Ideologies of language and linguistic conflict in colonial and postcolonial South Africa

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Ideologies of language and linguistic conflict in colonial and postcolonial South Africa

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Africa is a continent of high linguistic diversity with more than 2,000 recorded language names (and more than 500 in Nigeria alone)

6 major language families, many languages remain unclassified

High levels of individual oral multilingualism, no linguistically homogenous states

Sixteen of Africa’s shared cross-border languages have > 150 millionspeakers.

most African languages remain unwritten

Low levels of literacy, (highest Seychelles 91%, Zimbabwe 85%, lowest Burkina Faso 12.8%). Often significant differences in literacy rates between men and women

Around 60% primary school attendance rates on continent as a whole (UNICEF). South Africa = 87% (2009).

Language in Africa: some ‘facts’

Linguistic diversity in Africa

Official languages in Africa

- Linguistic history of South Africa characterised by contact, conflict, complexity & inequality

- Social identities have generally emerged through contact between groups within a framework of highly unequal power relations

- SA has witnessed the ‘invention’ of languages based on Eurocentric ideologies of separate languages

- Throughout South Africa’s colonial and postcolonial history, language policy & planning has been a central feature of successive governments’ attempts to construct and manipulate social identities - although rarely very successfully

Some key themes:

Initial period of Dutch colonisation of the Cape (1652-1806)

British colonial period (1806-1910) & Union of South Africa (1910-1948)

Apartheid (1948-1994)

The post-apartheid era (1994 - )

4 distinct historical eras

Dutch East India Company (VOC) arrived at Cape in 1652 to set up supply station, small early population speaking predominantly coastal varieties of Dutch

Various language contact situations:- European settlers and Khoikhoi, slaves from Indian subcontinent, Dutch East Indies, West Africa, later Madagascar and East Africa- traces of these contact situations in present-day Afrikaans, e.g. Baie, pisang, gogga, dagga, blatjang, sjambok etc.

- between European settlers (Dutch, French, German etc.),

Dutch colonial period

- Dutch establishes itself as dominant language in various forms, dialect levelling, including learner (L2), pidgin & creole varieties, vernacularisation > Cape Dutch/Afrikaans

- However, never any question of shared identity across racial boundaries – resistance to gelykstelling

- language shift from other European languages, the VOC demanded that French speakers ‘be taught our language and morals, and be integrated within the Dutch nation’- integration of French speakers into Dutch identity community possible because they were European & Christian

- large scale destruction of KhoiKhoi social order due to small pox epidemics- linguistic assimilation of slaves- little in the way of official policy regarding language

British seize Cape of Good Hope from Dutch in 1806

Aim of establishing that was ‘British in character as well as name’ = imposition of British cultural practices on the Dutch-speaking population – a policy of Anglicisation

“they were only a little over thirty thousand in number, and it seemed absurd that such a small body of people should be permitted to perpetuate ideas and customs that were not English in a country that had become part of the British Empire.” (Malherbe, 1925:57)

denigration of Dutch/Afrikaans as a kombuistaal etc. – ‘a jargon without literature, without scientific basis and without practical value outside local confines’ (The Star, 1911)

‘The Afrikaans language is laughable because it lives in the kitchen, on the street, in the canteens, in the houses of the uneducated’ (De Waal, 1939:268)

British colonial language policy

1822 – English made sole official language of Cape colony

‘Dutch should only be used to teach English and English to teach everything else’

1828 – all court proceedings to be in English only

resistance to policy from Dutch/Afrikaans speakers, Afrikaners set up private Dutch-medium schools, Doppers fought against Anglicisation of religious life

origin of the taalstryd and the emergence of Afrikaner national consciousness, belief in one-to-one link between language and ethnic/national identity

W. Postma, Dutch Reformed Church Minister, 1910:“Take away our language and we will become Englishmen”

Afrikaans emerges as a ‘core value’ of Afrikaner identity – the failure of Anglicisation policy

