Essay On South African Language

South Africa faces the severe risk of losing most of its authentic African languages, therefore imperative action needs to be taken to revive and restore its dignity. It is over a decade since language policy has included African indigenous languages in the constitution of south Africa. However very little appears that there has not been much move in the developmental stage of these languages. The South African Ministerial Committee (2003) states, “… sustained commitment to sound policy implementation over the next two to three decades should ensure success” (Ministerial Committee, 2003, p4.). The institution of higher education reflects a fifty percent decline of student enrollments in indigenous languages since 1999 (Ministerial Committee, 2003, p.19). It appears that the youth of South Africa lacks interest and historical education on the importance of the indigenous African languages of the nation. This

This in turn results in the language not being passed on to the next generation, therefore dying out of society (UNESCO, 2003, p.2). The 2011 South African language Census results to determine the mother tongue (home language) of South African’s reflect: “South Africa’s nine indigenous languages are IsiXhosa, isiZulu, Setswana, Sesotho, XiTsonga, IsiNdebele, Siswati, Tshivenda and Sepedi. The percentages of language used as the home language to South Africans are; isiZulu 22.7%, IsiXhosa 16%,

Afrikaans 13.5%, English 9.6%, Setswana 8%, Sesotho 7.6%, the rest of the languages is spoken as home languages by less than 5% of the population each. Other African languages, Ndebele and Setswana are rarely used in South Africa and are mainly spoken in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana” (Brand South Africa, 2012, “Language distribution”