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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
         
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

  

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 Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cambridge.org

© Cambridge University Press 2004

First published in printed format 2002

ISBN 0-511-03146-7 eBook (Adobe Reader)

ISBN 0-521-79105-7 hardback

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

v
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. m c cormick
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
Department of General Linguistics
University of Stellenbosch
Ralph Adendorff
Department of Linguistics
University of Natal, Durban
Philemon Akach
Unit for Language Facilitation and
Empowerment
University of the Free State
Richard Bailey
Department of Speech Therapy
University of Durban-Westville
William Branford
c/o Department of Linguistics
University of Cape Town
J. Keith Chick
Department of Linguistics
University of Natal, Durban
John S. Claughton
Department of African Languages
Rhodes University
Elizabeth de Kadt
Department of Europe Studies
University of Natal, Durban
Vivian de Klerk
Department of Linguistics
Rhodes University
Rosalie Finlayson
Department of African Languages
University of South Africa
David Gough
School of Languages
Christchurch Polytechnic
Robert K. Herbert
Department of Anthropology
State University of New York
Kathleen Heugh
Project for Alternative Education in
South Africa
University of Cape Town
Roger Lass
Department of Linguistics
University of Cape Town
Khekheti D. Makhudu
SABC Group Communications
Kay McCormick
Department of Linguistics
University of Cape Town
ix
x List of contributors
Rajend Mesthrie
Department of Linguistics and
Southern African Languages
University of Cape Town
Sarah Murray
Department of Education
Rhodes University
Dumisani K. Ntshangase
Centre for University Learning
and Teaching
University of the Witwatersrand
T. G. Reagan
School of Education
University of Connecticut
Paul T. Roberge
Department of Germanic Studies
University of North Carolina
Sarah Slabbert
Honorary Research Associate
Modern Languages
University of the Witwatersrand
Gerald L. Stone
independent researcher
Anthony T. Traill
Department of Linguistics
University of the Witwatersrand
 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 lan-
guage 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,

xi
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 – A People’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. ū)
: long vowel (e.g. u:)
 nasalised vowel (e.g. ũ)
, close vowel (e.g. u̧)
. 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. ǔ)
 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

xv
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
 Introduction

This volume is the fifth in a group of books which aims to present a detailed
overview of the languages and language-related issues in specific territories. The
previous volumes, on the USA, the British Isles, Australia and Canada, have
successfully attained these aims, and have served as well-referenced introduc-
tions to those areas for students trained in linguistics as well as for general
readers. It is hoped that, despite the complexities of South African history and
language politics, the present volume will prove as useful a reference. It is my
brief in this introduction to make comparisons with previous volumes in the
series, and to outline the issues that make language a concern of the wider public
in South Africa.

1 COMPARISONS WITH THE USA, BRITAIN, AUSTRALIA AND

CANADA
English has been dominant in South Africa for two centuries and, with its rival
Afrikaans, it has changed the linguistic ecology of southern Africa irrevocably.
However, the differences between the position of English in South Africa and,
say, Australia are quite significant. English is not numerically dominant in South
Africa, and functional multilingualism is more common here than in the other
territories represented in this series thus far. Many of the indigenous languages
have continued to thrive as first languages, with large numbers of mother-tongue
speakers and many second-language speakers. Nine of the indigenous languages
have attained official status in addition to Afrikaans and English: Ndebele, North
Sotho, South Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. In this
regard the fate of South Africa’s local languages may seem very different from
the destruction and marginalisation of languages like Huron in Canada, Yahi
in the USA and Dyirbal in Australia. Yet South Africa has seen language geno-
cide too: the fate of the Khoesan languages, once widespread in the country, has
been even worse than that of the native languages of Australia, the USA and
Canada. Some further differences between South Africa and the other territories
surveyed in the series are as follows:

1
2 Introduction
r Although the number of speakers of English as an additional language con-
tinues to grow, when speakers give up their language under pressure from
another language, it is not always towards English that the shifts occur. For
example, in some urban areas Tsonga and Venda speakers shift to the dominant
African language of the area, like Sotho. Chapter 15 by R. K. Herbert details
an ongoing shift from Tsonga to Zulu in some parts of the country.
r Dell Hymes’ lament (1981: vi) in his foreword to the American volume in
this series that there was not a single chair in the United States devoted to
the study of native American languages does not hold true in South Africa,
where departments of African languages are relatively large and numerous.
(However, many departments of African languages currently face a large
decline in enrolment.) Hymes’ remark does resonate for Khoesan languages,
which are not taught as subjects at South African universities. The number of
linguists acquainted with Khoesan structure is accordingly minuscule.
r There is greater pressure on other groups of people in South Africa to learn
an indigenous language than is the case in the UK, the USA, Canada or
Australia. Speakers of English and Afrikaans in rural areas often do learn an
African language ‘naturally’ from childhood, in some cases even before they
learn English or Afrikaans. Gough (1996) records the positive associations
that speaking Xhosa has for a white eastern Cape farming community, whose
vernacular English, especially among males, is peppered with Xhosa words,
phrases and ideophones. However, Kaschula (1989) believes that generally the
farming register of whites in the eastern Cape is a limited one that precludes
serious bonding with Xhosa employees.
r Some newspapers in African languages are quite successful in having a large
circulation, e.g. the Xhosa newspaper Imvo and the Zulu newspaper Ilanga.
Overall, though, the rate of functional literacy in South Africa is not high.
Harley et al. (1996) put the number of adults who have not completed primary
education at 7.45 million. Equating illiteracy with this level of seven years
of formal schooling, and with the total adult population estimated to be
26 million, this constitutes an adult illiteracy rate of 29 per cent.1

2 THE FORMAT OF THIS BOOK

Deciding on a format for this book has not been straightforward. Indeed, looking
through the previous four volumes in this series, it is clear that there is no
overarching formula that will present the complexities of language distribu-
tion, description and function in the territories concerned. Ferguson and Heath
settled upon a simple formula for their USA collection: ‘American English;
Languages before English; Languages after English, Language in use’. Such
a formula would be highly controversial in the South African context, since it
would impose a misleading Anglocentric view of the country. Trudgill’s volume
 Introduction 3

on the British Isles has as its major partitions ‘English; Celtic languages; Other
languages; and The Sociolinguistic Situation’. The volume on Canada begins
with a collection of chapters dealing with the most important current language
and language-related matters in a thematic way and then switches focus to its
ten provinces and two northern territories. This seems to work well in giving an
overview of language in the Canadian context. For South Africa it is doubtful
that this success can be repeated, since – with few exceptions – regional de-
scriptions of language in the nine provinces have yet to be done systematically.
The nine provinces themselves are only a few years old; and as maps 1.1, 1.2
and 1.3 show, the provincial boundaries of South Africa in the three periods – the
nineteenth century, the apartheid period and the post-apartheid era – differ quite
drastically. The format of the present volume comes closest to the Australian
volume which has the following headings: ‘Aboriginal and Islander languages;
Pidgins and creoles; Transplanted languages other than English; Varieties of
Australian English; Public policy and social issues’.
The division of this volume is partly historical and partly thematic. Part 1
comprises eight chapters on the main language groupings in the country:
Khoesan, Bantu, Afrikaans, English, Sign Language, German (as a represen-
tative of European languages, other than the two official ones) and Indian
languages (as representing some of the changes undergone by multilingual
Asian communities that came to South Africa). Part 1 thus may be considered
the foundations of the modern South African language mosaic, though it cannot
claim to be exhaustive.
Part 2 covers the theme of language contact in thirteen chapters. The focus
falls on the following:
(a) borrowing, mixing and switching between languages as well as on intercul-
tural communication norms and misconceptions;
(b) language change and shifts from one language to another in some commu-
nities, with particular reference to the role of gender;
(c) a closer study of the characteristics of two new varieties of English, which
owe their distinctiveness in no small measure to the particularities of colo-
nial and apartheid policies;
(d) the rise of new township codes, based on Afrikaans and/or the Bantu
languages of the country.
Part 3 deals with language planning, policy and education, with a special
eye on recent developments. In the early and mid-1990s planning and policy
were the key areas that occupied the attentions of sociolinguists. Part 3 is thus
a fitting way of rounding off this book by testing the heat generated at the
linguistic fireplace. It deals further with the rationale for the most multilingual
state policy in the world; the problems and obstacles associated with the policy;
and the vision required to put the policy into effective practice.
4 Introduction

3 TERMINOLOGY
Terminology pertaining to languages and social groups in South Africa – as in
some other countries – can be a minefield. In this respect language use clearly
reflects and replicates struggles over various kinds of political inequality, chiefly
involving gender, class and ethnicity. Readers in South Africa have become
accustomed to quotation marks, variant spellings and epithets like ‘so-called’,
‘officially classified’, and – now – ‘formerly classified’ in much academic
writing describing specific communities. These labels reflect the desire of many
academics not to ‘naturalise’ a largely arbitrary division among people, made
in the interests of apartheid. There is no consensus among contributors to this
volume about the appropriateness of the scare-quotes and the lack of capi-
talisation for the term coloured (which were meant to signify opposition to
the apartheid labels). For the sake of internal consistency and after much de-
bate we have settled on coloured, white and black with no further punctuation.
(Terms pertaining to forms of identification other than colour are given the
usual capitalisation: thus Afrikaner, Zulu or Indian.) This solution is by no
means perfect, since some political writers prefer to draw a distinction between
Black (a positive term for people of indigenous African descent) and black
(a positive term that embraced a sense of unity amongst Blacks, Indians and
coloureds against apartheid). Fortunately context usually makes it clear whether
the broader or the more usual narrower sense is intended. Synonyms for the term
‘black’ are numerous and have all run foul of the process of semantic derogation.
An early term, used without denigration by the missionaries of the nineteenth
century for the Nguni-speaking people, was Kaffir, based on the Arabic for
‘unbeliever’. The term eventually attained disrepute in popular parlance and is
considered highly offensive today. (In one of the library copies at my univer-
sity of the Dictionary of South African English, the pages containing a detailed
entry for this item were conspicuously crossed out – presumably by an enraged
student.) Other terms like native came to be used officially and colloquially in
the early twentieth century, but these too eventually became quite offensive.
Even today a linguist has to be wary of the connotations of the term ‘native
speaker’, especially ‘native speaker of an African language’. The more cir-
cumspect ‘mother-tongue speaker’ is the usual phrase one encounters in South
African sociolinguistic writing. Other synonyms were tried out by the apartheid
regimes, notably Bantu (from aba-ntu, the Nguni word for ‘people’, made up
of the plural prefix aba plus the root ntu for ‘person’). Because repressive
apartheid policies frequently contained this word (e.g. Bantu Administration
Board, Bantu education) and because it sounded grammatically incongruous
to hear it used as a singular form (a bantu), the word itself became associated
with apartheid, and went the same way as its predecessors. So strong was the
stigma attached to the word that linguists were in the uncomfortable position
of being just about the only ones using it, since it already denoted a particular
 Introduction 5

