Generations recently caught the attention of some of our friends across the drink who were fascinated, and somewhat bewildered, not only by the riveting story-line, but also by the plethora of languages used simultaneously without any warning.

Over in the US of A they have what is called The Africa Channel, which unsurprisingly broadcasts TV shows of African origins. One of these shows is our very own Generations. For us, it’s a frighteningly accurate portrayal of daily life in Africa, much like The Bold and the Beautiful is of American life, so we don’t really take notice when characters switch between several languages on the fly. However, for their untrained ears this is simply too much to bear. Throw in the added strain of simultaneously reading subtitles and you’ve lost them completely.

Raw emotion!

[Y]ou can hear the actors slipping between English and another language, sometimes within the same sentence, always seamlessly. This practice amongst bilinguals is called code switching (it’s apparently very prominent in South Africa). When I was channel surfing some time ago, I watched a bit of an episode and couldn’t believe the dialogue.

There are so many twists and turns that it sounds like gymnastics to these dumb American monolingual ears. That the subtitles cut off mid-sentence when the English comes in makes the entire experience even more disorienting.

As entertaining as this all sounds, it’s also kind of a big deal.

Another milestone for Generations is that over the past year in particular, the producers have shifted the language goalposts, moving away from the original, all English dialogue, to an almost “50/50-mix” (as Mandoza would say) of African languages. There are English subtitles when the actors speak in various African languages, from Xhosa to Sotho.

But we probably had this kind of attention coming. Convicted woman-beater and part-time pop star, Chris Brown, had a cameo on the show recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWBLN_NO-P0

Who would’ve guessed it, entertaining and groundbreaking! So, sit back and bask in our multilingual glory my fellow code switchers. The Yanks ain’t got nothing on us.

[Source: The Africa Channel, Rhodes Journalism Review via Gawker]