Lack of equity and over-emphasis on isiZulu hampers further development of other African languages

Every September, Heritage Month in South Africa, we are encouraged to touch base with “who we are as a Rainbow Nation” through among others, our dishes, music, and speaking our home languages a lot more than we would ordinarily do. During this jovial period, we often forget or are unwilling to do an honest introspection about ourselves, that is, about the state of language use in our country since the dawn of democracy in 1994.

From the outset, let me be blunt and tell it as I see it. Whether by accident or design, South Africa is in full swing of elevating some languages while neglecting others. It looks like it did not learn anything from the institutional and disproportionate support for the development of Afrikaans, particularly from the late 1940s, and the historical neglect of nine African languages.

Let us retrace our steps. To end apartheid, in the early 1990 leaders across political formations engaged in multi-party negotiations called Codesa. Language was one of the hotly debated topics; the ANC preferred an English monolingualism model for a new South Africa, following in the footsteps of Namibia which went with the same model upon attaining independence from South Africa in 1990.

However, the National Party refused to budge and insisted on Afrikaans retaining its position as an official language; it did not want to lose the gains the language made since a conscious decision was made to develop it in the late 19th century. As a compromise, English and Afrikaans were retained as official languages, and to appease black South Africans, nine African languages were given official status. So, African languages were not a natural choice for both the ANC and the National Party; one could say they came through the backdoor.

Following Codesa, an Interim Constitution (Act 200 of 1993) was passed, and it comprised official languages as follows: English, Afrikaans, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, three Sotho-Tswana languages (viz, Sepedi, Sesotho, and Setswana), and four Nguni languages (viz, isiNdebele, isiZulu, isiXhosa, and siSwati). This was followed in 1996 by the passing of the current Constitution (Act 108 of 1996), which confirmed the official status of these 11 languages.

Acknowledging that South Africa was (and arguably still is) a racially and linguistically divided country, Section 6(4) of the Constitution talks about the need for all official languages to enjoy “parity of esteem” and must be “treated equitably”. Section 6(2) talks about the need for the state to take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of the nine African languages which were marginalised throughout the country’s history.

None of the sections of the Constitution talk about numbers of home language speakers; it is through Statistics South Africa that we know that isiNdebele is a home language of about 1.6% of the population (the least numerically) and isiZulu about 25% (the most numerically), and that the other nine languages sit between these two languages. These percentages are helpful insofar as understanding the country’s linguistic landscape and concentration of speakers. They are helpful when, for example, one wants to distribute reading material in any part of the country.

Realising that bureaucrats sustained apartheid patterns of conducting business mainly in English and Afrikaans to a lesser extent, Parliament passed the Use of Official Languages Act (No. 12 of 2012). This act stipulates that national departments, state-owned enterprises, and state-owned entities should choose a minimum of three official languages in conducting their business.

In a paper I presented in February 2019 at a Linguistics conference at the University of York, England, I demonstrated how bureaucrats have ignored the spirit of the country’s laws, policies and guidelines which talk about fostering social cohesion and nation-building through the promotion of the country’s official languages, and how they adopted a posture of majoritarianism in African languages by simply going with statistics.

A colleague of mine and fellow sociolinguist, Dr Lutamo Ramuedzisi, recently published a journal article in which he demonstrated this majoritarianism posture — where not all 11 official languages were selected by a national department, isiZulu was selected by all of them, alongside English. Where a Sotho-Tswana language was selected, Sepedi was chosen in most cases.

It follows that bureaucrats selected isiZulu because it has the highest number of home-language speakers in the Nguni cluster, and Sepedi in the Sotho-Tswana cluster. This posture disadvantaged isiXhosa, a language with about 16% of the population relative to Sepedi with about 9%. Clearly, no communication took place within government clusters because someone would have picked up that all national departments had chosen English and isiZulu. This, in my view, goes against the spirit of the Constitution and defeats social cohesion and the nation-building project.

Other than the bureaucracy, paid television channels are also actively involved in changing and/or shifting the linguistic landscape of South Africa. It is becoming a norm that whenever a television programme is conceptualised for a black South African audience, isiZulu is considered first. There is a very high number of soap operas, dramas, and short movies in isiZulu, and if one did not know the facts, they would be left with an impression that isiZulu was a home language of more than 50% of the country’s population.