sub-family of the Niger–Congo family, the largest in Africa. For a time the
term Sintu was promulgated as a more acceptable term for linguists, which
would do away with bantu altogether. This term (containing an appropriate
prefix si- for a language, and the root -ntu for ‘person’) never fully caught
on; though it is safe to say that Bantu is still a term one employs with care.
In this text it is used only as a technical term within historical linguistic dis-
cussion. However, we can take heart from a call from one academic (N. Maake
at a conference in 1998) that it is time people reclaimed the positive aspect of
the term bantu. (A student of mine, M. Ntleki, has reminded me, too, of the
names of prominent political figures like Bantu Stephen (Steve) Biko and Bantu
Holomisa.)
Our unholy grail does not end here. For a while in the 1970s apartheid
ideologues stressed the plurality of cultures and advocated the term ‘plural
development’ for their discriminatory homeland policy. Some wags began
referring to black people as ‘plurals’, and there was the linguistic joke en-
quiring whether Kaizer Matanzima, who was the first person to be installed
as a homeland leader, should be described as ‘the first person plural’. The
Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles contains some
wonderful citations for ‘plural’:
1978 Drum (magazine) June 2 Just imagine overseas readers of South African newspa-
pers rolling on the floor in fits of laughter when read something like ‘The Dube hostel
is built to accommodate 10 000 single male Plurals’ . . .
1978 Sunday Times July 16: . . . Every Government Department has received a letter from
the Secretary for Plural Relations which says: ‘The Honourable the Minister of Plural
Relations and Development has indicated that the word “plural” must please under no
circumstances be used as a noun to mean “Bantu”.’
At about the same time, proponents of Black Consciousness were proposing
new terms like Azanian for the people of South Africa (from the root -zan,
found in words like Tanzania and Zanzibar) and Azania for the country. The
Azanian People’s Organisation remains part of the political landscape of what
is still ‘South Africa’.
The term African is a positive one that has many connotations and deno-
tations. In one sense it is used as a slightly more favourable term than black
(in the narrow sense). However, it can sometimes clash with the other sense
pertaining to people from the entire continent of Africa. It is also sometimes
contested as being too exclusive: one letter to the editor of the Cape Argus in
1998 complained that it was racist to limit the term to black people: African, it
argued, should mean any person born in Africa, not just a black person. In this
parlance black African would not be tautologous.
Related to the contested polysemy of African are the meanings of the terms
Afrikaans and Afrikaner, respectively ‘language of Africa’ and ‘person of
Africa’. Nowadays it is becoming quite common to hear claims that Afrikaans
6 Introduction

is an African language and an indigenous one at that. At stake here are ques-
tions of continued access to resources and support in educational institutions.
In one sense of ‘indigenous’, Afrikaans may well qualify, since its speakers
believe it to be a unique creation within Africa, which is not spoken out-
side southern Africa. How different Afrikaans is from Dutch and whether it is
really a separate structural entity, rather than a modification of Dutch, is not a
straightforward issue (see Roberge, chap. 4, this volume). In another sense of
‘indigenous’ and ‘African’, with all the connotations of not having had access
to resources previously and not being developed for use in higher education,
Afrikaans clearly falls on the other side. Finally, African, meaning ‘belonging
to Africa’, should not be confused with the technical linguistic sense of a com-
posite of the four families of Africa: Hamito-Semitic, Khoesan, Niger–Congo,
Nilo-Saharan.
The terminological problems do not end with the synonyms for ‘black’. The
colonial terms ‘Hottentot’ and ‘Bushman’ are also (mostly) in disrepute, an-
thropologists and linguists for a time preferring ‘Khoi’ and ‘San’ respectively.
Khoi was differentiated into ‘Khoi’ (for the language) and ‘Khoikhoi’ for
the people. However, since Khoikhoi etymologically means ‘men of men’
and San is a word that the San themselves did not use (and may well be
derogatory) there is much reason to tread warily. (One positive etymology is
the root sa-, ‘to inhabit, dwell, be located’, suggesting their primordial status.)
Archaeologists are gradually reverting to the term ‘Bushman’ in recognition
that ‘San’ might be no better in its connotations, and on the explicit preferences
of one group, the Ju/wasi (Parkington 1994: 209). Furthermore, Traill (chap. 2,
this volume) argues for the spellings Khoe and Khoekhoe, accepting Nienaber’s
arguments that this is the best representation of the phonetics, and is the form
preferred in Nama orthography. ‘Khoesan’ is a convenient term of reference
for the composite group of Khoekhoe and San, though it might misleadingly
imply a historical and cultural unity. See Traill’s important note 1 on a further
linguistic distinction between ‘Khoe’ and ‘Khoekhoe’.
There is ongoing debate about the use of prefixes for denoting African lan-
guages, and contributors to this volume have made their differing preferences
clearly known to me. For reasons set out by Herbert (1992: 6–7) and Bailey
(1995: 34–5) language names in this book will generally be used without pre-
fixes (Zulu rather than isiZulu). (One exception is the spelling Iscamtho favoured
by Ntshangase in this volume, for a variety that has not otherwise been commit-
ted to writing.) See further Herbert and Bailey (chap. 3 in this volume, note 3).
Finally, although it has been customary for two decades to refer to ‘South
African Black English’, ‘South African Coloured English’ and ‘South African
Indian English’, but just ‘South African English’ for the L1 variety of whites,
I follow de Klerk’s (1996) lead in opting for ‘South African English’ as a general
cover term, which can be prefaced by any ethnic or other descriptive label as
 Introduction 7

necessary. Unfortunately the acronyms no longer roll off the tip of the tongue
(e.g. ISAE versus the older SAIE). The use of ethnic descriptors should not be
taken as unqualified acceptance of old apartheid labels – though few linguists
would dispute that the sociolects described here are very much still in existence.
However, we should be equally alert to the possibility of new non-ethnic forms
of English that might be developing, as seems to be happening with young
urban people at some schools, colleges and universities.
In concluding this section on disputes and changes in terminology, I am
struck by the aptness of Edwards’ (1998: 1) remarks in the previous volume on
the Canadian situation: ‘In some settings, disputes over language and culture
are largely symbolic; deeper problems between groups lie elsewhere, usually
in political or economic domains, and language, or religion, or tradition act
mainly as team jerseys.’

4 EDITORIAL NOTE

This book had its first incarnation as Language and Social History: Studies
in South African Sociolinguistics, published in Cape Town by David Philip in
1995. The present volume is a revised and updated version of that book. For
reasons of space and to accommodate some new research, six chapters of the
previous volume had to make way for five new ones. (The remaining chapters
have been revised and updated to varying degrees, some quite considerably.)
The editor wishes to stress that the six chapters from the previous volume not
included here are well worth study and are equally valid today. For reasons of
space, certain new topics could not be accommodated in the present volume.
For example, the status of Afrikaans in post-apartheid South Africa is a topic
of immense interest generally, and of pressing concern to some sectors of the
South African population. (On this issue the reader is referred to van Rensburg
1999. In this volume the status of Afrikaans has been discussed as part of the
unfolding new language dispensation.)

note
1 The authors defined an adult as someone over fifteen.

bibliography
Bailey, R. 1995. ‘The Bantu languages of South Africa: towards a sociohistorical
perspective’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South
African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 19–38.
de Klerk, V. 1996. Focus on South Africa (Series: Varieties of English around the World).
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Edwards, J. 1998. Language in Canada. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ferguson, C. A. and S. B. Heath 1981. Language in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
8 Introduction

Gough, D. 1996. ‘The English of white eastern Cape farmers in South Africa’. World
Englishes, 5, 3: 257–65.
Harley, A., J. Aitchison, S. Land and E. Lyster 1996. A Survey of Adult Basic Education
in South Africa in the 1990s. Cape Town: Sached Books.
Herbert, R. K. 1992. ‘Language in a divided society’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Language
and Society in Africa: The Theory and Practice of Sociolinguistics. Johannesburg:
Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 1–19.
Hymes, D. 1981. ‘Foreword’. In Ferguson and Heath, pp. v–ix.
Kaschula, R. 1989. ‘Cross-cultural communication in a north-eastern Cape farming
community’. South African Journal of African Languages, 9, 3: 100–4.
Parkington, J. 1994. ‘San’. In Saunders (ed.), pp. 208–9.
Romaine, S. 1991. Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Saunders, C. C. 1994 (ed.). An Illustrated Dictionary of South African History.
Johannesburg: Ibis Books.
Silva, P. 1996 (ed.). A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trudgill, P. 1984. Language in the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Rensburg, C. 1999. ‘Afrikaans and Apartheid’. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, 136: 77–96.
Part 1

The main language groupings

1 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview

R. Mesthrie

1 LANGUAGE PROFILE
South Africa has been the meeting ground of speakers of languages belonging
to several major families, the chief ones being Khoesan, Niger–Congo, Indo-
European and Sign Language.1 (It is surely time to include Sign languages in
our genealogies of language, and to devote as much space to them as to any
other language family in our sociolinguistic surveys.) The Khoe (formerly called
‘Hottentot’) and San (a.k.a. ‘Bushman’) languages, thought to be historically
unrelated (and in fact divisible into three families) are now, with very few
exceptions, close to extinction. The Bantu languages (belonging to the wider
Niger–Congo family) are the numerically predominant languages of the country,
comprising essentially the following:
r the Nguni cluster (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele);
r the Sotho cluster (North Sotho, South Sotho, Tswana);
r Tsonga;
r Venda.
(See map 15.1 for the main distribution patterns of these languages.) The term
‘cluster’ denotes a set of varieties that are closely related along linguistic lines
(though in terms of socio-political status the varieties may be quite independent).
In addition to these official languages a number of Bantu languages are spoken
in smaller numbers by migrant mineworkers from neighbouring countries, and
by more recent immigrants. Such languages include Chopi, Kalanga, Shona,
Chewa, etc. Still other special cases exist: Phuthi, for example, is a minority
language of the eastern Cape, more widely represented in the neighbouring
country, Lesotho (Donnelly 1999); Makhuwa and Yao are languages spoken in
Durban by the descendants of ex-slaves from Mozambique dating back to the
1870s (Mesthrie 1996).
The Indo-European family in South Africa has members of the Germanic
branch (English and Afrikaans, and, to a lesser extent, German), the Indic branch
(Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Konkani among others) and the Romance branch
(chiefly Portuguese, spoken to varying degrees by immigrants from Angola,

