h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

, Christiane. I hope it gets sorted out.

English 'empowered' itself. Right. Languages usually empower themselves with firearms.

A language is a dialect with an army.

Well, Afrikaans also did its share of empowering-by-firearm! Zulu did it by assegaai (a kind of spear) back in old Shaka's days.

These days, there are other ways! Though ... there's still a lot of aggression and violence involved. The discussions about Afrikaans can get very verbally violent. Which is why I, personally, am backing off a bit about Afrikaans and would for the while more encourage the promotion of other South African languages. I am absolutely outraged about the mistreatment of other ethnic groups under Apartheid (and earlier as well, and as it continues at the moment also!)

NOT that Afrikaans is totally safe. If things continue going backwards like this, it might very well be in real existential danger soon. But even if it stops being spoken ... there are so many books published in it, and there are records like films, TV programs, drama theatre recordings, music records, tapes, CDs and so on, that it could be 'reconstructed' again if only a small percentage of this record survives destruction. We have enormous resources on Afrikaans in this house. An entire wall with a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with Afrikaans works of fiction; a vast number of dictionaries, thesauri, grammar guides ... in short, enough just in this one house, to go very far towards ensuring the language's preservation.

South Africa is a country of minorities. There is no single ethnic group dominant over the entire region. By language (even though language and ethnicity don't always overlap precisely) Afrikaans is dominant in the Northern and Western Cape provinves; Zulu is dominant in KwaZulu-Natal; Pedi (Northern Sotho) is dominant (but with many other strong local languages as well) in Limpopo; Xhosa is dominant in the Eastern Cape; Tswana is dominant in the Northwest Province; and there are no single dominant languages in Gauteng or Mpumalanga.

Language is an essential part of one's identity, and personal empowerment. It is clear to me and others that children are best served by teaching them in their own language in primary and high school ... and it would even be well if this can be continued into university and other higher education also. For this, though, a language has to keep actively growing and creating, especially, technical terms used in science, industry or business. The thing is with Afrikaans we have done that; we have written excellent University textbooks in the language, and we go to great lengths to be up-to-date in technical terms. This has not been done in most other native languages. It can be done, though. But the minimum requirement, of teaching children in schools in their own language, is much more feasible. And is being done to a great extent. We need more textbooks in other SA languages, though. Heck, we need more textbooks, period!

Empowerment through language also should include things like being served in one's own language in general business affairs. It can get very frustrating trying to explain what one needs ... or, giving or getting relevant information ... to a person who doesn't speak the same language as oneself. Especially by telephone! The last while for instance, my mom has had to make many phonecalls to try and settle my father's affairs, and it's just infinitely easier to talk with a person when you both speak the same language. In this respect Afrikaans is VERY fortunate. Most business have people in high positions who can speak Afrikaans. When we arranged for the funeral for my father, for instance, we could speak with Afrikaans people and the arrangements (and there were lots of them) went perfectly smoothly. If we had spoken to English people my mom would have had more difficulty explaining what we wanted. I myself am better with English than she, but even for me it would have perhaps been a bit of a strain, at a time when we couldn't tolerate much strain.

Being able to do this for *all* businesses, would a tall order with so many languages spoken here ... but, by region, it may be easier. If large businesses in each province only arranged for people of theirs to be able to speak with clients in the three top languages spoken in the province, most people would be served very well.

Then there's the courts! Here, especially, people should have the option of having a trial conducted in their own language, or at the very least, have *expert* translators helping out. Instead, we often have trials conducted in English, when English is not the first language of the accused, the witnesses, the lawyers, OR the judge!

WHOOPS! I left out the Orange Free State! The majority language there is South Sotho, but there's a significant Afrikaans speaking population also.

You have a good point about services in one's own language. The 'English-only' people here get up my nose.

Even English speakers are no longer safe here. My father, who speaks Southern English, has frustrating telephone conversations with Bangelore whenever he has service problems.