Want to learn a South African language? Your options are limited

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It's 50 years since the Soweto uprising in South Africa. On 16 June 1976, tens of thousands of young black South Africans protested against being taught in the Afrikaans language (alongside English) at school.

At the time, under apartheid laws, language, ethnicity and race were all treated as characteristics that defined identity and belonging. Geographic settlement (the artificial system of homelands) added another layer of ethnolinguistic affiliation.

In the case of language, the government designated Afrikaans, now spoken by 10.6% of the population, and English, now spoken by 8.7% of the population, as the two official languages. African languages – spoken by 78.6% of the population at present – had no official status except in the homelands.

These policies made languages political:

black South Africans regarded Afrikaans as the language of the white oppressor
English was seen as the language of education, advancement and opportunities
African languages were maintained as carriers of cultures and ethnic identities.

Each African language of a homeland was linked with ethnic affiliation. This embedded the idea that if one spoke isiZulu (the language), for example, one identified as umZulu (a Zulu person) and one was meant to live in KwaZulu (the “homeland”).

The homelands were abolished in 1994 and nine provinces were created. These provinces, however, still promote official African languages based on their first language dominance in the previous homelands.

As scholars of African languages, it's our view that the manufactured notions of ethnic allegiance and belonging continue to bar the promotion of African languages in the country.

In a recent paper we looked at the distribution and teaching of languages at South African universities.

We found that English and Afrikaans remain interprovincial languages and are offered across South African universities. African languages still primarily determine the university and province in which prospective African language students can study.

The results suggest that the apartheid pattern of language use hasn't been broken in the democratic era.

African languages at universities

Our research involved interviews with 10 academics in African language departments. We approached eight South African public universities that offered any of the four official South African isiNguni languages (isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, isiNdebele). These can be classified as varieties of the same language. The research participants were lecturers who taught these languages.

Apartheid policies used language and ethnic affiliation to determine admission to universities in the homelands. So we enquired about the language policies of universities today, especially for admission to study African Languages.

We also asked about the language varieties that the academics accepted for learning, teaching and assessment.

English and Afrikaans are offered in South African universities across the provinces.

But a student's own language still matters for admission to study an African language. When deciding who to accept, university African languages departments use the African language the applicant studied as a home language in grade 12.

The National Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions, published in 2020, supports the provincial language distribution. So do institutional language policies.

Some languages favoured over others

African language courses are taught based on the first languages that the students and most of the lecturers speak.

English and Afrikaans courses at the same institutions accommodate students and lecturers who speak different first languages.

This linguistic setup creates another layer of inclusion and exclusion for African languages in the democratic era. The findings revealed that African languages that many people speak as first languages enjoyed priority over African languages that a minority speak. For example, isiZulu (spoken by 24.4% of the population) and isiXhosa (spoken by 16.3%) were offered by seven of the eight universities in our study. Just one of the eight universities offered isiNdebele (spoken by 1.7%) and siSwati (2.8%).

We found that some academics accepted only the standard language version of the isiNguni language that they taught in their own classrooms. They argued that their teaching practices were guarded by the rules of the standard language. They said this promotes a “pure” and “correct” language variety. Other academics said they accepted all language varieties of the isiNguni languages in their classrooms. They acknowledged that students' linguistic profiles at universities have changed in the last few decades. Hence, they said their approach was based on respect for all students' language rights, preservation of all African language varieties, and promotion of student engagement and belonging in the classroom.

Some academics were still upholding the standard language ideology that the apartheid government imposed in the learning and teaching of African languages. Others were opting for approaches that recognise what students actually speak.

Promoting African languages

Based on our findings we recommend the following:

African languages should be promoted at a national rather than provincial level.
Higher education institutions should develop their own system of benchmarking language proficiency instead of relying on grade 12 certificates.
Official African languages should incorporate standard and non-standard language varieties.
African languages that are official in some provinces should be taught as second languages in provinces where they are not official. For instance, although Xitsonga first language speakers are concentrated in Limpopo, the language could be taught as a second language in KwaZulu-Natal. Similarly, siSwati could be taught as a second language in the Free State.

This would achieve several goals.

Firstly, it would encourage collaboration between African language scholars across the country. It could break silos in the promotion of African languages.

Secondly, African languages could cross provincial borders just like English and Afrikaans. This might change how languages are perceived.

Thirdly, African languages would be accessible to everyone instead of just language experts and their first language speakers.

This could enhance training of teachers, particularly for the advancement of mother tongue-based bilingual education. And it would preserve African language varieties, regardless of the number of their speakers and official status.

Overall, changing the teaching of African languages to avoid the provincial pattern would promote language inclusion and social cohesion.

Mbali Sunrise Dhlamini works for the University of the Western Cape. She receives funding from the NRF under the New Generations of Academics Programme.

Russell H. Kaschula receives funding from the National Research Foundation as an NRF SARChI Chair in Forensic Linguistics and Multilingualism.

By Mbali Sunrise Dhlamini, Lecturer on the New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP) in African Language Studies, University of the Western Cape And

Russell H. Kaschula, Professor of African Language Studies, University of the Western Cape