11
12 R. Mesthrie

Mozambique and other parts of Africa). Smaller numbers of speakers of Polish,

Dutch, Italian and so forth may be found. In former times large numbers of
French-speaking Huguenots lived in the Cape, but they were soon linguistically
assimilated to Dutch/Afrikaans. In post-apartheid South Africa, a second ripple
of French, this time from within Africa, can be discerned, since it is now possible
for black professionals to obtain work permits and citizenship rights in South
Africa. There is also a large number of refugees from central and southern
Africa (Crawhall 1996). This has brought many new African languages into the
country, as well as African varieties of French and Portuguese.
Other language families of note in South Africa include the Dravidian group
(Tamil and Telugu) and the Polynesian languages (Malay, Malagasy, etc.) The
former languages are in decline; the latter, once used by slaves in the Cape, are
now extinct. Chinese languages (principally Cantonese, Hakka and Mandarin)
are also represented in South Africa in small numbers today, with families
having roots in Taiwan and China.
Varieties which are not given sanction in the official censuses include urban
lingua francas (Tsotsitaal, Flaaitaal, Iscamtho) and the pidgin Fanakalo. In
asserting that there were no classical languages in South Africa, Van Wyk
(1978: 37) was wide of the mark. For centuries classical Arabic has been a very
important feature of the religio-cultural life of Cape Muslims (see Mohamed
1997); Hebrew in Judaism and Sanskrit in Hinduism have been used in the same
sphere for over a century in this country; and Greek and Latin are still used on
occasion in some churches, though less so than in former times.

2 LANGUAGE STATISTICS

The 1996 census showed an improvement in its language question over its
predecessors, since it attempted to elicit whether respondents ‘spoke more than
one language at home, and if so, what was the next most often spoken language’
(Census Database 1996). However, even this does not go far enough in parts of
the country where many individuals are proficient in several languages. In urban
areas like Gauteng it is quite common to receive answers like the following from
students from Gauteng about the languages they are proficient in:

My father’s home language was Swazi, and my mother’s home language was Tswana.
But as I grew up in a Zulu-speaking area we used mainly Zulu and Swazi at home. But
from my mother’s side I also learnt Tswana well. In my high school I came into contact
with lots of Sotho and Tswana students, so I can speak these two languages well. And
of course I know English and Afrikaans. With my friends I also use Tsotsitaal. (Twenty-
three-year-old male student from Germiston)

Another student interviewed in 1993 had a fluent speaking knowledge of (North

and South) Sotho, Tswana, English, Tsonga and, to a lesser extent, Zulu, Swazi
and Ndebele. She had picked up these languages mostly from exposure in the
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 13

Table 1.1 The home languages of South Africa

in 1996: numbers and percentages

Nguni languages
Ndebele 586,961 1.5
Swati 1,013,193 2.5
Xhosa 7,196,118 17.9
Zulu 9,200,144 22.9
Sotho languages
North Sotho 3,695,846 9.2
South Sotho 3,104,197 7.7
Tswana 3,301,774 8.2
Tsonga 1,756,105 4.4
Venda 876,409 2.2
Afrikaans 5,811,547 14.4
English 3,457,467 8.6
other 228,275 0.6
unspecified 355,538 −
TOTAL 40,583,573

neighbourhoods. In the course of moving from area to area with her family,
she had attended schools in which the dominant African languages were: North
Sotho (up to Standard 1 = grade 3); Tswana (up to Standard 5 = grade 7);
South Sotho (up to Standard 6 = grade 8); North Sotho again (up to Standard
8 = grade 10) and Tswana again (up to Standard 10 = grade 12).
At that time only bilingualism in English and Afrikaans was taken seriously
by the apartheid censuses. For example, the census figures for African languages
in the 1991 census excluded speakers from the Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda
and Ciskei homelands. The presentation of language demographics in abbre-
viated tabular form should not be allowed to conceal the essentially dynamic
nature of language use in any society. Language statistics must always be in flux
with large-scale movements in and out of the country, with shifts in language
preferences, and above all the very fluid multilingual nature of communication
(with changing preferences and the birth of new codes) within countries like
South Africa.

3 SOCIOHISTORICAL PROFILE

An understanding of the present linguistic order and of past language sym-

bioses and conflicts in South Africa cannot be achieved without an overview
of the country’s history. The most indigenous of South African groups are
the people labelled ‘Khoesan’, who had existed as hunter-gatherers in small
bands comprising a few small families. Some Khoesan were also livestock
herders. Their languages were not all related; Traill (chap. 2, this volume) argues
14 R. Mesthrie

for three distinct families of languages within this traditional designation (see
chap. 2, n. 2). Khoesan peoples may have originated further north – the ar-
chaeological and linguistic evidence suggests northern Botswana; and two San
languages (Sandawe and Hadza) are still to be found as far north as Tanzania.
Khoesan and Bantu contacts in southern Africa were extensive, as suggested
by Parsons: ‘The Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Africa are inheritors of
Khoisan ancestry and culture, which may be seen not only in their physical
appearance but in their religions and medical ideas and in their folk tales about
wild animals’ (1982: 19).
Relations between Khoesan and later southern African settlers varied: the
above quotation suggests that relations must have been mostly peaceful (if sub-
servient) with the Bantu-speaking peoples (see Herbert, chap. 15, this volume).
Relations with European settlers were less benign, leading to the ultimate de-
struction or radical transformation of Khoekhoe and San society. There are
no Khoe languages spoken in South Africa today; Nama – still spoken in
Namibia – may be described in colonial parlance as the last of the Hottentot
languages. San languages do survive in Namibia, Botswana and elsewhere, and
in ever-shrinking numbers in South Africa. Their speakers may have largely
shifted to Afrikaans, but they often retain a distinctive identity.
The Bantu languages of South Africa are classified as part of the Niger–
Kordofanian family, spoken over two to three thousand years ago in what is
today the Cameroon–Nigeria region. Iron Age civilisation was brought south
of the Zambesi and Limpopo by small numbers of Bantu-speaking farmers who
first appeared a few centuries ad (see chap. 3).
A key event in modern South African history was the establishment by the
Dutch, the richest European trading nation of the time, of a trading station at
the Cape in 1652. Prior to this there had been stopovers by Portuguese and
English sailors for the purpose of refreshment and recuperation. As a result
a jargon form of English with words from Portuguese and Dutch came to be
known by the locals well before 1652 (den Besten 1989). Although the Cape
was initially regarded as only a refreshment post, it soon developed into an
extensive colony, and as such required government. The settlement at the Cape
came to include in time a large proportion of Germans and Huguenot French
refugees, and other Europeans in small numbers, all of whom formed a new
Cape Dutch community, for convenience simply labelled ‘Dutch’ here. Strife
soon followed between Dutch and Khoesan over land and cattle. The Dutch
had to look elsewhere for labour for the new colony: they imported slaves in
large numbers from 1658 onwards from Madagascar, Mozambique, the East
Indies and India. It is one of the ironies of history that at about the time that
large numbers of African slaves were being forcibly exported out of Africa into
the New World, the southern tip of Africa was itself stocking up on slaves from
the East. The slave population of the Cape was possibly one of the most diverse
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 15

in the world in terms of origins, religion, culture and language. The roots of
the large coloured population of the western Cape go back to this period, with
a multiple ancestry that involves the Khoesan, Eastern and African slaves, and
the offspring of European and non-European. The Khoesan were to a large
extent reduced in numbers because of conflicts with the Dutch and the effects
of European diseases, notably the smallpox epidemic of 1713.
Eastward expansion took Dutch farmers away from the small colony at the
Cape, and into conflict with the Xhosa in the late eighteenth century. In 1795, at
the time of the Napoleonic wars, British forces captured Cape Town, and took
over the colony as a naval base. With the ensuing peace of 1803, the colony
was handed back to the Dutch, but not for long; Cape Town was recaptured
by the British in 1806. From this time European missionary activity became
significant, with the first schools for black and coloured people being set up on a
small scale. The first purely civilian British population came later in 1820, with
poorer sections of British society being settled in the eastern Cape, far from
the polite society of Cape Town. These eastern Cape settlers became embroiled
in frontier wars with the Xhosa. The roots of South African English go back
largely to this settlement (see chap. 5). The British followed an Anglicisation
policy in the Cape, replacing Dutch with English as the language of government,
education and law. This was one of the causes of Dutch discontent. Feeling their
religion, culture and language under threat, and with their right to keep slaves
eroded with the emancipation of 1834, as well as for other economic reasons,
Afrikaners trekked further into the interior with the intention of escaping British
influence. By this time Afrikaans had evolved as a colloquial variety of Dutch,
with admixture from other languages. As early as 1707 Hendrik Bibault had
declared, Ik ben een Africaander – ‘I am an Afrikaner’ (Prinsloo 1994: 7–9).
Afrikaans culture, which had evolved out of the Dutch and slave experience
in Africa, gelled as people moved away from Cape Town. (This was the same
period in which Europeans were expanding – also via wagons – into the interiors
of South America and Australia.)
The period from the 1820s onwards is regarded as one of great flux in political
alignments among the indigenous Bantu-speaking peoples. Traditional history
recounts the rise to power of Shaka in consolidation of a Zulu empire in Natal.
He was both a powerful and shrewd military leader, and a despot according
to most accounts. The consolidation of a Zulu unity led to conflicts with other
chieftains, and this is known as the period of the Mfecane (an Nguni word for
‘great wandering, dispersion of people’). Of particular note is the trek of the
Ndebele people away from Zulu territory to the highveld, and subsequently
away from Afrikaner firepower into what is now south-western Zimbabwe.
Ndebele is today spoken in Zimbabwe and northern parts of South Africa
(especially the former Kwa Ndebele homeland). Another victim of the Mfecane
are the Mfengu, believed to have fled from Zululand to the eastern Cape to live
16 R. Mesthrie

