Miriam Makeba - Qongqothwane (The Click Song)

As a linguist and a language teacher, I often find it interesting to introduce this song to my students. However, for some reason, the volume of the original video available on YouTube is too low, and I found it rather difficult to play it in class and let the students hear what Miriam Makeba has to say about her language. And since the subtitles are in Dutch, they are not very useful to my students either (who are not native English speakers in the first place). Therefore I edited the video, tuned up the volume, made it widescreen, and added English subtitles. I hope this will also help those who are interested in this song and the Xhosa language.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Miriam
• Makeba
• Qongqothwane
• The
• Click
• Song
• Xhosa

[MLeewis]

I would like to inform you that the subtitles are in Dutch! I am from Holland I can read the difference between Afrikaans and Dutch.....

[astrothomas]

@MLeewis Thanks for your information, I know neither languages, but just incorrectly assumed it to be Afrikaans.

[apexinfinity]

Hello astrothomas, I am extremely proud of this video and appreciate you putting it up. I am South African and actually sing in a Boston based band that does a lot of Mirriam Makeba music. This is a great song, it's different and beautiful and we hit the clicks loudly and perfectly. Thanks for putting this up, and you should come to one of our shows sometime when you're in Boston :)

[immagyn]

thanks i also want to use it for my communications class. i had her record many decades ago, but it is long gone. ken

[AjLaya0]

you guys are racist!

[enigmaatual]

\☺/\☺/

[truthandjustice9]

I want to thank you also for fixing the low volume of this song. I am making a CD of South African music from youtube selections, and wanted to include this song but it was so much softer than all the other songs. Now I can, thanks.

I also agree with another comment about how tactfully she refers to her country's colonizers. We need to stop war and oppression all over the world. Respect everyone as maybe different, but equal in the eyes of the law and God.

[katiekawaii]

Thank you for doing this! I think this video is amazing, and I wanted to find someone who had done this to it. What I find most remarkable about it is her kindness and lack of judgement or condescension (even when discussing things that she could rightly judge, like the colonization of her country), which allows her to really say what she wants to say and have people hear it. It's a great example for linguistics, public speaking, history, sociology, music...on and on. Love it.

[katiekawaii]

@moeman1984 Well, Miriam Makeba was one of the first people to really do "world music" before we started calling it "world music," which means she incorporated many styles. I can't say for sure what other styles went into the music here, but based on what I know about her I would think that you're right in guessing that the music had other influences.

[chaldiran]

Thanks for your work :-)