Language in South Africa Edited by Rajend Mesthrie Frontmatter More Information

Cambridge University Press 0521791057 - Language in South Africa Edited by Rajend Mesthrie Frontmatter More information

Language in South Africa

This is a comprehensive and wide-ranging guide to language and society in South Africa. As the authors demonstrate, the South African context offers a treasure trove of data and examples for linguistic and sociolinguistic study. The book surveys the most important language groupings in the region in terms of pre-colonial and colonial history; contact between the different language varieties, leading to language loss, pidginisation, creolisation and new mixed varieties; language and public policy issues associated with the transition to a post-apartheid society and its eleven ofﬁcial languages. It details the history of indigenous languages, the impact of European languages upon them and of transformations to the European languages themselves. Written by a team of leading researchers, all the chapters are informed by the importance of sociopolitical history in understanding questions of language. The book will be welcomed by students and researchers in language and linguistics, sociology, anthropology and social history.

Rajend Mesthrie is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. He has researched and published extensively on a range of contact phenomena in South Africa. Recent publications include English in Language Shift (1992), Introducing Sociolinguistics (with J. Swann, A. Deumert and W. Leap, 2000), and the Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics (ed., 2001).

Language in South Africa

Edited by Rajend Mesthrie University of Cape Town

published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarc´on13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org

C Cambridge University Press 2002

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2002 This is a thoroughly revised and updated version of Language and Social History ﬁrst published in 1995 by David Philip Publishers (Pty) Ltd C Rajend Mesthrie and the authors

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Times 10/12 pt System LATEX2ε [TB]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 521 79105 7 hardback

African edition ISBN 0 521 53383 X

Contents

List of maps page viii List of contributors ix Acknowledgements xi List of phonetic symbols xiii List of abbreviations xv

Introduction 1

Part I The main language groupings 1 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 11 r. mesthrie 2 The Khoesan Languages 27 a. traill 3 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 50 robert k. herbert and richard bailey 4 Afrikaans: considering origins 79 paul t. roberge 5 South African English 104 roger lass 6 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 127 debra aarons and philemon akach 7 German speakers in South Africa 148 elizabeth de kadt 8 Language change, survival, decline: Indian languages in South Africa 161 r. mesthrie

vi Contents

Part II Language contact (A) Pidginisation, borrowing, switching and intercultural contact 9 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 179 ralph adendorff 10 Mutual lexical borrowings among some languages of southern Africa: Xhosa, Afrikaans and English 199 william branford and j. s. claughton 11 Code-switching, mixing and convergence in Cape Town 216 k. mccormick 12 Code-switching in South African townships 235 s. slabbert and r. finlayson 13 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 258 j. keith chick (B) Gender, language change and shift 14 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 279 r. finlayson 15 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 297 robert k. herbert 16 The political economy of language shift: language and gendered ethnicity in a Thonga community 316 robert k. herbert (C) New varieties of English 17 From second language to ﬁrst language: Indian South African English 339 r. mesthrie 18 Black South African English 356 vivian de klerk and david gough (D) New urban codes 19 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes of the working-class Afrikaans-speaking Cape Peninsula coloured community 381 gerald l. stone 20 An Introduction to Flaaitaal (or Tsotsitaal) 398 k. d. p. makhudu

Contents vii

21 Language and language practices in Soweto 407 dumisani krushchev ntshangase

Part III Language planning, policy and education 22 Language planning and language policy: past, present and future 419 t. g. reagan 23 Language issues in South African education: an overview 434 sarah murray 24 Recovering multilingualism: recent language-policy developments 449 kathleen heugh

