Afrikaans is an African language
by Belinda Bozzoli,
2015-11-17 12:43:02.0
AFRIKAANS is not a "white" language but an African language, developed locally. It is the third most widely spoken language in SA, and 60% of those who speak it are not white. To millions of so-called coloureds, most of whom are from poor or working class homes, it is the only language they speak.
Afrikaans is also not merely the politically tainted language of Afrikaner nationalism, the memory of which is painful for so many millions of us. It predates and extends beyond apartheid and in recent years has been renewed and reconceptualised by dozens of thinkers. Besides the stellar literary figures it has produced, ranging from Adam Small to Antjie Krog, there are such wise educationalists and students of the language as the late Jakes Gerwel, who was a former vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape and a former presidential director-general under Nelson Mandela. As University of the Free State rector Jonathan Jansen once said, Gerwel "was no language sentimentalist on Afrikaans, but could both critique its ideological heritage in white hands and yet elevate its historical richness in the shaping of South African society from its first inhabitants and the slaves".
Afrikaans is already an accepted academic and literary language as the result of more than 80 years of development as such. Indeed, it has journals, a substantial published academic literature, entire academic discourses in subjects ranging from nuclear physics to psychology, an academic vocabulary, a respected literary tradition, an established intelligentsia and much more.
Other local languages do need to be developed to academic capability if possible. Individual universities have pledged to assist with this — Stellenbosch University with isiXhosa, University of the Free State with Setswana, University of KwaZulu-Natal with isiZulu and the University of the Witwatersrand with Sesotho. There are others. The government is making funding available to support these language development activities, which would undoubtedly be enhanced if the experience of Afrikaans were to be drawn on. However, language development will entail a Herculean effort that should not be underestimated.
However, surely it is inconsistent to support development activities in other languages, but to oversee the downgrading of the one African language that is already developed to the highest academic and literary standing? Thousands of Afrikaans speakers at Stellenbosch University have the constitutional right to be taught in Afrikaans should they so wish, given that it is already fully capable of being used for academic purposes. The new Stellenbosch policy proposed by the vice-chancellor would diminish this right by making English the main language and reducing Afrikaans to the status of an "additional language" in a university where Afrikaans is vital and living, and in a province where Afrikaans is by far the majority language. (The figures are Afrikaans 49.7%, isiXhosa 24.7% and English 20.3%.) It would be far preferable for Afrikaans to remain a substantive academic language at Stellenbosch alongside English. Of course, this would need to be done properly, with all the attendant costs that would need to be incurred.
SA is a combination of many cultures, languages and identities. The spirit of the Constitution is one of reconciliation and diversity — that all should be accommodated where possible, and that the inclusion of some should not be at the expense of others. It would be consistent with the Constitution, therefore, for the country to have a range of types and configurations of universities, some English, some dual medium and perhaps, as Gerwel himself proposed in an important review for the African National Congress government, some Afrikaans. Furthermore, there is no reason why other universities, for example, the University of Zululand, should not eventually become the academic home of other African languages.
Countries such as Norway, Belgium, Holland and Denmark manage to sustain local languages alongside the widespread use of English without difficulty and that this should be our approach. We should not embrace dull uniformity or reduce all to the single, monotonous mantra of the populist and authoritarian crowd, without stopping to think about the wealth of alternative possibilities that exist in our own history and in the world.
• Bozzoli is Democratic Alliance shadow minister for higher education.
From left, Prof Nico Koopman, Stellenbosch University’s dean of theology, Wilhelm Verwoerd, grandson of apartheid prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, and Wim de Villiers, the university’s rector, watch the removal of the Verwoerd commemorative plaque from the the university. Picture: THE TIMES
AFRIKAANS is not a "white" language but an African language, developed locally. It is the third most widely spoken language in SA, and 60% of those who speak it are not white. To millions of so-called coloureds, most of whom are from poor or working class homes, it is the only language they speak.
Afrikaans is also not merely the politically tainted language of Afrikaner nationalism, the memory of which is painful for so many millions of us. It predates and extends beyond apartheid and in recent years has been renewed and reconceptualised by dozens of thinkers. Besides the stellar literary figures it has produced, ranging from Adam Small to Antjie Krog, there are such wise educationalists and students of the language as the late Jakes Gerwel, who was a former vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape and a former presidential director-general under Nelson Mandela. As University of the Free State rector Jonathan Jansen once said, Gerwel "was no language sentimentalist on Afrikaans, but could both critique its ideological heritage in white hands and yet elevate its historical richness in the shaping of South African society from its first inhabitants and the slaves".
Afrikaans is already an accepted academic and literary language as the result of more than 80 years of development as such. Indeed, it has journals, a substantial published academic literature, entire academic discourses in subjects ranging from nuclear physics to psychology, an academic vocabulary, a respected literary tradition, an established intelligentsia and much more.
Other local languages do need to be developed to academic capability if possible. Individual universities have pledged to assist with this — Stellenbosch University with isiXhosa, University of the Free State with Setswana, University of KwaZulu-Natal with isiZulu and the University of the Witwatersrand with Sesotho. There are others. The government is making funding available to support these language development activities, which would undoubtedly be enhanced if the experience of Afrikaans were to be drawn on. However, language development will entail a Herculean effort that should not be underestimated.
However, surely it is inconsistent to support development activities in other languages, but to oversee the downgrading of the one African language that is already developed to the highest academic and literary standing? Thousands of Afrikaans speakers at Stellenbosch University have the constitutional right to be taught in Afrikaans should they so wish, given that it is already fully capable of being used for academic purposes. The new Stellenbosch policy proposed by the vice-chancellor would diminish this right by making English the main language and reducing Afrikaans to the status of an "additional language" in a university where Afrikaans is vital and living, and in a province where Afrikaans is by far the majority language. (The figures are Afrikaans 49.7%, isiXhosa 24.7% and English 20.3%.) It would be far preferable for Afrikaans to remain a substantive academic language at Stellenbosch alongside English. Of course, this would need to be done properly, with all the attendant costs that would need to be incurred.
SA is a combination of many cultures, languages and identities. The spirit of the Constitution is one of reconciliation and diversity — that all should be accommodated where possible, and that the inclusion of some should not be at the expense of others. It would be consistent with the Constitution, therefore, for the country to have a range of types and configurations of universities, some English, some dual medium and perhaps, as Gerwel himself proposed in an important review for the African National Congress government, some Afrikaans. Furthermore, there is no reason why other universities, for example, the University of Zululand, should not eventually become the academic home of other African languages.
Countries such as Norway, Belgium, Holland and Denmark manage to sustain local languages alongside the widespread use of English without difficulty and that this should be our approach. We should not embrace dull uniformity or reduce all to the single, monotonous mantra of the populist and authoritarian crowd, without stopping to think about the wealth of alternative possibilities that exist in our own history and in the world.
• Bozzoli is Democratic Alliance shadow minister for higher education.
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