Where a different language is used in a soap opera, drama, or short movie, say Sesotho, there will be some isiZulu used. Where is equity here? I refuse to accept that all creative minds in this country think in isiZulu or believe that entertainment best captures audiences when told in isiZulu or that South Africans have a huge appetite for Zulu culture.

In 2017, I published a journal article in which I demonstrated how since the 1990s, Motswako artists have been able to make it big in the music industry while performing in Setswana-English code-switches. I argued, in March 2018 when I visited Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, US, that Motswako is a big player in the development and promotion of hip-hop music beyond the southern African region.

The marginalisation of other African languages is also conspicuous in adverts played on paid channels. When adverts are not in English or Afrikaans, they are overwhelmingly in isiZulu, and if they are in another language, a phrase or punchline will be in isiZulu. On these channels, I have not seen adverts that are in Xitsonga or Tshivenda.

I mean, if these languages are capable of marketing commodities on Munghana Lonene FM and Phalaphala FM, why would they be incapable of doing the same on paid channels? After all, Xitsonga and Tshivenda speakers pay the same subscription fees as speakers of other languages. Where is the equity here?

When Section 6(4) of the Constitution talks about being “treated equitably”, it implies that languages which are less developed and more marginalised should be given more attention than those that are relatively more developed and less marginalised. The thinking here was not to repeat the mistake of the past, that is, developing Afrikaans at the expense of African languages.

Can anybody dispute that isiZulu is one of the more developed African languages relative to others in South Africa? So, continuing to institutionally support and promote isiZulu disproportionately to its percentage of home-language speakers through the bureaucracy and paid television channels is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution of fostering social cohesion and nation-building through equitable language management.

Those who wrote the Constitution knew that isiNdebele had far fewer home-language speakers than isiZulu, thus were careful not to focus on numbers, but equity. They avoided the East African model where in the mid-1960s, kiSwahili was elevated above other African languages; they opted for an inclusive model, one which the bureaucracy and paid television channels are subconsciously hard at work to undo.

When a language receives institutional support, its status gets elevated, and speakers of other home languages begin to want to be proficient in it and be associated with its speakers. In many cases, when such happens, subtractive bilingualism kicks in.

Maybe this explains why so many private schools, even far away from KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, have introduced isiZulu as an African language when they want to demonstrate transformation or why many parents buy their children Zulu traditional attire during Heritage Month. Who can blame private schools and non-Zulu parents when there is so much institutional support for isiZulu and the Zulu culture on television?

Renowned sociolinguist, Prof Nkonko Kamwangamalu, posits that people make the effort to learn prestigious languages even at the expense of their home languages; they follow languages which help them go up the socio-economic ladder. It is very common for non-isiZulu home language speakers to earn a living on television as isiZulu-speaking presenters, actors, and actresses, but it is very rare to see isiZulu home language speakers earning a living through speaking other languages.

In social circles, it is becoming prestigious to add isiZulu into one’s linguistic repertoire as opposed to other languages. Fair enough, some may argue that people have a right to choose whatever language they want to learn. However, many may be oblivious to instruments which are used to influence them to steer in certain directions. So, what they believe to be their choice may not be, after all.

A few days ago, I engaged a few postgraduate university students on “politics of language and culture in South Africa”, and one of them, an isiZulu-speaking woman, remarked that “it is not such a bad thing that we are dominant” to which I said: “well, it follows then that you have no problem with sexism and racism because they are about dominance, and as a woman and a black person, you are at the receiving end of such dominance, right?” Then the penny dropped.

As a caring people, we should spare a thought for a Tshivenda- or Xitsonga-speaking child who must watch paid television channels where those who sound like them are few and far between or must learn and sing a South African national anthem which does not have a single word from their languages.

We must think about a recent university graduate who majored in Tshivenda or Xitsonga and must page through job adverts in search of opportunities, and all they see are opportunities for fellow graduates who majored in other languages.

Surely, we cannot fold our arms and watch the bureaucracy and paid television channels leading South Africa on a trajectory that hampers further development of many African languages, surely not! Surely, we cannot continue to be complicit in the promotion of a hierarchy of African languages which alienates many citizens, surely not!

Our trajectory must change and the sooner that happens, the better for the further development of marginalised African languages. South Africa belongs to all who live in it; it was built on inclusivity not “survival of the fittest”. DM