Index 476

Maps

1.1 Political map of South Africa of the late nineteenth century 19 1.2 Provinces of South Africa 1910–94 20 1.3 The provinces of present-day South Africa 21 2.1 South Africa c.1960, showing places cited in chapter 2 28 3.1 Present-day range of Bantu languages 51 3.2 Guthrie’s language ‘zones’ (1967–71) 52 3.3 Distribution of African linguistic phyla 53 3.4 Guthrie’s Eastern–Western Bantu division 58 3.5 Sotho-Tswana and Nguni migrations 64 7.1 South Africa, showing places cited in chapter 7 149 8.1 The languages and dialects of India 162 8.2 Areas of origin of North Indian immigrants to Natal, and 167 principal dialects 15.1 Present distribution of Southern Bantu languages 298 15.2 Map of Southern Africa showing the estimated admixture 304 of Khoisan peoples by frequency of Gm 16.1 Distribution of Tsonga-speaking peoples in South Africa 317 16.2 Distribution of African languages, Ingwavuma district 318 highlighted 16.3a Domain of the Thonga language 322 16.3b Domain of the Thonga language 323 16.4 Fieldwork sites in the eastern Ingwavuma district 327 20.1 Townships in the PWV (now Gauteng) area during the era 400 of apartheid

viii

Contributors

Debra Aarons Vivian de Klerk Department of General Linguistics Department of Linguistics University of Stellenbosch Rhodes University

Ralph Adendorff Rosalie Finlayson Department of Linguistics Department of African Languages University of Natal, Durban University of South Africa

Philemon Akach David Gough Unit for Language Facilitation and School of Languages Empowerment Christchurch Polytechnic University of the Free State

Richard Bailey Robert K. Herbert Department of Speech Therapy Department of Anthropology University of Durban-Westville State University of New York

William Branford Kathleen Heugh c/o Department of Linguistics Project for Alternative Education in University of Cape Town South Africa University of Cape Town J. Keith Chick Department of Linguistics Roger Lass University of Natal, Durban Department of Linguistics University of Cape Town John S. Claughton Department of African Languages Khekheti D. Makhudu Rhodes University SABC Group Communications

Elizabeth de Kadt Kay McCormick Department of Europe Studies Department of Linguistics University of Natal, Durban University of Cape Town

x List of contributors

Rajend Mesthrie Paul T. Roberge Department of Linguistics and Department of Germanic Studies Southern African Languages University of North Carolina University of Cape Town Sarah Slabbert Sarah Murray Honorary Research Associate Department of Education Modern Languages Rhodes University University of the Witwatersrand

Dumisani K. Ntshangase Gerald L. Stone Centre for University Learning independent researcher and Teaching University of the Witwatersrand Anthony T. Traill Department of Linguistics T. G. Reagan University of the Witwatersrand School of Education University of Connecticut

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the following: The University of Cape Town Research Committee for a grant which covered the main running expenses of the project. David Philip Publishers (Cape Town), who brought out an earlier South African version of this text; Russell Martin of David Philip Publishers for his part in the gigantic task of copy-editing and helping to turn the original South African edition of this text into a palatable one. Linda Haynes of the University of Cape Town, for help with preparing the ﬁnal version of the manuscript; Sarah Johnson, Ginny Kerfoot and Rowan Mentis for being ‘Person Fridays’ most days of the week. James Mills-Wright for the drawing of maps. Pippa Skotness and the African Studies Library, University of Cape Town for advice and assistance in choosing a cover image. The Cartography Unit of Rhodes University for supplying the map of South Africa, c. 1880.

We gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to the following copyright holders: Anthropological Linguistics for permission to reprint a revised version of the article ‘The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu’ (1990: 32, 3–4). Cambridge University Press for permission to reproduce the map of the language families of Africa (David Crystal (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 1987). Gregg Press for the sketch map of the zones of Proto Bantu (M. Guthrie, Comparative Bantu, 1967). Jeff Siegel and Cambridge University Press for permission to produce a modi- ﬁed version of the map of the languages of north-east India (from Jeff Siegel,

xii Acknowledgements

Language Contact in a Plantation Environment: A Sociolinguistic History of Fiji, 1987). Philip Stickler and the Human Rights Commission for permission to reproduce the map of the Gauteng area (The Two South Africas–APeople’s Geography, 1992). Witwatersrand University Press for permission to produce a revised version of the article ‘The changing nature of isihlonipho sabafazi’ (African Studies, 1984: 43, 2: 137–46).

