It sounded like a classic Oscars call for unity and was applauded as such. Only later, as Xhosa speakers took to Twitter, did the rest of the world catch up with the joke when reporter Makho Ndlovu tweeted that the punchline actually translates to “White people don’t know I’m lying.”

South Africans were delighted by this brilliant inside joke, which has since spawned a Twitter hashtag. When Quartz reached Dr. Zoliswa Mali, a professor of Xhosa at Boston University who hails from East London, South Africa, she had not yet seen the clip. She exploded laughing as she watched it twice over, and asked this white reporter: “You know that there’s no place called Wakanda, right?”

Indeed, she said, Noah’s statement does translate to “White people don’t know that I’m lying.”

“That’s not a proverb,” said Mali, chuckling. “That’s a joke.”

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