as clients of the Xhosa and the colonists. Their language tends to be classified as
a social dialect of Xhosa, rather than Zulu. The historian Julian Cobbing (1983)
has criticised the Mfecane thesis, arguing that it was popularised by colonial
historians, as a legitimisation of white conquest. The upheavals of the time, he
argues, were not so much related to Shaka’s rise to power as to the penetration of
commercial capitalism, including covert slave-trading. Critics of the Cobbing
thesis are unhappy about the lack of substantial evidence in its favour.
The 1820s onwards was the period when African languages were being writ-
ten down for the first time by missionaries, in conjunction with local consultants.
It was an exciting and taxing time for linguists among the missionaries, who
battled to come to terms with the unfamiliar structures of African languages. For
example, the principle of alliterative or euphonic concord – elaborate agreement
between prefixes of subject nouns with verbs and other entities like adjectives,
and genitival and relative nouns – was only discovered over thirty years after
the first missionaries arrived in the eastern Cape. Reverend John Bennie pub-
lished a monograph in 1826 entitled A Systematic Vocabulary of the Kaffrarian
[= Xhosa] Language in Two Parts; To Which is Attached an Introduction to
Kaffrarian Grammar, in which he came close to discovering the principle, with-
out actually hitting on it (Doke 1959). Reverend William Boyce, who arrived
in South Africa in 1830, published his discovery of the principles of concord
in 1834, eight years after Bennie’s work.
The earliest Xhosa written texts were translations of the Gospels. In many
territories the dialect selected by the missionaries for writing came to have
prestige because of this association. The rise of African languages thus did not
follow from the more familiar bases of standardisation familiar in the West:
urbanisation and the prestige accruing from the economic and social status of
certain groups of speakers. Rather, it was based on the external force of mis-
sionary influence. This has developed into a modern-day paradox: the standard
varieties of African languages are associated with the rural areas, which are
no longer centres of prestige. High-status blacks are more likely to be urban-
wise ‘modern’ people, who speak English and non-standard urban varieties of
African languages, showing extensive borrowing of vocabulary, code-switching
and neologisms. The question can thus be raised whether the standardisation of
African languages via the mission presses, sermons and nineteenth-century dic-
tionaries may have taken place too early to be effective as a norm representing
black social and political aspirations.
From the late 1840s onwards a second British settlement took place, this
time in Natal, which had been annexed from the Afrikaners by the British in
1843. Described as largely ‘impecunious aristocrats’ by the historian Hattersley
(1940), they were of different regional and social origins from the earlier
settlers in the eastern Cape, and more mindful of the social symbols and
system of Victorian England (Lanham 1978: 158). Lanham locates many of the
more prestigious phonetic developments of twentieth-century South African
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 17

English as emanating from this group. Although many British children born in
Natal learnt Zulu, a new pidgin form, then called Kitchen Kaffir (modern-day
Fanakalo), stabilised in Natal out of contacts between the English, Zulus and
Afrikaners. The colonists needed to find a cheap labour source other than among
the local Zulus, whose men initially resisted cheap manual labour. The Natal
government looked to India as a source of cheap labour, and between 1860 and
1911 over a hundred and fifty thousand Indian people were brought to Natal.
For the greater part of the twentieth century the population of Indians exceeded
that of whites in Natal province.
The trekking Afrikaners eventually established the republics of the Transvaal
and Orange Free State in the 1850s. Although they had chosen to escape British
domination, and had installed Dutch as the official language of the republics,
the influence of the English language was still strong. For example, one of the
trekkers, Anna Steenkamp, kept a diary in English. The Bloemfontein news-
paper of the time, The Friend of Sovereignty, continued to be published in
English (Parsons 1982: 119). Lanham (1978: 119) mentions that parents in
Pretoria were demanding more English and less Dutch in their schools, up
to the 1890s. Meanwhile, in the 1870s in the Cape a tradition of writing in
Afrikaans rather than Dutch was emerging, with the formation of the Fellow-
ship of True Afrikaners in Paarl, outside Cape Town. It is another irony of
history that Afrikaans was first substantially written by the descendants of
Muslim slaves, who used Arabic script in writing Afrikaans religious texts.
According to Davids (1990: 1) seventy-four such texts are extant, the bulk of
them produced between 1868 and 1910.
The 1860s are better known as the period of the discovery of enormous
deposits of precious metals in the interior. The scramble to gain possession
of the new wealth brought Britain into conflict with the Afrikaner republics.
The Transvaal was annexed as a British colony in 1877. Afrikaner nationalism
gelled in this period with the resentment at British rapacity. Two wars were
fought over control of the land and its wealth, in 1881, when the Afrikaners
won back the Transvaal, and between 1899 and 1902 (in what is now called
‘the South African War’) when they were heavily defeated and maltreated. In
1879 a British force had invaded Zululand to protect its new Transvaal colony
from a supposed Zulu threat. This was the offensive that brought about the
final subjection of black people in the nineteenth century. The late nineteenth
century saw urbanisation on a large scale, with a large influx of Europeans of
Christian and Jewish faith. It also saw a large-scale movement of black people
into the mining areas. Parsons (1982: 148) cites a visiting British historian’s
description of Kimberley, the centre of the diamond industry, in 1895: ‘Here
in the vast oblong compound, one sees Zulus from Natal, Fingoes, Pondos,
Tembus, Basutos, Bechuanas, Gungunhanas, subjects from the Portuguese
territories, some few Matabili and Makalaka, and plenty of Zambesi boys
from the tribes on both sides of that great river. There were 2, 600 workers
18 R. Mesthrie

in the compound from as far north as Lake Tanganyika.’ There were also
Indians (who were not legally permitted to venture into the interior), Chinese,
and people from many parts of Europe, the USA and Australia. People of
Khoesan ancestry also did not escape the lure of the mines, in particular the
Korana and the Griqua, by then bilingual in Afrikaans and Kora/Gri. In this
great babel the pidgin Fanakalo, which had originated in the eastern Cape and
Natal, was particularly useful. The mining industry must have also sown the
seeds for new mixed urban varieties of African languages that were to become
more prominent in the twentieth century. Lanham argues convincingly that
the mining industry brought three different strands of English together (Cape
English, Natal English and, to some extent, RP), in ways that laid the foun-
dations for the twentieth-century continuum of (white) South African English
varieties.
Alfred Milner took over the administration of the conquered Boer republics
and ruled South Africa from Johannesburg between 1901 and 1905. One of his
aims was to anglicise the Afrikaners and bring them into the fold of the British
Empire. He emphasised English over Dutch in the schools. State education
was aimed at whites; the education of black people was left to the churches
and mission schools. In the wake of the atrocities of the South African War,
Afrikaners resisted Milner’s anglicisation policy. The status of Afrikaans as
bearer of local cultural values and the identity of an Afrikaner nation began to
gain prominence.
The rapid growth of capitalism in the early twentieth century drew increas-
ingly more rural people into wage labour. There were vastly disparate wages
for white and black workers (Parsons 1982: 225). The Union of South Africa
was formed in 1910, combining the two former Boer republics and the British
colonies of the Cape and Natal into one state. The state oversaw the further
dispossession of black people from their land. The Land Act of 1913, which set
aside most of the country’s land for control by whites, destroyed the economic
independence of black people. The official languages of the Union were Dutch
and English. Afrikaans was not recognised as an official language until 1925,
when it replaced Dutch in that capacity.
The apartheid governments of 1948 onwards enforced separation of peoples
along the lines of colour, with the Group Areas Act of 1950 and the pass laws.
The latter were aimed at channelling black male labourers to where they were
needed (industries and white farms), while keeping their families in the rural
areas. The 1940s saw the rapid growth of townships like Moroka, which later
formed a central part of Soweto.
The Bantu Education Act of 1953 tried to create a permanent underclass of
black people by placing rigid controls over syllabi and the media of instruction.
Equally cynically, it enforced the closure of the mission schools which offered
quality education (albeit in small numbers) to black people, often on non-
racial lines. Such sociopolitical arrangements clearly influenced the course of
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 19

1.1 Political map of South Africa of the late nineteenth century

linguistic development in South Africa, in terms of restricting access to speak-

ers of other languages, and the consequent heightening of ethnically marked
languages and dialects. For example, the main ethnic varieties of English are
till today marked not only by clearly distinguishable accents, but by certain
features of syntax as well (see chaps. 11, 17 and 18). Apartheid policy also
attempted to impose a definite linguistic hierarchy, using the education system
to play out the rivalry between Afrikaans and English. In the 1950s, contrary
to its own commission’s suggestions, the Department of Bantu Education ruled
that English and Afrikaans be introduced in the first year of schooling (to chil-
dren who were acquainted with neither language). Whereas the commission
had also suggested that only one official language (English or Afrikaans) be a
compulsory subject at secondary level, the department insisted on both, fearing
that if only one language were to be chosen, it would be English. For the same
reason both English and Afrikaans were to be used as media of instruction in
secondary schools (Hartshorne 1995: 310).
In some respects (however ideological the motivation), the apartheid policy
of mother-tongue education for up to eight years of primary school was not in
1.2 Provinces of South Africa, 1910–94
1.3 The provinces of present-day South Africa
22 R. Mesthrie

