Eleven Official Languages and More: Legislation and Language Policies in South Africa

Abstract

The South African Constitution of 1996 recognises eleven official languages on an equal footing without affording English or any of the other ten languages any special status. For half a century, the white ruling class divided people according to their mother tongues in an Apartheid state. The non-white majority was forced to live in separate self-governing administrative units in which their respective home languages became the “official” languages of these so-called “independent states”. The Constitution and language policies of the new South Africa intend to foster the transformation of a previously “bilingual nation” –with Afrikaans and English as the official languages– into a new South African state in which the majority languages of its African citizens are uplifted to the same level. The legal provisions and the language policies introduced over the last twenty years have, however, had little promoting impact on the actual use of languages other than English and Afrikaans in official spheres. This chapter discusses the challenges experienced in the execution of the language provisions made in the Constitution. African languages, which are the key for the improvement of the living conditions of the black majorities, do not receive the attention and support from the government that would be required to make a difference for a better future for their speakers.

Keywords

• South Africa, Constitution, PanSALB, official languages, language legislation, language policies.