Phonetic symbols

1 Vowels The vowel chart with IPA (International Phonetic Association) symbols:

2 Consonants / dental click // lateral click =| palatal click ! alveolar click (palato-alveolar/(pre-)palatal in Nguni) ’ glottal stop (Khoesan) ʔ glottal stop (English) x voiceless velar fricative (Khoesan) x lateral click (Bantu; spelling form) kx voiceless velar affricate c palatal stop (Khoesan) c dental click (Bantu; spelling form) q palatal click (Bantu; spelling form) ŋ velar nasal ʃ voiceless alveopalatal fricative voiced alveopalatal fricative voiceless alveopalatal affricate voiced alveopalatal affricate

xiii

xiv List of phonetic symbols

ɹ postalveolar approximant voiced glottal fricative j voiced palatal fricative θ voiceless dental fricative ð voiced dental fricative (Because of the different traditions of scholarship some variation is unavoidable.)

3 Diacritics centralised vowel (e.g. ï) long vowel (spelling form e.g. ¯u) : long vowel (e.g. u:) nasalised vowel (e.g. ˜u) , close vowel (e.g. ¸u) . retroflex consonant (spelling form, e.g. t.) voiceless segment (e.g. w ) ∼ velarised consonant (e.g. ) ´ high tone (e.g. ú) ` low tone (e.g. ù) rising tone (e.g. ˇu) falling tone (e.g. û)

4 Non-phonetic symbols ∗ proto form → is rewritten as < is derived from > becomes < > spelling form / / phonemic form [] phonetic form ( ) optional element

Abbreviations

+A feature of standard Afrikaans adj. adjective adv. adverbial AE Afrikaans English Afr. Afrikaans ANC African National Congress APO African People’s Organisation ATR advanced tongue root AusE Australian English AZAPO Azanian People’s Organisation BSAE black South African English C consonant CAUS causative CEPD Centre for Education Policy Development cl. class CM code-mixing COMP complementiser CS code-switching CTOHP Cape Town Oral History Project DACST Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology DAT dative DEAFSA Deaf Association of South Africa DEM demonstrative DET Department of Education and Training DRC Dutch Reformed Church EL embedded language + EL2 feature of other L2 varieties of English ELT English language teaching Eng. English ESL English second language ET extraterritorial ETEs extraterritorial Englishes

xvi List of abbreviations

FT Flaaitaal FUT future tense FV final vowel GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution HAT Verklarende handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal HG High German HSRC Human Sciences Research Council IMP imperative INF infinitive IP inflectional phrase ISAE Indian South African English KZNED KwaZulu-Natal Education Department L low tone L1 first language L2 second language LANGTAG Language Plan Task Group lit. literally LOC locative LWC language of wider communication MCE manually coded English ML matrix language MLF matrix language frame Mod. modifier MOI medium of instruction N (or n.) noun N. Ng. Northern Nguni NED Natal Education Department NEPI National Education Policy Investigation NGO non-governmental organisation NLP National Language Project NP noun phrase/National Party NS Northern Sotho nsA non-standard Afrikaans nsE non-standard English NZE New Zealand English ODA Overseas Development Administration OE Old English + OE feature of other L1 varieties of English ON Old Norse PAC Pan Africanist Congress PANSALB Pan-South African Language Board

List of abbreviations xvii

PASS passive PB Proto-Bantu pl. plural PNK Proto-Niger-Kordofanian PRAESA Project for Alternative Education in South Africa PRES present tense PRP pre-preﬁx PSB Proto-Southern Bantu PSEB Proto-South-eastern Bantu PWV Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme REL (or rel.) relative RO rights and obligations RP received pronunciation S sentence SABh South African Bhojpuri SAE South African English SAG South African German SB Southern Bantu SBE Southern British English sE standard English SEB South-eastern Bantu sg (or sg.) singular SS Southern Sotho Sw. Swati Tsw. Tswana UNISA University of South Africa USAID United States Agency for International Development V vowel v. verb v.i. intransitive verb VN verbal noun v.t. transitive verb VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie/Dutch East India Company) VP verb phrase WSAE white South African English Xh Xhosa Z Zulu ZE Zulu English