itself unsound. Problems lay in the way the policy was implemented, and in the
manner in which the wishes of parents were ignored. A UNESCO document of
1953, entitled ‘The use of vernacular languages in education’, was, at about the
same time, stressing the value of mother-tongue education in the early years of
schooling. The humanist orientation of the UNESCO document was, however,
sadly lacking in Bantu education policy.
Resistance to Bantu education and the language policy it attempted to impose
led to the Soweto uprisings of 1976. The 1970s and 1980s became a period of
intense struggle against white domination, in which schoolchildren played a
prominent role. It is worthy of note that the event that led to the eventual arrival
of democracy to the country in 1994 should have its inspiration in a linguistic
protest against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
Since it was being widely used by the anti-apartheid political leadership,
English became the language of unity and liberation. Although black schoolchil-
dren had pride in their home languages, the latter had become too closely
connected with the divide-and-rule policy of apartheid to be considered as
languages of educational and economic progress. With the negotiations that
led to the first democratic elections of 1994, it was English that was the de
facto lingua franca. The African National Congress (ANC) leadership seemed
at one time to be heading for a policy with English as the only official lan-
guage. Language was not a great priority for the ANC in the way it was for
parties representing the Afrikaner power bloc. The position of Afrikaans be-
came an important negotiating chip during negotiations (Crawhall 1993). At the
same time many educators and sociolinguists put their weight behind cultural
and linguistic pluralism. Empowering the majority of South Africans meant
empowering their languages too. A policy with English as the only official
language would have been anathema to many Afrikaans speakers. However,
having English and Afrikaans as the official languages would have given off
signals to the majority of the population that nothing had changed. Clearly
if English and Afrikaans were to remain as official languages, there was a
strong case for some African languages to be given the same status. The classic
dilemma of multilingual colonised societies then presented itself: which of the
African languages should be chosen? The politicians’ solution was to opt for
all nine of the major African languages (listed below). Whether this was an
enlightened decision or one of political and symbolic expediency, taken in the
hope that English would become the de facto working language of state, will be-
come clear in the years ahead. One possible solution that generated a great deal
of debate was a proposal by Neville Alexander (and made earlier by a politician,
Jacob Nhlapo) that a new standard Nguni language be enhanced, made up of the
‘cluster’ of Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele; as well as a new Sotho standard
based on North Sotho, South Sotho and Tswana. This would have the satisfying
outcome of having two major African languages (plus the smaller Venda and
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 23

Tsonga) as candidates for official languages. When linguists expressed strong

doubt about the feasibility of such a unification at the spoken level, Alexander
stressed the benefits at the written level. Whereas the numerous African lan-
guage boards set up by the apartheid government had worked in competition
with each other, and tried to accentuate differences, even when deciding on new
technical terms, Alexander expressed the hope that in the long term, at least at
the level of writing and publishing, the languages within each cluster could be
brought together rather than forced apart. Alexander could not have anticipated
the virulent reaction to his proposals at conferences from black academics, who
stressed the symbolic value of the African languages, which ran counter to any
attempts at linguistic engineering. The proposals were accordingly put on the
back burner. Finlayson and Slabbert (1997) have suggested that the attitudes and
linguistic practices of people within the Sotho cluster (North Sotho, South Sotho
and Tswana) make the harmonisation of this language group a better possibility
than for the Nguni cluster. Nowadays there may well be some rapprochement
of the kind envisaged by Nhlapo and Alexander taking place, not in print but on
television.

4 LANGUAGE POLICY AND FUNCTIONS

Up to the 1990s a functional profile of the languages of South Africa showed a

hierarchy, with English dominant in commerce, higher education and industry,
and Afrikaans dominant in the civil service and government, and in the police,
army and navy. African languages had not, however, been silent in public life.
They had been used as media of instruction in primary schools catering for
African pupils, sometimes unofficially even after the switch-over to English
by the fifth year of schooling. For matriculation in these schools English and
an African language were required subjects in the post-1976 era. Apartheid
broadcasting created nine separate radio stations for African languages and a
television channel for Zulu–Xhosa and Sotho–Tswana.
The country’s new constitution, passed in 1996, placed emphasis on the
link between language, culture and development in its recognition of eleven
languages for official purposes. These included the previously official lan-
guages, Afrikaans and English, as well as nine African languages: the Nguni
group of Xhosa, Zulu, Swati and Ndebele; the Sotho group of Sotho (previously
known as South Sotho), Pedi (previously known as North Sotho) and Tswana;
and Tsonga and Venda (which fall outside the Sotho and Nguni grouping).2 The
text of the constitution dealing with language (chapter 1, section 6) touches on
many important societal themes:
Languages
6. (1) The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati,
Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
24 R. Mesthrie

(2) Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous lan-
guages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate
the status and advance the use of these languages.
(3) National and provincial governments may use particular official languages for the
purposes of government, taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional
circumstances, and the balance of the needs and preferences of the population
as a whole or in respective provinces; provided that no national or provincial
government may use only one official language. Municipalities must take into
consideration the language usage and preferences of their residents.
(4) National and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must
regulate and monitor the use by those governments of official languages. Without
detracting from the provisions of subsection (2), all official languages must enjoy
parity of esteem and must be treated equitably.
(5) The Pan South African Language Board must –
(a) promote and create conditions for the development and use of
(i) all official languages
(ii) the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and
(iii) sign language
(b) promote and ensure respect for languages, including German, Greek,
Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and others commonly used
by communities in South Africa, and Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and others
used for religious purposes.

However, as the major public sectors are discovering, social change within
this broad vision is not easy to achieve in the short term, especially within a
troubled local economy and global economic pressures. The key question for
linguists and educators is the extent to which the new constitutional flexibility on
language can be put into effective practice. In some respects language policy and
practice are in flux in the post-1994 era, with many sectors still experimenting
with the most effective and the least divisive language options. A vivid picture
of the transition in the defence force in one eastern Cape centre is given by
de Klerk and Barkhuizen (1998), where although Afrikaans is being overtaken
by English, there is still room for its use and new spaces are being opened
for Xhosa in the eastern Cape. As far as education is concerned institutions at
school, college and university level previously employing an ‘Afrikaans-only’
medium have had to rethink their policies in terms of the constitution, and
post-apartheid economic realities.
As with other public sectors energies in language education are now be-
ing focused away from negotiation and planning to ‘delivery’. Two important
language initiatives in this regard are the Pan-South African Language Board
(PANSALB) and the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). PANSALB is a
permanent body established in terms of the constitution as a proactive agent for,
and watchdog over, linguistic rights. LANGTAG was a short-term initiative of
the Department of Arts, Science, Technology and Culture (DACST). Its brief
 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview 25

was to advise the minister (then Ben Ngubane) on planning for policy making
within the language guidelines of the new constitution.
LANGTAG brought together a broad range of language practitioners (includ-
ing sociolinguists) enabling comprehensive consultations with different com-
munities and sectors, intensive discussions and some new research. The task
groups presented reports on the following areas: language services; language
equity; language as an economic resource; heritage and sign languages; edu-
cation; and the position of African languages. The consolidated final report
and individual reports have been published by the Human Sciences Research
Council (HSRC) in conjunction with the DACST. The LANGTAG dossier thus
forms an important foundational set of research documents for the (macro)
sociolinguistics of post-apartheid South Africa. Other major resources include
the submissions to PANSALB (upon general invitation) by a range of cultural,
educational, political and language organisations. Furthermore, in response to
its call for written submissions the Constitutional Assembly had by March 1996
received over a thousand responses from members of the public expressing their
wishes regarding the country’s language policy. It can safely be said that plan-
ning and policy was the aspect of language study most in the public eye in the
1990s.

notes
1 Strictly speaking, Khoesan is not a ‘family’ but a ‘phylum’. That is, it is a loose
cover term for a group of families showing cultural and geographical cohesion, but
for which no linguistic unity has been proven (see Traill, chap. 2, this volume). Some
linguists (including Herbert, chap. 3, this volume) feel safer describing Niger–Congo
as a phylum rather than a family.
2 Describing North Sotho as ‘Pedi’ may have been an error, as Pedi is but one di-
alect of the language. Nowadays the term ‘North Sotho’ is being increasingly used
officially.

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Cobbing, J. 1983. ‘The case against the mfecane’. Seminar paper, Centre for African
Studies, University of Cape Town.
Crawhall, N. 1993. ‘Negotiations and language policy options in South Africa’. Cape
Town, National Language Project (unpublished document).
1996. ‘Alien tongues’. Bua, 10, 2: 4–7.
de Klerk, V. 1996 (ed.). Focus on South Africa. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
de Klerk, V. and G. Barkhuizen 1998. ‘Language attitudes in the South African National
Defence Force: views from the Sixth South African Infantry’. Multilingua, 17, 2–3:
155–80.
26 R. Mesthrie

den Besten, H. 1989. ‘From Khoekhoe foreigner talk via Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans:
the creation of a novel grammar’. In M. Pütz and R. Dirven (eds.), Wheels Within
Wheels. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 207–54.
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2 The Khoesan languages

A. Traill

1 INTRODUCTION
The sociolinguistic story of the South African Khoesan1 languages is one of
language death (Dorian 1989), and finds its place in the discussion of language
death in Africa (Dimendaal 1989, Brenzinger 1992, Brenzinger et al. 1991). In
the case of many of the Cape Khoekhoe languages or dialects, historical and
other records have been rich enough to permit some quite specific sociolinguis-
tic reconstructions of the circumstances attending their death. However, there
is not much of a sociolinguistic texture that can illuminate the well-known his-
torical record of the holocaust that finally obliterated the speakers of the /Xam
Bushman dialects in the space of forty-odd years, between 1875, when W. H. I.
Bleek and Lucy Lloyd worked with the rich (albeit threatened) language, and
about 1911, when Dorothea Bleek visited the last few speakers in Prieska and
Kenhardt. Although a contributing factor to the death of /Xam was undoubtedly
the extermination of many of its speakers, it is generally possible only to spec-
ulate about other conditions that destroyed the language. This applies to the
other Bushman languages of South Africa, with the added difficulty that many
of them were so inadequately documented that we cannot even be sure about
their exact linguistic status.