Core values can be regarded as forming one of the most fundamental components of a group’s culture. They generally represent the heartland of the ideological system and act as identifying values which are symbolic of the group and its membership. Rejection of core values carries with it the threat of exclusion from the group. (Smolicz, 1981:75)

- sections of African population also target of linguistic/cultural assimilation - Britain’s ‘civilising mission’

role of missionary schools and Anglicisation of the ‘mission elite’ - “the tiny layer of black teachers, preachers, interpreters, clerks and other professionals which the colonial system had necessarily given rise to”

“The scholarly missionaries educated a group of men and women with high competence in English, a deep insight into the world of ideas and values and a strong language loyalty to English”

- English acquires prestige, as a key to black upward socio-economic mobility, African languages not seen as appropriate for higher functions

British colonial language policy and the African population

In 1910, the African People’s Organisation (APO) encouraged its members to:

“endeavour to perfect themselves in English - the language which inspires the noblest thoughts of freedom and liberty, the language that has the finest literature on earth and is the most universally useful of all languages. Let everyone...drop the habit as far as possible, of expressing themselves in the barbarous Cape Dutch that is too often heard”

“The pursuit of Anglicisation was probably one of the greatest political errors of South African history because it set in motion a chain of events which continues to haunt education and language policy a hundred years later.” (Kathleen Heugh, South African sociolinguist)

‘Black Englishmen’ also seen as an affront to the Afrikaner ideal of racial and ethnocultural authenticity and a potential political threat – to have a great influence on language ideology and policy in the apartheid years

British (and other European) colonial missionary linguists responsible for identifying and naming many current South African ‘languages’, e.g. isiXhosa, isiZulu

Wrote grammars, developed alphabets etc. with primary aim of translating the bible in order to christianize the African population – not unproblematic exercises

However, notion of discrete, countable, named ‘languages’ is a product of 18th/19th century European nationalism, literate cultures

The idea of separate, object-like entities called languages was unknown in African culture. ‘Languages’ not timeless, universal entities. Product of ‘colonial imaginings’ and transplantation of Eurocentric ideologies

The invention of African languages

The naming of languages produced puzzling questions such as ‘What languages do you speak?’, as opposed to the typical African question ‘Do you speak?’, which on its own suggests that names of languages are not part of the lexicon of speakers of these languages. This indicates that language among lowly literate African is conceptualised without positing the existence of languages as spatially and ethnically bounded entities, or without cutting up language into different languages or different parts such as verbs, nouns etc. (Makoni, 2011:683)

Does the hubristic colonial enterprise of naming and inventing ‘languages’ where previously there were none persist in modern-day linguistics?

Another problem in deciding how many languages there are in the world arises from the fact that many have no special names. The Sare people of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea for example call their language Sare, but this means simply ‘to speak or talk’. The Gitksan people of British Columbia have no conventional native name for their language which sets it apart from other varieties such as Nisgha and Tsimshian. The Gitksan generally refer to their own language as Sim’algax, “the real or true language,” but the Nigsha and Tsimshian people do the same. (Nettle and Romaine, 2000:27-28)

Notion of individual, separate languages often irrelevant to a people’s self-conceptualisation of their linguistic experience

Can the linguist tell people what language they speak?

THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA (1910-1948) Boer states of OFS & Transvaal join British Cape Colony

& Natal Dutch acquires co-official status, Afrikaans becomes

official language in 1925 alongside English, bilingual state

British persist with policy of Anglicisation, still an English-only ideology

“English-speaking South Africa never took the matter seriously. Bilingualism was regarded as nothing more than a polite gesture towards the other section – neither more nor less. The average English-speaking South African was inclined to regard every political recognition of the Dutch language as a menace to the interests of his own race.’ (from the editor of Volksstem, 1929)

The modern South African state

- Official policy of ‘separate development’ began 1948, marks the start of the high period of ethno-racial, white Afrikaner, linguistic nationalism

- Strict division of society along racial and linguistic lines. Population divided into 4 racial groups: White, Black, Coloured and Asian.

