Will this nation allow its languages to die out - from sheer neglect?

06 June 2011 by Mondli Makhanya

When the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, revealed recently that he was considering making the acquisition of an African language a condition for acquiring a university degree, there was the usual hue and cry from various sections of society.

"Akukwazi ukuba yithi kuphela ekuthiwa sifunde isiNgisi nesiBhunu bakwethu, kodwa ezethu izilimi abanye bangazifundi" ("We can't be expected to learn English and Afrikaans, yet others don't learn our languages"). The remarks, made in passing during the launch of his department's teacher education and development plan, dominated the national conversation. Lost in the controversy was the real issue that Nzimande was trying to address: the rapid decline of indigenous African languages in our country.

Nzimande's critics were correct only in asserting that university level may be a tad too late to introduce students to a new language and have it as a graduation requirement. The intervention needs to begin at school entry level. Former education minister Naledi Pandor suggested some years back that each province should have a language other than English and Afrikaans as a compulsory subject. But, like many good ideas of our government, it remained a mere suggestion. The wise say that before you earn the right to shoot down an idea, you must first find two reasons to support it. I suggest that this be the approach towards Nzimande's idea.

We celebrated 17 years of being a free republic in May, we should have marked another milestone: 17 years since we started decimating African languages. South Africans had much to say about the meaning of the free nation's 17th birthday. They spoke of the successes and failures, the joys and depressions, the challenges and ambitions of the pubescent nation. Nothing at all was said of the huge crime that we are committing as a people. Nothing was said of the fact that we are killing centuries and centuries of knowledge. There was much applause in the early 1990s when it was decided that South Africa would have 11 official languages enjoying equal status. While it was clearly understood by all that, in practice, English would be the lingua franca and the dominant language of commerce and politics, the affirmation of the other languages was important.

All that remained, once this policy was made constitutional, was for the post-apartheid government to give it political backing and for the people of South Africa to enthusiastically embrace the languages they had fought hard to liberate. It was not to be. On the contrary, what transpired was a rejection of African languages. As the black middle class grew, so did the aversion of blacks towards their mother tongues. The same happened in politics. Newly empowered politicians, who had been able to conduct politics in indigenous languages during the struggle, found themselves unable to do so in the new dispensation. The education system joined in the fray. In primary and high schools, the teaching in and of African languages took a back seat. At universities, enrolment in African language studies plummeted.

This may just be the lament of a rural peasant battling to come to terms with the realities of the modern world. Be that as it may, this rural peasant avers that it would be preferable to be honest with ourselves about how much we care about indigenous languages. Are we simply paying lip service (so to speak) or are we genuine about empowering and developing all the languages of our country?

South Africa's neglect of African languages coincides with the death of languages around the world. Language experts estimate that a language or dialect dies every two weeks. Unesco calculates that, of the 7000 languages spoken in the world, about 2500 face extinction. Most of these disappear because the population dies out and there is therefore nothing that can be done to save them. Very few die because their own speakers have rejected or neglected them, as is the case here. Having these languages around is not just a nicety. They contain a treasure trove of knowledge that enhances the human species' understanding of the world. When these languages go, all of that goes.

A renowned linguist and author of When Languages Die, K David Harrison, has spoken strongly of the loss of human knowledge that accompanies the death of languages. "When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday," he has been quoted as saying. That is the nub of the matter: the destruction of knowledge.

In South Africa, we still have the chance to reverse this trend ... if we put our minds to it.