First it was the absent “h” in Gugulethu, now four more incorrectly spelt street names are under investigation.
|||Cape Town -
First it was the absent “h” in Gugulethu, now four more incorrectly spelt street names – all of them in Langa – are under investigation by the city.
The four are: Lerotho Avenue, Zolile Musie Street, Jekula Crescent and Reverend Howard Marawa Street.
The most glaring error is in the spelling Robert Marawa, which should be Marawu, the name of a political activist who was subjected to repeated police harassment during apartheid.
The chairman of the city’s naming committee, Brett Herron, said the correct spelling of Lerotho Street was Lerotholi.
Zolile Musie has to be changed to Xolile Musie and Jekula Crescent to Mjekula Crescent.
Last month the Cape Times pointed out an anomaly in the spelling of Gugulethu, which is spelt without an “h” on street signs.
The correct Xhosa spelling of Gugulethu is with an “h”.
Herron said the City of Cape Town had always used the Xhosa spelling, but he had noticed that the spelling on the signboard was different from this.
It was established that the suburb was registered as Guguletu, without an “h”, and was registered under a 1984 act.
This was therefore the “official” name of the suburb.
Since then, the four other incorrectly spelt names had been brought to the city’s attention.
“The city will have to investigate how incorrect spellings came to be implemented,” Herron said.
“With regard to Gugulethu, the incorrect spelling [Guguletu] appears to be as a consequence of the suburb being registered with the incorrect spelling several decades ago.”
The issue will be discussed at the November meeting of the city’s naming committee.
Herron said the committee would request a report on how these names came to be spelt incorrectly and would discuss how to correct this.
“If we establish that the signage is simply incorrect, then we will resolve that the roads and stormwater department correct the spellings with new signage.
“If the names were ‘officially’ adopted with the incorrect spelling, we will need to amend the spelling by council resolution.”
After this the roads and stormwater department would put up the correct signs
.
Mlawu Tyatyeka, Eastern Cape provincial manager at the Pan SA Language Board, confirmed that the correct Xhosa way of spelling Marawu was with a “u” and not with an “a” as on the road sign.
Tyatyeka added that Lerotho (meaning darkness) and Lerotholi (meaning raindrops) were Sotho names. “Jekula” referred to the action of speaking in sign language. “Mjekula” referred to a person who used sign language.
Zolile (“quiet) and Xolile (“at peace”) are the names of people.
zara.nicholson@inl.co.za
Cape Times