Language and Politics
A few language related news items from South Africa over the last
few months:
Firstly, the Pan South African Language Board
decries the loss of human languages but only has International
Mother Tongue Day and such like as solutions. Surely this is a
feather-weight solution to a hippo-sized problem? For many people
they'll pay as much attention as to
International Talk Like a Pirate Day (or less). We need rather
concerted efforts on the part of governments and civil society
around the world.
For example,
Mbeki raising the issue of language neglect with the National
House of Traditional Leaders. This is great. Interestingly, he
quotes the above report to say that in South Africa, only Afrikaans
is defended by its speakers.
Declining interest in African languages is reported in the
Department of Education.
What can we do to fight these things?
Promote the use of diverse languages in court, for a start -
the article illustrates the kind of difficulties of encouraging
multilingualism when there are several languages at stake. But it's
a road that needs to be travelled. Fortunately
the
South African constitution mandates government promotion of
languages. For
translate.org.za's part, we're
trying to ensure that people can use the language of their choice
on their computers.
Behind all this is a mentality issue: are we as South Africans just
going to imitate the west or are we going to celebrate our
uniqueness and diversity? And keep a good sense of humour at the
same time - sometimes
localization goes awry.
Unrelatedly, I found this quote fascinating:
Rebecca
Wanjiku on the World Summit on the Information Society in
Geneva, 2003:
Being my first time to attend intergovernmental
negotiations, the chance was an eye opener for me. I witnessed
"reputable" governments opposing press freedom, locking out major
input from the civil society and at the end of it, I understood why
my government never discloses its contribution to the
public.
Hopefully South Africa will not allow the many winds and waves of
global and local thinking to divert us from what is truly
important.