2 THE KHOESAN LANGUAGES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

Thanks to the extensive surveys of Köhler (1981), Westphal (1971) and Winter
(1981), we have detailed surveys of most of the Khoesan2 languages that
are extinct or extant. In South Africa itself, the Khoesan languages are rep-
resented today only by speakers of a Nama dialect in the Richtersveld, and
along the Orange river in the northern Cape3 and by a handful of speakers
of /’Auni and =| Khomani, closely related Southern Bushman languages of
the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, Gordonia district in the Northern Cape Province.
The Richtersveld Nama speakers are bilingual in Afrikaans and Nama, and it
appears that Nama is the dominant language for the ‘Boorlinge’ (not recent im-
migrants) speakers. Until the 1950s children were monolingual in the language,

27
28 A. Traill

2.1 South Africa c. 1960, showing places cited in chapter 2

but the effect of compulsory school education in Afrikaans may have led to
a change in language loyalty. A recent survey reports other first and second
language Nama-speaking communities, all bilingual in Afrikaans, from Port
Nolloth on the Atlantic eastward to Pella on the Orange river and into Gordonia
(Crawhall 1997: 22). The number of speakers (more accurately ‘semi-speakers’)
of /’Auni and =| Khomani (perhaps a dozen) is very small, and the language
is on the verge of extinction. Probably all the surviving speakers are more
or less trilingual, to some degree in /’Auni or =| Khomani, and in Nama and
Afrikaans.
Richtersveld and Orange river Nama are all that is left of the Khoekhoe
linguistic tradition that included the many Cape Khoekhoe dialects as well as
Nama spoken up the west coast to Namaqualand and beyond into Namibia, and
!Ora and Gri spoken to the east along the Orange, Vaal, and Harts rivers. /’Auni
and =| Khomani are the closest linguistic relatives of /Xam: their imminent disap-
pearance will complete the extinction of the !Kwi group of Southern Bushman
languages (Köhler 1981: 469). These Southern Bushman languages were once
spoken over Bushmanland and the Karoo, from the Orange river in the west
 The Khoesan languages 29

to Lesotho and the Orange Free State in the east, with the outlying language
//Xegwi found at Lake Chrissie, in the eastern Transvaal.

3 THE KHOE LANGUAGES

In the early seventeenth century there were about eleven closely similar Cape
Khoekhoe varieties spoken from the Cape of Good Hope in the west, along the
southern Cape coast and its hinterland as far east as the Fish River (Elphick
1985: 51). Estimates of the number of all South African Khoekhoe (including the
Nama) in 1652 vary between 100,000 (Elphick 1985: 23) and 200,000 (Wilson
1969: 68). Within sixty years of that date ‘the traditional Khoekhoe economy,
social structure, and political order had almost entirely collapsed’ (Elphick
1985: xvii), and smallpox epidemics in 1713, 1735 and 1767 had ravaged the
population, wiping out virtually all the western Cape Khoekhoe. And within
100 years of 1652, the western Cape Khoekhoe language had begun to disappear,
being gradually replaced by Khoe-Dutch (Nienaber 1963: 97ff.), and the Eastern
Khoekhoe varieties had been absorbed by Xhosa through political incorporation
of the Khoekhoe chiefdoms (Marais 1968: 111).
This is the dramatic background to the extinction of the Cape Khoekhoe and
the death of their language. However, far from vanishing without a trace, the
Cape Khoekhoe have had a profound effect on the genetic features of many
South Africans. Their language has exerted an influence on the development of
Afrikaans and has extensively restructured the phonological systems of Xhosa
and Zulu, greatly enriching the lexicons of these two languages in the process.
It is these influences that allow one to reconstruct aspects of the sociolinguistic
situation that led to the death of the Cape Khoekhoe languages.
Two distinct areas can be identified in this process, the first in the east between
the Kei and Keiskamma rivers, where the Khoekhoe were ‘incorporated by the
expanding Xhosa chiefdoms during the early 1700s’ (Harinck 1972: 158), and
the second in the west, where the Khoekhoe language was replaced by pidgin
Dutch or Dutch (Elphick 1985: 210ff, Nienaber 1963: 97–8). In the east ‘contact
and interaction between Xhosa and Khoe was facilitated by the fissiparous ten-
dency in the Xhosa social structure and by similarities in their respective social
organisation’ (Harinck 1972: 158). This resulted in assimilation of Khoekhoe
into Xhosa lineages and Xhosa into Khoe chiefdoms. In the latter case this gave
rise to the Gonaqua (=| gona) and later the Gqunukwebe and, from a linguis-
tic point of view, to language mixture in which the Khoekhoe language was
dominant (Harinck 1972: 157). Although Gona was a Khoe language it had
changed sufficiently to present Khoekhoe from the western Cape who heard it
in 1772 with difficulties of understanding (Wilson and Thompson 1969: 103).
The well-known result of this intimate and long contact was the incorporation
of a large vocabulary containing adapted click consonants, which led to the
30 A. Traill

proliferation and reorganisation of the Xhosa phonological system (Harinck

1972: 150ff.; Herbert 1990a, 1990b; Lanham 1964; Louw 1974, 1977). A sim-
ilar process, about which little is known, affected Zulu in the same way (Louw
1979).
The nature of the Xhosa vocabulary incorporated from Khoekhoe allows
some inferences to be made about the social relationships between Khoe and
Xhosa. Specialised cattle terminology, and religious concepts and words such
as ikhoboka, ‘bondsman’ (< khowob ‘bondsman’), ukukhumsha ‘repeat like
a councillor, speak a foreign language, interpret’ (< khom ‘speak’), ikwayi
‘commoner, deposed chief’ (< khoe-i ‘person’) (Louw 1977: 86) suggest ‘that
the inferior social status of the Khoe . . . as cattle herders, messengers, en-
voys . . . was balanced by their function in . . . religious institutions’ (Harinck
1972: 152–3). Harinck has reflected on the precise sociolinguistic conditions
that would have given rise to the Khoe–Xhosa mixed language referred to above:

This hybridization can only be accounted for by reciprocal marriage between the in-
coming Xhosa and . . . [the] Khoe. The children of polygynous marriages between Khoe
males and Xhosa females learned Xhosa from their mothers and incorporated it into the
Khoe language while participating in Khoe society external to the immediate family.
Khoe prevailed as the predominating element of the Gonaqua’s language because the
Xhosa language was not incorporated as much by offspring of marriages between Khoe
women and Xhosa men. (Harinck 1972: 158)

This may be a reasonable reconstruction of the initial stages of the contact,

but the situation changed during the subsequent loss of the Khoe and mixed
Khoe–Xhosa languages and the emergence of a Xhosa in which the influence of
Khoekhoe remained only in the phonology and lexicon. It is striking that Xhosa
shows almost no evidence of morphological or syntactic influence from Khoe;
this suggests that the pattern of language use must have involved a special case
of both borrowing and shift (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 37ff.). We cannot
be certain of the precise mechanisms for the change, but one of the components
must have involved the death of the Khoe language. Sketchy evidence allows a
glimpse into how this happened.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Khoe language of the Gonaqua
was beginning to die out ‘with children tending to know either Dutch if their
parents were farm workers or Xhosa if they lived in Xhosa villages. But it was
not yet dead, and much of the preaching of the early Hottentots was done in
Gona’ (Sales 1975: 10).
Between 1803 and 1811 some of the Gonaqua who moved into the Cape
Colony and settled at Van der Kemp’s mission station at Bethelsdorp knew little
or no Dutch, and therefore ‘preaching was held in Gona as well as Dutch . . . but
this was considered to be a temporary measure, for it was assumed that within a
generation at least, Dutch would be the language of all the people at Bethelsdorp’
 The Khoesan languages 31

(Sales 1975: 29). The fact that Van der Kemp felt it was necessary at the time
to produce a Khoekhoe catechism, Tzitzika Thuikwedi miko Khwekhwenama
(Principles of God’s word for the Khoekhoe), would indicate that the Khoe
language still had some vitality even then (Sales1975: 29).
However, it seems clear that a process of rapid language shift to Dutch (i.e. a
form of early Afrikaans) or Xhosa had begun. The social situation in which
this was taking place was chaotic, and hastened the death of the language:
Khoekhoe, Xhosa, Boers and British were caught in the struggle to establish
control over the eastern frontier. The Khoekhoe were doomed in this violent
conflict and by 1809 the Earl of Caledon’s ‘Magna Carta of the Hottentots’
and the destruction of the last independent Khoekhoe territory at the Gamtoos
river reduced virtually all Khoekhoe to the status of servants of the colonists
(Mostert 1992: 350–1). However, the language was still spoken to some extent
in 1820 when Thomas Pringle visited the Bethelsdorp community and heard the
‘uncouth clucking sounds of the Hottentot language spoken by some of them
to each other’ (Sales 1975: 84). The Gonaqua surface again in the historical
record in 1829 when those Gonaqua who had remained with the Xhosa moved
to the Kat river settlement. We have no idea of the form in which Khoekhoe was
spoken at this stage but it can be safely assumed that this period marks the last
stages of the language. Six years prior to this, in 1823, the first written record
of Xhosa appeared in the form of John Bennie’s Incwadi yokuqala ekuteteni
gokwamaXosa (The first book in the language of the Xhosa). As the click
words show, the process of click incorporation which had begun some two
centuries before had been consolidated by the time the donor language was
dying, and today these clicks remain as a vivid remnant of that Khoekhoe
language.
In the south-western Cape, the linguistic contraction of the closely related
Khoekhoe varieties spoken there – Hesse (Hai-se), Chainou, Cocho, Guri,
Goringhai (!uri-//’ae) and Gorachou (!ora-//xau) – was rapid (Elphick 1985: 53;
Elphick and Malherbe, 1989: 5), and by 1750 they had begun to disappear with
the shift to Khoekhoe-Dutch (Elphick 1985: 211). Nienaber (1963: 98) notes
that between 1773 and 1797 travellers such as Thunberg, Sparrman and Barrow
‘kon die taal [Khoekhoe] nog net aan die uithoeke van die Kolonie beluister,
veral aan die Oostelike grens’ (could still hear the [Khoekhoe] language only
in the outlying districts of the colony, particularly on the eastern border).
It has been argued that the processes that destroyed the social, political
and economic structures of the western Cape Khoekhoe were far advanced
only sixty-one years after van Riebeeck landed in Table Bay (Elphick 1985);
the smallpox epidemic of 1713, which virtually wiped out the Khoekhoe in
the western Cape, merely consummated this breakdown. The result for the
Khoe language spoken there was that within a hundred years of van Riebeeck’s
arrival in 1652 it too had largely succumbed, and was replaced by Afrikaans.
32 A. Traill

But whether or not this Khoekhoe Afrikaans was a pidgin in its initial stages is
still debated (see chap. 4, this volume).
Elphick describes the linguistic response to the rapidly changing situation at
the Cape as the emergence of a pidgin Dutch spoken by the Khoekhoe (Elphick
1985: 211). Elphick gives a number of examples of Khoekhoe-Dutch from as
early as 1673 and the early part of the eighteenth century. Some of the examples
show the use of the pronoun ons, ‘we’, which anticipates Afrikaans usage:
Duitsman een woordt calm ons u kelem
(Dutchman [if you] speak a word, we [will] slit your throats)

