Johannesburg - The FW De Klerk Foundation has expressed concern that there were deliberate plans to eliminate the Afrikaans language, despite the fact that it is one of South Africa’s spoken languages.
The foundation’s Tyla Dallas said there were about 7.4 million people in South Africa who spoke Afrikaans. It was also the third most spoken language in the country.
Dallas claims that deliberate attacks on Afrikaans have occurred since the dawn of democracy. The language was seen by many as the language of the oppressor; its growth and importance were fuelled by the National Party, which ensured the language’s use in government offices and schools.
“The erosion of Afrikaans is gathering momentum despite the protection that all South Africa’s official languages are supposed to enjoy. Section 30 of the Constitution assures South Africans’ rights to use the language and participate in the cultural life of their choice. Language rights are strongly entrenched – not only in the Bill of Rights but also in Section 6 of the Constitution, which recognises South Africa’s 11 official languages (soon to be supplemented with sign language as a 12th official language),” Dallas said.
Last year, there were shocking allegations that some students were forbidden to use Afrikaans in private communication at the university’s residences in Stellenbosch.
“If the recommendations recently made by Judge Sisi Khampepe are implemented, Afrikaans will be further eroded. Khampepe, who was asked to head an inquiry into allegations of racism at Stellenbosch University, suggests in her recently released report that the reason some students and staff members who are not white allegedly feel unwelcome at the institution is Afrikaans,” Dallas said.
In her report, Khampepe suggested that, on the basis of all of the evidence about the tensions and problems created by the university’s multilingual language policy, the university should consider reviewing and revising this policy to remove the possibility of language exclusion through the preference of Afrikaans.
According to Dallas, the report effectively blames the university’s minority Afrikaans community for all subjectively felt racial tension and incidents experienced on its campus, basing its determination on the evidence of a single witness interview and a mere 0.7% of participants from the university’s 33 000 students and staff faculty.
The Star