NAME: VEGA GARCÍA MUÑOZ
COURSE: 1ST TRANSLATION
AND INTERPRETATION-Subgrupo 1
SUBJECT: METHODOLOGY OF STUDY AND
ANALYSIS
DATE: 5TH, DECEMBER, 2014
TITLE OF THE ANALYTICAL TEXT:
LANGUAGES OF SOUTH AFRICA 
LANGUAGES
OF SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa is a multilingual
country where eleven languages are spoken: Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Sesotho sa
leboa, Setswana, English, Sesotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Venda and Ndebele. (South Africa
info, 2012)
The most common languages spoken at home by South Africans is the Zulu (23.8
percent speak Zulu at home), followed by the Xhosa (17.6 per cent), and
Afrikaans (13.3 per cent).
The aim of this paper is to study
the development of the languages of South Africa as well as the disappearance
of Dutch despite being the first settlement in this country. Also learn how the
English in spite of being at number six in terms of spoken languages, is the
“official” language of media, business and politics. Finally we will see an
example of how languages affect in education at schools. The languages of South
Africa are related to the history and culture of the civilizations that have
passed through this country.
The first populations of South
Africa were the Bantu and the Bushman. But South Africa is really
known thanks to the arrival of Europeans. Around the 12th century the Bantu
began to move to the South of the continent, and later, in the 17TH century,
Portuguese, Dutch, French, German and English, together with the Malays,
Indians and Indonesians, arrived by sea to the territory of South Africa. For
many years, there were numerous fights between the Dutch and the British by the
power of this region. These wars were called Anglo-Boer wars, and the British
were winners and took over these lands then Dutch. (Sudáfrica en la Red, 2007) . Thus was formed a
very wide cultural diversity, with the corresponding issue of the situation of
languages in contact.
During the next years of the war,
the British failed in the attempt to reconstruct the country and the Afrikaners
(who were the inhabitants of that time) were relegated to work in the field.
Also failed, the British people, the establishment of its language and
therefore the Afrikaan (language of Afrikaans) represented the population. (Historia de Sudáfrica, 2008-2014)
Nevertheless, the English and the
Dutch were, until that moment, the official languages of the country and the
Afrikaans was not set as an official language until 1925. This language derived
somehow from the Dutch, used by the Boer and coloured people (Los Filólogos, 2000-2007) . It was declared as
an official language replacing the Dutch after the rise of nationalist
movements. After that, the English
continued being the language used by the majority of white people. It was also
used by black people that used it as a lingua franca to linguistic diversity.
During the years of Apartheid, black
South Africans, suffered the consequences of the disaffected British that were
not able to occupy its territory. That´s why the formation that black
population was receiving during this period (that is too important to
understand the history of South Africa) was minimal and it was in English and
in Afrikaans. These languages were only used in terms of teaching, so they were
excluded from all social scopes.
When Nelson Mandela arrived to South
Africa made several changes to rebuild the country. To do this, he created a
new multicoloured flag and the national anthem, which had five of the languages
that are spoken nowadays. Thus, children could learn their mother tongue and in
the judicial system each person should be informed with his own language.
Besides all this, they sought to recover the marginalized ones. The way towards
a multilingual nation is not easy (as it is still in process). For this reason
they have created a number of organizations as the PanSALB (Pan South African
Language Board), which has promoted the inclusion of some African languages, at
the universities.
Now the problem with the
multilingualism is English and the awareness that they have of this language.
On the one hand it has been considered as the language of freedom for some
people and on the other hand it is the most used language in the media and the
Government. This is because it is a language spoken internationally. And
despite being the sixth most spoken in South Africa, it is obligatory it
learning. In spite of this advantages, there are also some disadvantages like
that the 30% of the population does not understand any English. (Díaz García, 2013) .
Because of all this, it has been
created a project for education in South Africa. It is called PRAESA (Project
for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa). They seek and develop
programs of bilingualism from childhood and they try to increase the status of
African languages both in the oral area and the written among other things. (PRAESA, 2012-2014)
The problem of some families is that
they speak a language and when they have children talk to them in that language
at home but not at school. As it is the case of Xolisa Guzula, who bought a
house in a suburb where no one spoke Xhosa (his mother tongue). She is
complaining that children are forced to learn a language (English) that they
only speak at the school. The problem is that many parents want to preserve
their language but there are schools that offer only English and Afrikaans. As
these schools have numerous activities and resources to learn other things, it
creates a moral debate that parents must face.
Xolisa Guzula is a bi-literacy
storyteller and author of children´s literature. She is a well known advocate and teacher trainer of
bilingual Xhosa and she was one of the founders of the network of community
literacy reading clubs emerging across the country. (NELSON
MANDELA INSTITUTE)
What
this mother wants to say is that her child Tumi had no opportunity to learn
Xhosa in the school and she just learnt English despite the efforts she put.
One day he realized that the child did not want write in Xhosa, but he was not
surprised because she didn´t learnt it at school. At home the two (mother and
daughter) read in several languages. First in English to gain her confidence
and then in Xhosa to preserve the language. Now Tumi is 6 years old and she can
read and understand three languages. Now she get the feeling that I have
succeeded more than the teachers with all the time and materials they have in
school to teach children to read and write.
REFERENCES
South Africa info.(2012,November
6th). Retrieved in November 22th, 2014, from South Africa
info: http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/language.htm#.VIFyGNKG-So
Sudáfrica en la Red.(2007) Retrieved in
November 22th , 2014, from Sudáfrica en la Red: http://www.sudafricaenred.com/content/guia_paises/sudfrica/datos-generales/16
Historia de Sudáfrica. (2008-2014). Retrieved in
December 4th, 2014, from Spanish Facts: http://noticias-de-hoy.es/historia_de_sud%C3%A1frica
Los Filólogos.(2000-2007).
Retrievesd in November 30th, 2014, from Los Filólogos: http://www.losfilologos.com/portal/index.php/linguistica/815-el-afrikaans-una-lengua-germanica-hablada-en-tres-paises-africanos
Díaz García,A. (2013, December 18th).
El legado ligüístico de Mandela. Retrieved in November 24th,
2014, from El legado lingüístico de Mandela: http://makingofezine.com/2013/12/18/el-legado-linguistico-de-mandela-2/
PRAESA. (2012-2014).
Retrieved in December 1st, 2014, from PRAESA: http://www.praesa.org.za/about-praesa-2/
NELSON MANDELA INSTITUTE. (n.d.). Retrieved on November 29th, 2014 from NMI Senior
Team: http://www.mandelainstitute.org.za/team.php
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