Govt promotes multilingualism
Thabo Mokgola
24 March 2004
The Department of Arts and Culture has launched a number of initiatives to promote multilingualism, and to ensure that South Africa has the human resources needed to implement the South African Languages Act.
The department said the Act, due to be promulgated this year, would affect all sectors of South African society, from government and business to ordinary members of the public.
The department has set aside R5-million for 2004/05 for a bursary scheme for postgraduate studies in translating, editing, interpreting, language planning, and human language technology - technology that enables people to interact with computers using language and speech.
"Undergraduate studies will be provided for in the 2005/2006 financial year, and bursaries will be offered to students specialising in the Tshivenda, Xitsonga, siSwati and isiNdebele languages", the department said.
A further R9-million has been set aside for 2004/05 for setting up
language research and development centres, which will focus on research on nine of SA's 11 indigenous languages: seSotho sa Lebowa, seSotho, seTswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
A key objective of the language centres - to be based at institutions of higher learning - will be "to ensure the use of indigenous languages for business, politics, research and government information purposes", the department said.
The department has been working closely with the education sector, government departments and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) to promote broader usage of indigenous languages in the country.
In 2003, the department launched a national language policy framework and implementation plan to promote the equitable use of the country's 11 official languages in both government and higher education institutions.
Former Arts and Culture Minister Ben Ngubane, speaking at the launch of the policy, said the policy
brought to an end the marginalisation of some of South Africa's diverse languages. South Africa is a multilingual country, with approximately 25 to 30 spoken languages, 11 of which have been granted official status in the Constitution.
PanSALB deputy chairperson Rosalie Finlayson said the principle of multilingualism contained in the Constitution was finally being realised, and challenged South Africans to "walk the talk" by demanding services in their own language.
"This is your right and you must use it", Finlayson said.
'Count the costs of monolingualism'
Speaking at a conference on the language policy ahead of its launch in 2003, Ngubane said it would allow South Africans to choose how they wished to be educated.
"It is important that South Africans be afforded an opportunity of achieving in their own languages, of not dropping out of school because of difficulty with a second or third language as a medium of instruction",
Ngubane said.
Ngubane dismissed perceptions that multilingualism was a costly exercise, citing examples of progressive multilingual countries such as Belgium, Canada, Finland and Switzerland.
"The value of multilingualism for South Africa is not exclusively measurable in rands and cents", the minister added, challenging sceptics to think about hidden costs of monolingualism such as human resource losses resulting from school dropouts, poor performance and poor communication.
Ngubane launched a multilingual mathematics dictionary at the conference, and announced that his department and the Northern Cape government would be starting a project to record the San and Khoi languages, which are on the verge of extinction.
Source: BuaNews
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