The Land and It's People

SA SA YEARBOOK YEARBOOK 2007/2008 2008/09 THETHE LANDLAND ANDAND ITSITS PEOPLEPEOPLE South Africa is often called “A World in One Country” because of the contrast in its technologically advanced cities, its unspoilt natural beauty and the many cultures that make up the South African nation. 1 SA YEARBOOK 2008/09 THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE 1 The sunny weather, scenic beauty and a wide According to Census 2001, isiZulu is the mother array of fauna and flora make South Africa a desti- tongue of 23,8% of the population, followed by nation of choice for regional and international isiXhosa (17,6%), Afrikaans (13,3%), Sesotho sa tourists. Leboa (9,4%), and English and Setswana (8,2% South Africa is often called the “Cradle of Human- each). kind”, for it is where archaeologists discovered The least-spoken indigenous language in South 2,5-million-year-old fossils of our earliest ances- Africa is isiNdebele, which is spoken by 1,6% of tors, and 100 000-year-old remains of modern the population. man. Although English is the mother tongue of only 8,2% of the population, it is the language most The people widely understood, and the second language of the According to the Community Survey 2007, majority of South Africans. However, government is there are 48 502 063 people in South Africa. committed to promoting all the official languages. Of these, 79% classify themselves as African; 9,6% as white; 8,9% as coloured; and 2,5% as National Language Service (NLS) Indian/Asian. Africans are in the majority The NLS is a chief directorate in the Department (about 38 million) and constitute 79% of the total of Arts and Culture with the task of meeting the South African population. The white population is constitutional obligations on multilingualism by estimated at 9,6 million, the coloured pop ula tion managing language diversity through language at 4,2 million and the Indian/Asian population at planning, human-language technologies (HLTs) 2,6 million. and terminology projects. It also provides a trans- The South African population consists of the lation and editing service in the official languages following groups: the Nguni (comprising the Zulu, and foreign languages. Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi people); Sotho-Tswana, As part of its strategy to strengthen and promote who include the Southern, Northern and Western social cohesion through multilingualism and also Sotho (Tswana people); Tsonga; Venda; Afrikan- to transform the South African society into an ers; English; coloureds; Indians; and those who information society, the NLS has embarked on the have immigrated to South Africa from the rest of development of HLT applications that will connect Africa, Europe and Asia and who maintain a strong South Africans equipped with nothing but a normal cultural identity. A few members of the Khoi and telephone to government information and services the San also live in South Africa. regardless of the level of literacy and location. The development of spellcheckers and machine- Languages aided translation tools will contribute to consist- According to the Constitution of the Republic of ency and quality of documents rendered in or South Africa, 1996, everyone has the right to use translated into all official languages, as required by the language and to participate in the cultural life the National Language Policy Framework (NLPF). of their choice, but no one may do so in a manner Once the National HLT Strategy aimed at co- that is inconsistent with any provision of the Bill of ordinating HLT activities in government structures Rights. Each person also has the right to instruc- has been approved by Cabinet, the strategy will tion in his or her language of choice where this is be fully implemented and the key element, the reasonably practicable. National Centre for HLT, will be established. To address the status of indigenous languages, Official languages the NLS introduced a bursary scheme to encourage The Constitution recognises 11 official languages, students to study in specialised language fields as namely Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, well as the most disadvantaged languages, siSwati, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, isiNdebele, Xitsonga and Tshivenda. At the end of siSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga. 2007, 49 postgraduate students and 30 under- Recognising the historically diminished use and graduate students received their degrees. status of the indigenous languages, the Constitu- The NLS is facilitating the establishment of the tion expects government to imple ment positive African Language Practitioners’ Council, which measures to elevate the status and advance the will regulate the language profession. It will also use of these languages. go a long way to elevating the status of language 2 practitioners in general and also ensure that the NLBs were created for each of the 11 official services provided by language practitioners are of languages and for the Khoi, Nama, San and South an acceptable standard. African Sign Language. The aim is to develop each of the designated Telephone Interpreting Service of languages through the technical subcommit- South Africa (Tissa) tees, such as the Standardisation Subcommittee Tissa provides telephone-interpreting services to that standardises terminologies, spelling and people who need to access government, and aims orthography rules; and the Literature Subcommit- to improve verbal communication between citizens tee that develops forums for the production and and government agencies, thus allowing citizens recognition of literature for each of the designated to exercise their right to use the language of their languages. choice when dealing with government. The Language in Education Subcommit- tee looks into matters that deal with language in Pan South African Language education while the Communication Subcom- Board (PanSALB) mittee attends to communication issues such PanSALB was created in terms of Section Six of the production of journals on issues related the Constitution and defined by the PanSALB Act, to language development. The NLBs also do 1995 (Act 59 of 1995). Section Four sets out the research and initiate projects for the various desig- organisation’s independence and impartiality, and nated languages. also provides that no organ of state or any person The 11 NLUs, which compile and create is allowed to interfere with the board or its staff’s dictionaries, were created by PanSALB and incor- activities. porated in terms of Section 21 of the Compa- The board champions the recognition, imple- nies Act, 1973 (Act 61 of 1973). These NLUs have mentation and promotion of multilin gualism in produced monolingual, bilingual and multilingual South Africa, and the development of previously dictionaries. marginalised languages. The PLCs comprise the status language plan- PanSALB’s vision is to achieve equal status and ning, translation and interpreting, linguistic human use of all official languages, and the Khoi, Nama, rights and mediation and language in education San and South African Sign Language. subcommittees. The board promotes multilingualism in South PanSALB has nine provincial offices that Africa by: carry out the administrative function of PanSALB, s CREATING CONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND and form the base on which PanSALB’s three equal use of all official languages structures operate in the provinces. s FOSTERINGRESPECTFORANDENCOURAGINGTHEUSEOF other languages in the country s ENCOURAGING THE BEST USE OF THE COUNTRYS linguistic resources to enable South Africans South Africa has 12 public holidays: to free themselves from all forms of linguistic discrimination, domination and division. New Year’s Day – 1 January The board may also make recommendations on Human Rights Day – 21 March i language legislation, practice and policy, and Good Friday – Friday before Easter Sunday renders advice on the co-ordination of language Family Day – Monday after Easter Sunday planning in South Africa. Freedom Day – 27 April PanSALB may investigate the alleged violation of Workers’ Day – 1 May Youth Day – 16 June any language right, policy or practice. It may also National Women’s Day – 9 August summon any person, body or state organ to give Heritage Day – 24 September evidence. Day of Reconciliation – 16 December It is furthermore empowered to negotiate or Christmas Day – 25 December mediate in cases of language conflict and attempts Day of Goodwill – 26 December to achieve conciliation. If any of these days fall on a Sunday, then the following PanSALB works through provincial language Monday becomes a public holiday. committees (PLCs), national language bodies (NLBs) and national lexicography units (NLUs). 3 Commission for the Promotion and On the whole, training for the church ministry Protection of the Rights of Cultural, is thorough and intensive, and based on a variety of Religious and Linguistic Communities models due to the variety of church denominations. The Commission for the Promotion and Protection Apart from the work of the churches, a of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguis- number of Christian organisations (para-church tic Communities aims to contribute to social organisations) operate in South Africa, doing transformation and nation-building. Its mission is missionary and evangelical work, and providing aid to promote and develop peace, friendship, human- and training. ity, tolerance and national unity among linguistic Regular religious programmes on radio and communities. To achieve this, the commission: televi sion, and the abundance of places of worship, s IS A CHANNEL

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