Rademeyer provides other examples and emphasises that this Dutch spoken by
the Khoekhoe in the immediate vicinity of the Castle in 1666 was in fact a very
‘gebroke Hollands’ (broken Hollands) (1938: 33). However, the suggestion that
this was indeed a pidgin would require more convincing sociolinguistic evi-
dence than these brief accounts provide. In fact, the swift collapse of Khoekhoe
society, the rapid shift to a variety of Dutch, the dramatic effect of smallpox on
the numbers of speakers and the precipitate contraction of the Khoe language
make it unlikely that a pidgin would have crystallized in the western Cape.
To add to the social, economic and physical onslaught on the Khoekhoe,
their language itself faced two intimidating problems. The first was extreme
linguistic prejudice: from the first contacts between Europeans and Khoekhoe
there had been a persistent attitude on the part of the Europeans that the lan-
guage was utterly bizarre, unpleasant, inarticulate and not human. Nienaber
(1963: 76ff.) quotes many such opinions from the late sixteenth century on.
These prejudices fed the second problem, namely the view that the language
was unlearnable, and from as early as 1663 this led to official government pol-
icy that the Khoekhoe should learn the colonial language (Wilson 1969: 66).
By 1700, therefore, it was possible to make do with some version of Dutch
for fifty miles east and north of the Castle at Table Bay. At first there was a
need for Khoekhoe interpreters, but during the eighteenth century this soon
diminished and eventually disappeared as the Khoekhoe shifted to Dutch.
Henry Tindall described how even missionary work relied on interpreters until
the Khoekhoe language had been replaced (Nienaber 1963: 97–8). When the
Moravian missionary Georg Schmidt first started his work among the Khoekhoe
in 1737 at Baviaanskloof (later to become Genadendal) he found monolingual
Khoekhoe speakers. He tried to learn the language but found he could not imi-
tate the clicks. He ‘soon perceived that the language was too difficult . . . to
master and . . . therefore commenced to teach them to speak Dutch’ (du Plessis
1965: 54), relying in the meantime on an interpreter. Within three years he was
distributing Dutch New Testaments to those who had learned to read. How-
ever, the language partly survived the assault, because sixty-four years later
 The Khoesan languages 33

in the same place, it was necessary to repeat the sermon after each service
in the Khoekhoe language for the benefit of a number of older people who
‘understood only the Hottentot language’ (Kruger 1966: 89). These pockets
of Khoekhoe survival must have been the exception; children were not being
taught the Khoekhoe language and everywhere it was being replaced with a
version of Khoekhoe-Dutch.
A further source of linguistic pressure on remnants of the Khoekhoe language
must have come from the variety of Dutch spoken by the slaves who lived in
some intimacy with Khoekhoe labourers on farms (Marais 1968: 13). Whatever
the extent and nature of this influence, it must have given a strong impetus to
the process whereby Khoekhoe-Dutch was already engulfing Khoekhoe. As a
result of all these pressures the Khoe language of the western Cape was simply
overwhelmed. However, it did not disappear without trace: it survives to this day
in the Afrikaans lexicon in the form of many plant, animal and bird names
(Scholz 1940), and in both Afrikaans and English in numerous place names
(Raper 1972; Nienaber and Raper 1977).
The social and other forces that consumed the western Cape Khoekhoe
dialects gradually spread to the remaining Khoekhoe languages of South Africa:
Nama, Kora (!Ora) and Gri (Xri). At the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Little Namaqualand, to the north of the Kamies mountains, was beyond the
official north-western border of the Cape Colony. The aridness of the area and
its isolation for a while from events to the east and south served to slow slightly
the inexorable advance of white and mixed-race settlers, the Trekboers and
Basters (or Bastards). As a result the Khoekhoe and their language flourished
for some time in this region. Significantly, missionaries to these parts did learn
the Khoekhoe language: their work here and in Great Namaqualand across the
Orange river led to the first grammar, dictionary, Bible translation, catechism
and hymn-book in a Khoekhoe language (Haacke 1989; Strassberger 1969:
63, 69). Ironically, however, it was the missionaries together with the encroach-
ing Basters who have been identified as the ‘alien elements . . . effecting the
disintegration of the Khoi Khoin’ (Carstens 1966: 205) through their acquisi-
tion of political power in the region.
It is significant that one of the only places in which a vital Khoe language
still survives in Little Namaqualand is in the Richtersveld where ‘no missio-
nary ever achieved political power’ (Carstens 1966: 208) – although the people
of the Richtersveld were easy converts to Christianity – and where a major
influx of Basters only took place in 1936. In the rest of Little Namaqualand
the Khoekhoe shifted to Khoekhoe-Dutch/Afrikaans. However, this shift must
have been more gradual than it had been earlier in the western Cape because a
Khoekhoe linguistic remnant is still to be found among the much older members
of the communities around Kharkhams (Leliefontein district), in the form of
34 A. Traill

Khoekhoe plant names, animal names, place names and domestic terms. Many
of these words still contain a [!] (alveolar) or [//] (lateral) click (Links 1989:
61ff.). In the Richtersveld, the Boorlinge (the native Khoekhoe inhabitants as
opposed to more recent immigrant groups) have a variety of Nama as their
mother tongue, and children were monolingual until the 1950s when offi-
cial policy required them to learn Afrikaans as a second language in school
(E. Boonzaaier, personal communication). Although there is bilingualism
among the Richtersveld Khoekhoe, the absence of any significant shift to
Afrikaans among them suggests that the language has a good chance of sur-
viving as the last Khoekhoe language of South Africa. This will undoubt-
edly be reinforced by the very recent emergence of pride in Nama identity
(E. Boonzaaier, personal communication).
To the east, along the Orange and Vaal rivers, the Kora and Gri dialects were
moribund (Krauss 1992: 4) even before Beach studied them in 1926 (Beach
1938). A few older people who knew a few words and phrases could still be
found around Douglas, Prieska, Campbell and Griekwastad as late as the 1980s
(van Rensburg 1984: 669), but the account Beach (1938: 183) gives vividly
documents the end of the language: ‘Finding a pure representative of the Korana
tribe is like finding a rare gem. And sorting out a few old Korana (still able
to speak Hottentot) from a community of Griqua . . . is like sifting diamonds
from sand. There are a few . . . [Griqua] left in Kokstad but less than half-a-
dozen of these can speak Hottentot; the others all speak Afrikaans.’ And when
Beach visited Kimberley ten years later nine of his ten Korana informants were
dead.
Beach considered Kora and Gri to be closely related dialects which were
difficult to distinguish; indeed, their linguistic history suggests very similar
origins. On the basis of vocabulary recorded by the eighteenth-century explorer
Le Vaillant, he concluded that the ‘language spoken by the Cape Hottentots
was essentially the same as that of the present-day Korana and . . . considerably
different from present-day Nama’ (Beach 1938: 181).
This assessment was based on a purely linguistic comparison, but it is sup-
ported by the fact that a good-quality vinyl record of a Kora speaker made by
Pierre de Villiers Pienaar in about 1938 was minimally intelligible when played
to a native Nama speaker in Namibia in 1991 (W. H. G. Haacke and E. Eiseb,
personal communications). The linguistic affinity between Kora and the eastern
and western Cape Khoekhoe dialects, as opposed to Nama, has also been noted
by Nienaber (1963: 535). This is consistent with the traditional origins of the
Kora and the Khoekhoe component of the Gri in the two groups of western
Cape Khoekhoe, the Gorachouqua and Chariguriqua or Grigriqua.
From a sociolinguistic perspective, the history of the two groups is one of
more or less rapid shift to Khoekhoe-Dutch from which developed a distinc-
tive variety of Afrikaans. In the case of the Gri, the shift seems to have been
 The Khoesan languages 35

far advanced by 1801 (Marais 1968: 34): in the case of the Korana, whose
Khoekhoe identity was still entrenched then, it was more gradual. When the
Berlin Missionary Society first began to work among the Korana in 1834
at Bethany in the Southern Orange Free State, there were 20,000 nomadic
Korana between the Orange and Vaal rivers. Together with the fact that the
missionary Wuras used a Kora interpreter and prepared a catechism, grammar
and vocabulary in Kora, this suggests that a vital Khoekhoe language and
significantly monolingual speech community was still in existence at the time
(van der Merwe 1985: 40; Beach 1938: 182; du Plessis 1965: 213).
But the Korana and Griqua were not of equal status on the northern frontier.
The ethnonym ‘Griqua’ replaced ‘Bastard’ in 1813 at the insistence of the mis-
sionary Campbell, who persuaded the Basters that the latter term was offensive
(Ross 1976: 16). From a sociolinguistic perspective this is significant because
the replacement name may convey a stronger Khoekhoe linguistic affiliation
than ‘Bastard’ might. However, it is difficult to estimate precisely what the dom-
inant language was among the Griqua. Even in its origins the group was not
linguistically homogeneous, incorporating both speakers of Khoekhoe-Dutch
and Khoekhoe (Marais 1968: 32). Evidence concerning a group of Basters who
migrated from the northern frontier to what is now southern Namibia sheds
some light on this: despite conventional wisdom that the Basters were primar-
ily or even exclusively speakers of ‘Dutch’, Khoekhoe Afrikaans was certainly
not the dominant language of this group, but was their second language; Nama
was their first language and the fact that children still spoke it shows that it
was not yet moribund (Cluver n.d.a: 113–14). Whatever the linguistic situation
among the Griqua, they were also proficient in Khoekhoe-Dutch and gradually
the Khoekhoe language was replaced.
The Griqua were the dominant political group on the northern frontier in the
early part of the nineteenth century, and they sought to reduce the Korana and
Bushmen to a dependent status as labourers (Ross 1976: 15). This exploitation
contributed to the destruction of the Korana and the Bushmen, and it must have
had a strong impact on the changing linguistic affiliations of the area, in the
shift to a variety of Afrikaans.
However, both Griqua and Korana societies collapsed in the course of the
political developments on the northern frontier. This is reflected linguistically
in the death of both Khoekhoe varieties (notwithstanding the remnants of
Khoekhoe spoken today by a few older people in Kakamas, Pella and Keimoes
(Hoff, personal communication). The variety of Afrikaans that replaced Kora
and Gri was distinctive and has been labelled Orange River Afrikaans by van
Rensburg (1984: 514–15), who characterises it as follows:
die nie-standaard Nederlands . . . wat veral aan die Oranje Rivier maar ook op ander
plekke in die binneland, vanaf sowat die begin van die agtiende eeu deur ’n noe-
menswaardige aantal sprekers gebruik is. Dié form van Afrikaans is sterk beinvloed
36 A. Traill

deur Hottentots. Talle sprekers van Oranjerivier Afrikaans vas vroeërs ook ’n vorm van
Hollands magtig. (van Rensburg 1984: 514–15) (the non-standard Dutch . . . that was
used by a significant number of speakers especially on the Orange river but also at other
places in the interior, from around the beginning of the eighteenth century. This form
of Afrikaans had been strongly influenced by Hottentot [i.e. Khoekhoe]. Earlier, many
speakers of Orange River Afrikaans were also fluent in a form of Hottentot.)
Cluver (n.d.a) describes this Orange River Afrikaans as ‘strongly creolized’ Cape
Dutch interspersed with Khoekhoe words, a characterization of Khoekhoe-
Dutch that may well apply to the type of Dutch that had replaced Khoekhoe at
the Cape a century before.

