Gqeberha is just a sneaky prank to upset white folk
|Published
Port Elizabeth, now named Gqeberha. Picture: Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism/Twitter
by David Biggs
I found it rather strange that, even as our finance minister was presenting his rather austere Budget and urging us not to spend money unnecessarily, the Eastern Cape authorities were busily changing the names of several places in that province.
This will probably cost taxpayers an untidy sum. Road signs will have to be changed, new official stationery printed and the signage on official buildings replaced for a start.
I suspect it’s all a sneaky little racial prank at the expense of the white folk. The local people know most whites will have great difficulty pronouncing Port Elizabeth’s new name, Gqeberha.
That Q click is about the most foreign Xhosa sound to an English-trained tongue. Add a G to it and it becomes even harder to pronounce.
The “rha” at the end of the name might be slightly easier for Afrikaans speakers, as it comes close to the sound of the Afrikaans G. I can imagine passengers wanting to buy a bus ticket to what used to be Port Elizabeth. “I’d like a ticket to Gwebergs, I mean Klikberg … I mean Gerber … oh, what the hell, just give me a ticket to Cape Town.”
Frankly, I can think of a dozen things more urgently needed than changing the names of places.
In any case, where I grew up in the Eastern Cape the Xhosa people had their own name already for Port Elizabeth.
They always referred to it as “iBhayi” (The Bay). I’m pretty sure if you told them now that you were going to Gqeberha you’d get a puzzled look and be asked, “Is that anywhere near iBhayi?”
In any case, the white people in the province seldom referred to that city by its full name. We all knew it simply as “PE”.
So, if the politicians can think of nothing more useful to do than changing the names of places, let them go for it.
Whether you change the sign on the post office wall to iBhayi or Gqeberha or iMpunduwenja, or whatever, it won’t improve the postal delivery service by one jot.
For that you need new politicians, not new names.
Last Laugh
A man went into the pharmacy and asked if they had anything to cure hiccups. Without warning the pharmacist reached over the counter and slapped the man across the face hard.
“Ow! What did you do that for?” he asked indignantly, rubbing his cheek.
“Well, you don’t have hiccups any more, do you?”
“I never had hiccups. My wife has hiccups.”
* "Tavern of the Seas" is column written in the Cape Argus by David Biggs. Biggs can be contacted at [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Argus