By:Nghiinomenwa-vali Erastus
The Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Securitylast week indicated that it will work with the University of Namibia to identify all the undocumented clicks and special characters in languages used in the country.
After identification, the clicks and special characters will be added to the Unicode Standard Identification which assigns each character a unique numeric value and name.Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages in Namibia like Shiyeyi, Hambakushu, Gciruku, Khoekhoegowab and Khoe-Sān.
In a press release, the Ministry’s Executive Director Etienne Maritz explained the undertaking after a local publication on Friday reported that the Ministry isprohibiting click sounds in names.
Maritz said that his Ministry is not banning the click sound in names as it discriminates against various communities and labelled the media report “false, malicious and misleading”.
“The ministry did at no point ‘ban’ the use of click sounds in names. Contrary to what the article says, it is and has never been the policy of the Ministry or government to discriminate against any section of the community,” he said.
He said the allegation that the “Ministry’s registration system has sparked uproar by disallowing names with click sounds in official birth certificate registrations” is incorrect.
Maritz also elaborated that the case of an individual who had an issue at the Ministry was about a spelling error as the machine failed to properly translate the special characters in the name.
He pointed out that theMinistry has notified the supplier of the system used to print IDs to update their systems to include all the different characters used in the country.
Furthermore, the Executive Director has assured the public that theMinistry is working with the University of Namibia to document and identify all the clicks and special characters that are used in the country.
Maritz added that some of the clicks and special characters are already documented and translated and the Ministry will comply with the country’s constitution as it plans to respect the indigenous languages. Email: erastus@thevillagers.com.na
All Click Sounds In Names To Be Unicoded
