In the distant past I wrote that the late Old Man Mogomela, a Mokhurutshi whose tribe is recognised by all other Tswana tribes as the most senior tribe, once told me "Mokalaka gase morafe; Mokalaka go tewa lefatshe", meaning "Kalangas are not a tribe; by Kalangas we mean the land/country/world". It saddens me that there are some Kalanga writers who, for political expediency continue to label Kalanga speakers in Botswana as a tribe. Just before the October 2019 elections we were treated to propaganda by one such writer who extolled the virtues of one "Mavange" and claimed that said Mavange had done for the Kalanga people much more than what previous Kalanga politicians had done before.
The claim by this Kalanga boot-licker is quite astounding. How could a guy who had not cut front teeth yet, that is if he had been born at all, when John Mosojane and others took up the struggle to save Kalanga language from forced extinction, be said to have done so much for the Kalanga people? The level to which some people can grovel for "food" is quite shocking. But that is a topic for another day. For now, and in passing, the subject of boot-licking brings to mind then vice president Mokgweetsi Masisi's comment about his vrtues as "lelope". Some people have since claimed that Mr. Masisi was in fact laying claim to Royal pedigree, while others insisted that Mr. Masisi was "coming clean" about his status as a boot-licker. I am inclined to agree with the former, because I think that Mr. Masisi was speaking Kalanga, although possibly unaware of it.
You see, blood is "lopa" in Kalanga. The closest advisors to the chief are naturally, his blood relatives. Therefore the Tswana word "lelope" was derived from the Kalanga "lopa". This would suggest that "lelope" does not mean a boot-licker; quite the opposite! Furthermore the Kalanga word for blood anchors the river "Molopo" which forms our "prostatic gland" southern boundary, firmly in the Kalanga language.
This post is further intended to show how the name "Sebina" arguably proves that the Tswanas (Barwa) are an off-shoot of Kalangas and not vice-versa. My previous post showed that both the Kalanga and the Tswana versions of the name "Sebina" mean the same thing - "Sinning name". In Kalanga the individual referenced by the name was an "nkaya" by trade, thereby sound-clashing with the name of the Anunnaki god "Nka", also known as Enki. Therein lay the "sinning". No human could bear a name/reference similar to the name of a god! But in Tswana language no such "sinning" occurs, because the same individual was referenced as "Mokaa" and not "nkaya". There is no record of the god Enki being called "Mokaa" by any human group. Therefore the "sinning" reflected in the Tswana version of the name "Sebi'ina" never existed outside the Kalanga language. In other words the Sumerian/..Tswana version of the name is just a literal translation of the Kalanga name "Tjibizina". Given that it was the god Enki who genetically fashioned humanity, we can safely conclude that Kalanga language predates Sumerian/..Tswana languages AMONG HUMANS.
Indeed the name in the Sumerian records - Enki, is a "tswanalization" of Kalanga. You see, in ancient Kalanga, where the active verb (or noun) ended with an "a", such as in the noun "ka", for soul/spirit, the actor also ended with an "a", such as "nka" meaning "giver of the soul/spirit". The Sumerian/..Tswana language changed that, by making the actor ennd with with an "i", such as "nki". The word "Enki" is an attempt to write "I-nki". Today Kalanga has sadly been swung in the direction of Sumerian/..Tswana. Ku mba is to sing; m-mbi is a singer. Ku da is to like/love; n-di is a liker/lover. Ku yenda is to go/travel; n-yendi is a traveller. Ku vima is to hunt; m-vimi is a hunter.
Allow me to muse over a question posed by a writer I have great respect for, Lediretse Molake, when he wondered if there were tribes prior to the emergence of modern tribes. I do not believe there were tribes before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene about a quarter of a million years ago. If we start from the widely accepted view that Homo sapiens was fashioned by the Anunnaki as a worker being, we immediately appreciate why man would have been assigned to work-groups. Kalanga language reinforces that view; the groups we call tribes today bear Kalanga work-group names that clearly identify what the responsibility of each such group was. While Homo Naledi, the being who existed around Mapungubwe area prior to the genetic modification, might have been more advanced than the present day chimpanzee, it is highly unlikely that he would have assigned himself to work-groups. If he had, the Anunnaki would probably have just used him, rather than go through the laborious task of fashioning us, Homo sapiens.
Today some tribes acknowledge that they are off-shoots of other tribes; the Bakaa maintain that they are an offshoot of Barolong. In fact it is highly unlikely that all tribes were created at the same time. The first seven births by Anunnaki women of human babies certainly could not have covered all tribes. My own thinking is that the Anunnaki would have wanted to closely monitor the first group of humans both for health reasons as well as for general adaptation to a disciplined existence. For those reasons the first tribe would have been the body coolers/fanners, i.e. Bakhwa, who are generally known as Bushmen today. Only after the Anunnaki were satisfied that project Homo sapiens was successful would they have then assigned the offspring of these Bakhwa to the real targetted occupation - digging (ku tsha). It is rather revealing that among the Bakhwa today, the word "tshaa" is not associated with gold but with water. We know which workgroup dug for water, it was the Chinese. It is therefore possible, indeed probable that the first progeny of Bakhwa were deployed to dig, not for gold but for water.
The bottom line of course is that these Bakhwa and their progeny spoke Kalanga language at the time. Kalanga language is the only language in Botswana which truly bears characteristics of a national language. To call Kalangas a "minor" tribe of a supposedly Tswana nation is to fly in the face of common sense.
