the virtues of ubuntu. Then I consider briefly whether ubuntu is uniquely African, or whether its virtues can be found in other societies and cultures. Using historical facts such as slavery, colonialism and apartheid in Africa, and holocaust and Naziism in the West, I challenge the unqualified claim in some studies that the virtues of ubuntu, such as `respect for human dignity', "figures very strongly in Western thinking" (Prinsloo, 1996: 120). Ubuntu: a pan-African concept Morphologically, ubuntu, a Nguni term which translates as `personhood', `humanness', consists of the augment prefix u-, the abstract noun prefix bu-, and the noun stem -ntu, meaning `person' in Bantu languages. The concept of ubuntu is also found in many African languages, though not necessarily under the same name. Quoting Kagame (1976), Yanga (1997:13) remarks that this concept has phonological variants in a number of African languages: umundu in Kikuyu and umuntu in Kimeru, both languages spoken in Kenya; bumuntu in kiSukuma and kiHaya, both spoken in Tanzania; vumuntu in shiTsonga and shiTswa of Mozambique; bomoto in Bobangi, spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo; gimuntu in kiKongo and giKwese, spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, respectively. Sociolinguistically, ubuntu is a multidimensional concept which represents the core values of African ontologies: respect for any human being, for human dignity and for human life, collective sharedness, obedience, humility, solidarity, caring, hospitality, interdependence, communalism, to list but a few. What this means, to paraphrase Kwame Gyekye (1987), is that despite Africa's cultural diversity, threads of underlying affinity do run through the beliefs, customs, value systems, and sociopolitical institutions and practices of the various African societies. …