Afrikaans het wesenlik as amptelike taal verval

Abstract

AFRIKAANS : Ofskoon Afrikaans op 8 Mei 2025 honderd jaar een van Suid-Afrika se amptelike tale was, het dit, gemeet aan sy daadwerklik amptelike gebruik sedert die inwerkingtreding van die huidige grondwetlike bedeling in 1994, maar veral sedert die 1996-grondwet van krag geword het, in beduidende mate as amptelike taal verval. ’n Oorweging van die vyf belangrikste gebiede van die amptelike gebruik van ’n taal bring telkens aan die lig dat Afrikaans sy amptelike gebruik grootliks prysgegee het. Dit is naamlik die aanwending van taal vir die doel van (1) (nasionale) wetgewing; (2) die amptelike notulering van hofverrigtinge; (3) staatsadministrasie; (4) polisiëring; en (5) openbare onderwys. Die amptelike gebruik van Afrikaans en die ander amptelike tale het geswig voor die voorkeurgebruik van Engels as gevolg waarvan Engels wesenlik Suid-Afrika se enigste daadwerklik amptelike taal geword het. Die deurslaggewende rede hiervoor is die huidige regering se politiek van transformatisme, veral aangedryf deur die beginsel van verteenwoordigendheid. Hierdie toedrag van sake is juridies moontlik gemaak deur die treff end diskresionêre aard van die ampteliketaalbepalings vervat in artikel 6 van die Grondwet. Die bepalings word transformatief vertolk en het tot ’n wesenlik eentalig Engelse ampteliketaalbedeling gelei. Hierdie verskynsel strook met wat elders in Sub-Sahara-Afrika gebeur het waar die eertydse postkoloniale administrasies telkens voorkeur gegee het aan die koloniale tale – Engels, Frans en Portugees – bo die Afrikatale.

ENGLISH : The year 2025 marks a centenary of Afrikaans as one of South Africa’s official languages. From 2025 to 1994, it was one of the then two official languages; since 1994, one of eleven, and following the addition of sign language in 2023, one of twelve. However, there is scant reason for any cheerful festivities for Afrikaans’s “hundredth birthday”. The mere fact that section 6(1) of the present (1996) Constitution confirms the official status of Afrikaans should, for two reasons, not necessarily inspire elation. First, official status is in itself often of no moment; and secondly, constitutional provisions may, following the way they are interpreted and applied, simply lapse and/or be replaced by another official language regime. What emerges from these scenarios is that the relevant constitutional provisions exist only in name. Yet, in concrete terms, they lapse, being replaced by a new regime. This occurs notwithstanding there being no formal constitutional amendment in pursuance of the amendment provisions of the Constitution, and notwithstanding the Constitution’s swaggering claim of its own supremacy. We may describe this as lapsed and substituting the Constitution. It is precisely this kind of scenario that has played out in relation to Afrikaans as an official language in the present constitutional dispensation (since 1994). In the five most important fi elds of official language use, it has practically ceased to be an official language. These are the fi elds of (1) language use for national legislation; (2) language of record in court proceedings; (3) state administration; (4) policing; and (5) public education. Hence, although Afrikaans has nominally, under section 6 of the Constitution, retained its official status, in practical terms it has deteriorated to such an extent that it is not genuinely official anymore. If, in spite of this, it is nevertheless maintained that Afrikaans is an official language, it must be conceded that official status means no more than a symbolic proclamation. The juridical foundation for this course of events is the discretionary nature of the official language provisions, conferring on organs of the state responsible for implementing these provisions inordinately broad leeway to interpret the provisions as they deem fi t, more specifically, to conduct the interpretation and implementation in accordance with their ideological persuasions. The ideology driving the interpretation is that of transformationism (the national democratic revolution) perused by the post-1994 governing elite. This ideology emphatically favours the inculcation of one homogeneous statist culture, which favours a single previous colonial language – English in the case of South Africa – to the detriment of the other languages. For essentially similar reasons, developments elsewhere in post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa have been strikingly similar. Most African states, like South Africa, are artificial creations of the erstwhile European colonial powers, and their boundaries resulted largely from the policies of these powers. Hence, in Africa, nations existed only in a territorial sense and not culturally or linguistically. Within these artificially created states, mostly devoid of the essential commonalities of nationhood, African governments must devise an official language policy. In the face of menacing centrifugal forces of inter-tribal, ethnic and accompanying linguistic tensions that could endanger the existence of African states, governments eschew the African languages that could unleash inter-communal strife. Instead, African governments opt for a tribally “neutral” European link-language which, in the face of the absence of commonalities, serves as a neutral ”nation builder”. Moreover, English provided the political vocabulary for resisting colonial domination and paving the way to political independence, something that the African languages were regarded as incapable of English (or any of the other colonial languages) was a prerequisite for leadership in Africa’s national movements. The elites of these movements are also basically English-speaking. This also holds true for the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, which is basically an English-speaking movement, or at least a movement led by an English-speaking elite. In this regard, there is a fundamental difference between national political consciousness in Africa and Europe. European national consciousness is essentially linguistic. The national consciousness of many of the communities was kindled by awareness of the national language in question, its perceived splendour and its expressive abilities, and the accompanying development of the literature of the various languages. The same holds true for Afrikaner nationalism. By contrast, African nationalism does not have a linguistic basis. They are, rather, anti-colonial. They dare not emphasise any particular African language and its development because that would place the state in danger of being split up along communal lines. Regarding language use, the foremost trend in education among black parents and pupils in South Africa has been to embrace English from the earliest possible stage. Even though educationists are unanimous that children perform best when instructed in the mother tongue, black parents are equally unanimous in rejecting that opinion. The trend elsewhere in previous British dominions in Africa is the same. If no African lingua franca is available, the only suitable course to take is a ”straight-for-English” approach, especially if parents see English as a prerequisite for their children’s socioeconomic advancement and press the school authorities to start education with English as the medium of instruction as early as possible. After 1994, when the African National Congress assumed power in South Africa, the trend in the education of African children slanted even more strongly towards English. These forces in favour of English are redoubtable, especially if the official language clause in the Constitution is discretionary, facilitating the drive towards a single-medium English dispensation.