The Afrikaans Language

LTC Team — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 09:58:12 +0000

Afrikaans is one of the modern antique spoken languages in South Africa. What makes this language so unique?

Afrikaans is the first language of most Afrikaner and Coloured people of Southern Africa. It is a West Germanic Language and it is spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Afrikaans is South Africa’s third mother tongue; it is spoken by fifteen percent of the population. There are more people that speak Afrikaans as their mother tongue. Only nine percent of the South Africans speak English as their native language.

Approximately 95% of the words from Afrikaans comes from the Dutch language. Modern Dutch and Afrikaans share over 90 percent of their vocabulary. Afrikaans speakers are able to learn Dutch within a comparatively short time. Native Dutch speakers pick up written Afrikaans even more quickly, due to its simplified grammar, whereas understanding spoken Afrikaans might need more effort. Afrikaans was first called ‘’Kaap-Hollands’’ which means ‘’Cape-Holland’’ before it changed to Afrikaans. There are about 10 million native speakers. The language has not only influence from Holland but also English, German, Low Saxon, Scottish and Yiddish.

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In 1682 the first signs of people speaking Afrikaans were reported when a Dutch East India Company official from the Netherlands complained about a ‘’distorted and incomprehensible’’ version of Dutch being spoken around modern-day Paarl. In the nineteenth century the language was widely spoken in the Cape by both white and coloured people, but was looked down on by the elite.

In 1925 Afrikaans was recognized as one of the official languages of South Africa. To remind the people of this event, they build a statue called the Afrikaans Language Monument at Paarl in 1975. This is one of the two statues that is dedicated to the language; you can find the other statue, the Dutch Language Monument, in Burgersdorp in the Eastern Cape. The Afrikaans Language Monument is a 45 minute drive from Cape Town. They built the statue on a hill and it offers a beautiful view over the Western Cape.

A funny detail to this monument: When you pass Paarl, you officially enter the ‘boerewors gordyn’, as the locals call it. This means that the language you hear after you passed this ‘border’, it’s probably Afrikaans. When you are at the language monument, you must check the quotation from the poet N.P. van Wyk Louw.

‘’Afrikaans is die taal wat vir Wes-Europa en Afrika verbind… Dit vorm ‘n brug tussen die groot helder Weste en die magiese Afrika… En wat daar groots aan hulle vereniging kan ontspruit – dit is miskien wat vir Afrikaans voorlê om te ontdek. Maar wat ons nooit moet vergeet nie, is dat hierdie verandering van land en landskap as’t ware aan die nuwe wordende taal geslyp, geknee, gebrei het… En so het Afrikaans in staat geword om hierdie nuwe land uit te sê… Ons taak lê in die gebruik wat ons maak en sal maak van hierdie glansende werktuig…”

What means:

‘’ Afrikaans is the language that connects Western Europe and Africa … It forms a bridge between the large, bright West and magical West Africa … And what great things spring from this union – which is perhaps something to discover for Afrikaans. But what we must never forget is that this change of land and landscape as it were, cut the new language, has kneaded and knitted … And so Afrikaans been able to express this new land … Our task is in the use we make of this shiny tool, and will make … “

When the National Party took power in 1948, its apartheid policy went hand in hand with promoting the interests of its Afrikaans-speaking supporters. Because of this the Soweto uprising arose in 1976, when the government tried to force Afrikaans as a required subject in African schools. During this time, the repression of the 1970s and 1980s and the forced removals under the Group Areas Act, made a lot of African people to rather speak English than Afrikaans.

Are you interested in learning the Afrikaans language? LTC – Language Teaching Centre, is the place for you! Contact us and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible.

The Language Debate in SA

LTC Team — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 08:29:10 +0000

The need to construct a national multilingual identity has never been more vital in South Africa – especially now amid the turmoil with students in the country. Yet the language debate in SA continues with no end in sight.

The Language Debate in SA – Where we stand

Efforts to implement multilingual language policies have been increasing tensions in the country around the resuscitation of previously disadvantaged languages and the maintenance of the already established “privileged” languages. Even more issues appear with challenges arising from affirmative action for African languages.

Efforts to advance African languages could end up going nowhere if institutions don’t address the language preferences of students and staff in a meaningful and engaging way.

But the dominance of the English language as a medium of instruction cannot simply be done away with, because for a language shift to be successful it needs to be entwined with attitudes towards language use.

“It is clear from several modern examples that a dying or dead language can turn around and become vibrant again, depending on people’s determination and the government policies that are put in place.” – Garland (2006)

University initiatives

While institutions have indeed revamped their language policies in line with legislation, they are not committed if they don’t remove the burden to African language usage in education. Small initiatives such as changing signs, posters, websites and the like are not enough. In fact, these changes only thrive thanks to handsome funding – otherwise, they would fizzle out. Instead of being invested in isolated projects that pretend to glorify African languages – when it is actually just a facade – the money should instead be used to motivate students and academics.

Even though African languages do seem to be advancing, the real challenge is to persuade a university to use an African language in an English dominated environment. Mandating the use of African languages may create the impression of imposing these languages on unwilling people, it merely reverts South Africa back to exactly what Apartheid was trying to achieve: ethnic institutions.

How successful are these initiatives?

The answer to how success revised language policies are in education lies in how accepting the users are of it and their attitudes towards it. Getting a firm understanding of their attitudes towards it could drive the move towards multilingualism.

Instead of throwing around accusations of racism and cultural conservatism, it would be better to investigate user-inclination about the policy and do a number of tests to see whether the linguistic environment is being satisfied over time. University efforts need to be closely watched to see whether the policy usage is actually being implemented on the ground.

At the end of the day, there is very little progress in the use of African Languages in institutions of higher learning in South Africa. The demand for English is popular, and this demand for the language of power is at odds with the multilingualism policy.

There is very little hope that language policies will result in the successful integration of African languages. Perseverance and commitment are needed for South Africa to move faster towards this integration.

The Language Teaching Centre