Language Discrimination in South Africa
We live in a beautifully diverse world in which well more than 7, 000 languages are spoken. There are even some countries, like South Africa, that have multiple official languages — eleven to be specific: Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Zulu, Southern Sotho, Tswana, Northern Sotho, Venda, Tsonga, Swati, and Ndebele.
However, there’s a dark side to South Africa’s multilingualism, one that is characterised by colonialism, apartheid, and discrimination, which only aggravates the vicious cycle that keeps so many South Africans in a poverty prison.
The Dandelion Philosophy strives to empower and celebrate the diversity and culture in South Africa and beyond, including its linguistic richness.
What is Language Discrimination?
Discrimination in the context of language is treating someone differently — usually negatively — based on their mother tongue, accent, or size of vocabulary.
Examples include:
Having a strict monolingual rule in a public place in a country where more than one official language is spoken.
Individuals shamed into not contributing to conversations to avoid being ridiculed by their peers.
Being denied employment or access to government services due to one’s mother tongue.
The Effects of Language Discrimination in South Africa
The reason for this has its roots in Dutch and British colonialism. During apartheid, Afrikaans and English were made official languages and used as a tool for control and segregation between cultural groups; indigenous people and their languages were labelled as inferior.
Even though indigenous languages are to be treated equally in line with South Africa’s Constitution of 1996, the dominance of Afrikaans and English, despite only being the 3rd (13.5%) and 4th (10%) most spoken languages in the country, is one of the wounds of apartheid that still deeply affects South African culture to this day, causing tension in the country.
One of the biggest problems facing South Africans linguistically is the struggle to find good quality employment when Afrikaans and English are not their mother tongue.
This is a significant setback considering that rural, and often poorer, South Africans are less likely to speak these languages as a mother tongue compared to those who live in cities where there are higher job opportunities. This means that many are forced to learn English and Afrikaans and often neglect their own mother tongue in order to have a chance at getting employed. This is no easy task, despite multilingualism being commonplace in the country.
Language inequality also makes access to education a challenge in South Africa for several reasons. As education is most commonly provided in English — a second language for many — communication issues between institutions and students are inevitable. Unfortunately, this leads to poor academic performance and attendance. This language issue only adds to the challenge of people in rural communities accessing education in order to find employment and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
As our cultures grow and evolve, our use of language evolves. Indigenous languages that were banned during apartheid never truly recovered developmentally, as they did not have the opportunity to evolve and modernise for 46 years the way that Afrikaans and English did. This meant that alongside many South Africans being in survival mode after apartheid, many languages also lacked the vocabulary needed to adapt to their changed society, which made it difficult for many South Africans to attach themselves to a solid cultural identity.
This loss of cultural identity, which is deeply rooted in intergenerational trauma, has negatively affected many communities in need across South Africa that have no choice but to detach themselves from their own roots.
How The Dandelion Philosophy Addresses Language Discrimination
Although our programmes currently run in English, we are looking to expand into Xhosa — the most common language spoken in the Eastern Cape of South Africa where Cambridge Village is located.
Providing training and an Afrocentric approach to psychological healing in a common first language, such as Xhosa, not only allows community members to acquire a deeper understanding and a better execution of our educational programmes, but it creates a safe space for holistic psychosocial healing without the need for ‘code-switching’.
Despite the language barriers present in South Africa today, many of the skills we teach through our programmes are transferable. Providing employable skills and healing initiatives, regardless of language, solidifies the importance of indigenous languages. This empowerment can provide the boost communities need to reconnect to their cultural identities, break the poverty cycle, and psychologically heal.
Click here to learn more about how The Dandelion Philosophy creates sustainable, inclusive change.
