Mondli Makhanya, editor of the Sunday Times (South Africa), raises an interesting point about Afrikaners and language in his piece, "Afrikaners set a fine example in championing their language".

While Mondli places much of the blame on government, and I would agree that there is much blame that can be placed on government's shoulders, is it not the speakers of a language who carry the greatest responsibility? While the Afrikaners are concerned about this issue where are the Zulus, Vendas and Tswanas?

The biggest problem with our constitution is that in appointing PanSALB as the custodian of our languages we seem to think that that means we don't need to do anything!

When an Afrikaans school is forced to become dual medium because black parents want English education for their children is that not a concern? It's a grave concern that most people see this as a conservative white issue. While I'm sure it had those elements, isn't it of more concern that non-English speaking children are getting a bad education by being forced to study in English?

Mondli talked about UNESCO's monitoring of the situation of dying languages. What he doesn't mention is that UNESCO champions mother language education because time after time it has been shown that mother language education is better. It leads to more engaged students, better thinking and better assimilation of fundamental concepts. All of these seem to be missing from the poorest of our schools who hack along in English. So it is a grave concern to me that we are forever assigning children to inferior education because we hope that English education will make them the best.

Where were the mother tongue speakers when UNISA closed down much of its African language department? Not a peep.

When I go to home affairs and see only English forms why am I the only one to complain (even though English is my mother language)?

The beauty of seeing language as a personal issue is that then you are able to change the situation. If you take language personally then you will decide to speak your mother language at home. If you take it personally then you will use the ATM in your language, you'll tweet and post status updates on Facebook in your language. You'll set your cellphone to your language.

Lastly, you'll claim your workplace for your language by insisting that you use computer software in your language. Organisations like Translate.org.za have been making mother language technology such as the Venda keyboards, Firefox spell checkers, South African calenders and other technologies for years and you can empower your language by simply using them.

When we blame government we remain powerless, when we make language our priority we can change the world.