- Afrikaner linguistic nationalism: language seen as essence of divinely ordained nationhood

- God willed separate nations and peoples, and He gave to each separate nation and people its special vocation, task and gifts. We will have nothing to do with a mixture of languages, of culture, of religion or of race’ (Institute for Christian National Education, 1948).

Apartheid language policy

Semiotic landscape of Apartheid

- Cornerstone of Apartheid language policy: mother-tongue education (moedertaalonderwys)

- For whites, education in one of the two official state languages: English or Standard Afrikaans – Algemeen Beskaafd Afrikaans

For the African population, mother-tongue education had far more negative implications

Apartheid philosophy views black population as consisting of many different separate (potential) nations , each supposedly defined by language

Bantu Education Act 1953 – compulsory mother-tongue schooling for first 8 years of primary education, most black students did not continue into secondary school

Apartheid education

Closure of many English-medium mission schools

Aim to prevent black people from acquiring competence in English, achieving social mobility uniting against apartheid system

Mother-tongue schooling for blacks was employed [. . .] to support the social and educational goals of apartheid. The apartheid regime used such programs to reinforce ethnic and tribal identity among black schoolchildren, seeking to ‘divide and conquer’ by encouraging ethnolinguistic divisions within the black community. (Reagan, 2001:55)

E.g. Northern Sotho language artificially distinguished from Setswana for administrative and political purposes

Mother-tongue is a highly problematic concept in the South African context. Relations between language and identity are far more complex.

My father’s home language was Swazi, and my mother’s home language was Tswana. But as I grew up in a Zulu-speaking area we used mainly Zulu and Swazi at home. But from my mother’s side I also learnt Tswana well. In my high school I also came into contact with lots of Sotho and Tsonga students so I can speak these two languages well. And of course I know English and Afrikaans. With my friends I also use Tsotsitaal. (cited in Orman, 2008:88)

Apartheid invention of languages

Mother-tongue education as a policy of social control and division

‘The language policy of the apartheid regime explicitly fomented fragmentation based on parochial ethnolinguistic identity. However, instead of provoking linguistic tribalism, the apartheid policy merely incited Blacks to rally around global English as the language of resistance and protest [. . . ]Blacks saw English as the tool to combat divisive Bantu education and the imposition of Afrikaans.

- English increasingly becomes a symbol of resistance to apartheid, especially following Soweto uprising 1976. Afrikaans seen as the ‘language of the oppressor.’

- Failure of apartheid language/identity planning-\

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Language protests Soweto 1976

Change 2 to 11 official languages – ideology or pragmatism?

Post-apartheid language policy (post 1994)

Official policy of ‘equitable multilingualism’, pluralism

Large increase in language planning bodies and activities, e.g. PANSALB.

Promotion of nation-building based on multilingualism and linguistic diversity, philosophy of unity in diversity – no single national language, individual multilingualism

rejection of Eurocentric models of language and nation, ideology of ‘one language, one nation’

A large language policy-practice ‘gap’

‘The more languages, the more English’

Increasing English monolingualism in public life, dominance of elite language practices > linguistic inequality

Declining position of Afrikaans as a public language, Anglicisation of historic Afrikaans-medium universities, changing of Afrikaans place names. E.g Pretroria-Tshwane, Bloemfontein-Mangaung

Language still a source of conflict, especially in relation to Afrikaans, many protests

African languages remain highly marginalised, rising inequality

But, the reality?

Throughout its colonial and postcolonial history, SA has been a site of linguistic contact linguistic conflict

Linguistic divisions often correlated with racial divisions and social inequality

Attempts to plan identities through language policy/planning have generally been failures and generated identities of resistance

The linguistic complexity of diverse societies such as SA cannot be captured adequately through a Eurocentric notion of individual, separate languages and easily identifiable ‘native’ speakers – these are highly problematic concepts

In summary

Any questions?