Saturday's Guardian contained the following quote by Nadine Gordimer as an answer to her own question "What is the most important lack in your life?":
I've lived that life in Africa without learning an African language. Even in my closest friendships, literary and political activities with black fellow South Africans, they speak only English with me. If they're conversing together in one of their mother tongues (and all speak at least three or four of each other's), I don't understand more than a few words that have passed into our common South African use of English. So I'm deaf to an essential part of the South African culture to which I'm committed and belong.
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