"
God Bless Africa", the title of a
Xhosa hymn which became the unofficial anthem of the
anti-apartheid movement and has now been incorporated into
South Africa's
national anthem.
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a teacher at a Methodist mission school in Johannesburg. In 1923 the writer Sol Plaatje, one of the founding members of the African National Congress, had it recorded in London; a Sesotho version was published in 1942 by Moses Mphahlele. It was a popular church hymn and gradually became a political anthem as well. There is no single standard version but this is the one I remember best, beginning with the Xhosa verses and followed by the Sesotho (subject to correction):
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo
Yizwa imathandazo yethu
Nkosi Sikelela
Thina lusapho lwayo.
Yihla moya, yihla moya
Yihla moya oyingcwele
Nkosi Sikelela
Thina lusapho lwayo.
Morena boloka sechaba sa heso
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
Morena boloka sechaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho.
O se boloke, o se boloke,
Sechaba sa heso, Sechaba sa heso.
The most convenient English translation is this:
Lord, bless Africa
May her spirit rise high up
Hear thou our prayers
Lord bless us.
Lord, bless Africa
May her spirit rise high up
Hear thou our prayers
Lord bless us Your family.
Descend, O Spirit
Descend, O Holy Spirit
Lord bless us
Your family.
Addendum 2004: As StrawberryFrog says below, this is also one of most the beautiful, tuneful anthems on the planet. Like him I first heard it, and learned to sing it, in the mad days of the mid-1980s; it still never fails to make my hair stand on end.