It is common knowledge that Africa, being one of the most diverse continent's of the world, is home to many different cultures and ethnic groups, who each have their own language in which they communicate. Naturally one traveling to this delightful continent might be a little concerned that communication will be difficult, especially if you are a mono-linguistic South African male, who fools himself into thinking he knows more than one language due to the combined 50 Afrikaans and Zulu words he has accumulated while growing up.
However as we have traveled through the west of Africa, I have realized that one need not learn many different languages and in fact for the sole purpose of driving through Africa and more specifically West Africa, there is only one language one should hope to master. The beauty of this language is that it requires no special rolling of the tongue, pursing of the lips or any ability to string a length of clicks together in order to create an understandable sentence. However one should not be fooled and think it is easy to master this great unofficial “official” tongue of Africa. It requires much observation a little discernment before one can partake in a conversation with any sense of confidence.
By now you probably have a language in mind that you think is the unofficial “official” language of Africa, but I am almost sure your guess is wrong. This language is in fact the tongue of the automobile Hooter (or horn for non-South Africans)! More than likely you think this is a joke, but I assure you I am being serious, if one wishes to survive more than 2 weeks driving a vehicle in this continent they must become fluent in this wonderful language. As I mentioned earlier it does not require any great use of ones voice box or mouth, but that does not mean it is easy to master. The fact that two or more people can have a full on conversation, using an instrument that produces a single pitch sound is evidence enough that to become fluent in this language is no mean feat. The difficult lies in interpreting what is being conversed based on the length and frequency of sound emitted from the vehicle. Naturally when one is trying to learn a new language you would try to use body language or facial expressions as a clue to what is trying to be said, unfortunately when one wants to learn this language that will be of no help. The reason being is that there is absolutely no change is a persons facial expression or body language when they decided to converse in this language. For example, on this trip we have often found ourselves on roads wide enough for one vehicle only, so being the polite tourist that we are, we usually pull over and let the on coming traffic pass, than as they pass they lean on their hooter with absolutely no change in their facial expression, not being fluent in Horn language at this stage we naturally thought this guy was ungrateful for our deed, and in fact it he seemed quite irritated with us, however we have sense learned that this action is actually just him saying thank you.
So as you drive along you will be constantly hooted at by a number of different vehicles in a number of different ways and, if you do not have a grasp of this language you will no doubt think people are constantly frustrated with you, or you are constantly doing something wrong. But once you have mastered this beautiful tongue of Africa just a little, you will soon be able to appreciate and participate in the many different conversations taking place all around you in every, village, town and city. In fact we have even come to the conclusion that thanks to this unofficial “official” language of Africa the valuation of a vehicle has little to do with the engine size, millage or aesthetics and more to do with the quality of hooter fitted to it.
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