4 THE SAN LANGUAGES

The San languages of South Africa were all members of the !Kwi group of the
Southern Bushman language family (D. F. Bleek 1929; Köhler 1981).
The geographical spread of this group in historical times covered virtually
the whole of what is modern South Africa, from the eastern border of Swaziland
in the north-east to the mouth of the Orange river in the north-west, and from
the Natal midlands in the south-east to the western Cape in the south-west. It is
reasonable to assume that the !Kwi languages or dialects had been spoken over
most of this area for some 8,000 years (Wright 1971: 1). Today, with the excep-
tion of a handful of speakers of the moribund /’Auni (i.e. /’Auo) and =| Khomani
languages of Gordonia and the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, all these languages are
dead, their speakers having been exterminated or their remnants absorbed into
the Bantu-speaking or (what are now) Afrikaans-speaking coloured communi-
ties. Wright estimates that there could have been 10,000 to 20,000 Bushmen in
South Africa before this process began; the extinction was complete in about
three hundred years.
The !Kwi languages fell into three or four groups. The linguistic affiliations
between, and even within, the groups are not always clear from the available
material; some of the main varieties are given below. (For a detailed list of all
of them, see Winter 1981.)
The largest and most extensive was /Xam or /Kham, the language of the
so-called Cape Bushmen. This was recorded in a number of more or less
closely related varieties in the whole of the former Cape Province south of the
Orange river from the Colesburg and Burgersdorp area in the north-east to
the Katkop hills north of Calvinia in the north-west and from the Achterveld in
the Fraserburg district in the south-west through Oudtshoorn to the Graaf-Reinet
area in the south-east. W. H. I. Bleek examined the differences between a num-
ber of the /Xam varieties from this area in 1857 and stated that ‘the different
Bushmen dialects spoken within this colony vary little from each other . . . one
language . . . is spoken by all these Bushmen’ (1873: 2).
 The Khoesan languages 37

There can be little doubt that the first Bushmen encountered in the south-
western Cape by Europeans were also speakers of /Xam. The variety of the !Kwi
group known as //Ng !k’e was recorded much later by Dorothea Bleek at Mount
Temple in the area of the Langebergen near present-day Olifantshoek between
1911 and 1915. She described this as ‘a language . . . very like the /Kham tongue,
but much too distinct to be classed as a dialect’ (1927: 56). This language was
formerly spoken from the Vaal river in the east to the Molopo in the north and the
west. Bleek found a few speakers on the right (i.e. east) bank of the Vaal and on
the lower Molopo in Gordonia (1929: 1). Elsewhere, she gives the distribution
of //Ng !k’e as ‘Griqualand West and Southern Gordonia’ (1942: 5).
A further group of !Kwi varieties was found by Dorothea Bleek in 1911
in what is now the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. These were /Auni (/’Auni) and
the Xatia (Kattia or =| Keikusi), dialects of the same language. She described
the language as less closely allied to /Xam than //Ng !k’e. To the languages
of this area should be added =| Khomani (Doke 1937) and Ku /khaasi (Story
1937), both reported in 1937. Further east was =| Kunkwe of the Warrenton area
(Meinhof 1928–29), //Ku//e, spoken near Theunissen (D. F. Bleek 1956),
Seroa, spoken near Bethany in the Orange Free State and in what is now Lesotho,
and !Gã !ne spoken near Tsolo in the Transkei (Anders 1934/5). The easternmost
!Kwi language was //Xegwi, spoken at Lake Chrissie in the eastern Transvaal
(Lanham and Hallowes 1956a, 1956b).
The more recent history of the speakers of /Xam is well known, with ‘their
societies shattered by warfare, starvation and disease; the women and children
enslaved; the men all but exterminated by the genocidal hatred of their enemies’
(Penn 1991). From a sociolinguistic perspective this situation satisfies virtually
every requirement for language death (Brenzinger 1992: 290). Indeed, this had
happened within about 170 years of the first clashes between the /Xam and the
frontier farmers of the Cape Colony in about 1740. There is no clear picture of
the linguistic situation before this time. Speakers of /Xam and Khoekhoe had
been in social contact for centuries, and there is a limited amount of evidence
that this led to some degree of bilingualism (Penn 1991; Wilson and Thompson
1969: 63–4). The /Xam recorded by W. H. I. Bleek showed very little Khoekhoe
influence. On the basis of this evidence one may assume that the bilingualism
affecting this variety of the language had not involved language shift. He did
notice that a number of words for ‘abstract concepts’ appeared to be of common
origin in /Xam and Khoekhoe, but he concluded that these had probably been
taken over from Khoekhoe into /Xam ‘in consequence of the contiguity of the
two nations’ (1873: 8).
The linguistic situation changed, however, after 1740 when /Xam society
faced continuous pressure from war, dislocation and extermination, which also
spilled over into Khoekhoe and Baster communities. One can only guess that
this had linguistic repercussions which set the scene for the eventual death of
38 A. Traill

/Xam. But these effects took some time to emerge, and the evidence for the
changes is extremely thin. When the missionaries Johannes Jacobus Kicherer
and John Edwards landed in Table Bay in 1799 they met two Bushmen and a
Korana, who had Dutch names: Vigilant, Slaparm (‘Weak Arm’) and Oorlam
(‘Knowing One’). Clearly, some linguistic force had begun to stir in the interior.
However, when Kicherer and Edwards set up the first mission to the /Xam on
the Zak (Sak) river in the same year, they found themselves in a vital /Xam
community. Kicherer remarked that ‘their language is so difficult to learn that
no one can spell or write the same’, and none of the missionaries succeeded
in mastering it (du Plessis 1965: 104–5). Penn (1991) notes that at first these
missionaries relied on the services of one Gerrit Visser, son of the frontier farmer
Floris Visser, who could speak /Xam. This gives a fascinating, if frustratingly
meagre, glimpse into the linguistic dynamics of the area. Later the missionaries
relied on another /Xam speaker as principal interpreter, but they had already
begun a daily routine of instruction in Dutch for the children (Penn 1991).
After 1754 the Trekboers of the frontier began their retaliatory commandos
against the /Xam. Over a period of forty-four years thousands were killed;
surviving women and children were distributed as slaves among farmers; and
some women were given as wives to Khoekhoe members of commandos (Penn
1991). This destroyed the basis of /Xam society, immediately creating condi-
tions under which language maintenance was impossible: ‘Those San who grew
up on farms, either as captive children, or as the descendants of clients, were
absorbed into the mixed Coloured community . . . they mingled in race with ne-
groid and Indonesian slaves, with whites, as well as with herders who resembled
them physically’ (Wilson 1969: 72). Surviving groups of /Xam speakers were
driven into remote areas around the Hartebeest river and further west where
they struggled to survive in the context of diminishing resources and the con-
tinual encroachment of farmers on their land. Here too, attempts were made by
Trekboers, Basters, Korana and Xhosa to exterminate them (Marais 1968: 28).
Within one year, between 1858 and 1859, they had virtually disappeared from
the neighbourhood of the Hartebeest river. It is precisely from this area that
Jantje Tooren or //Kabbo (‘Dream’), one of W. H. I. Bleek and Lucy Lloyd’s
main informants, came.
Bleek began his work with the /Xam in 1870. Although the material he and
Lloyd collected necessarily focuses on the /Xam language, it is nevertheless
possible to piece together an outline of the broader linguistic situation of the
/Xam at that time. The most significant fact is that there was bilingualism among
the informants. Most of them had worked for farmers and could speak ‘Dutch’.
Indeed, it is clear that Bleek and Lloyd relied on this fact in their linguistic
work. Their original manuscripts contain many notes in ‘Dutch’ translating
a /Xam word or a sentence, and in Bleek’s report he lists four texts, ‘Lion
and Bushman’, two versions of ‘Woman transformed into lion’, and ‘The lost
 The Khoesan languages 39

child’, as translations from the Dutch (1873: 5). There was also bilingualism
in Kora. In the turmoil of the times, the /Xam had formed alliances with these
Khoekhoe and had even been absorbed by them. Bleek records how he spoke
(in Dutch?) to a ‘Bushman’ prisoner in Cape Town who told him he had been
brought up by the ‘Korannas’ (sic) since he was a child (Bleek and Lloyd
1911: 436). =| Kásin, another of the informants used by Bleek and Lloyd, had a
father who was a Korana chief and a mother who was a /Xam; he was fluent
in both languages (W. H. I. Bleek 1875: 5; Deacon 1996). One may assume
that these were not isolated cases. Despite this bilingualism, it seems that /Xam
was being maintained at least among the adults Bleek and Lloyd recorded.
There are no signs that the /Xam of the Bleek and Lloyd texts was seriously
influenced by Khoekhoe and not at all by Dutch; as mentioned above, from
this evidence and for these speakers it appears that the shift to other languages
had not yet taken place. However, there is no record of the transmission of the
language to children. There is the possibility, though, that the language of the
/Xam that Bleek encountered was in fact beginning to show the first symptoms of
shrinkage. Bleek referred to //Kabbo as ‘our best informant . . . [who] was nearly
sixty years of age . . . and [who] was picked out from among twenty grown-up
Bushmen as one of the best narrators’ (Orpen 1874: 12). The implication is
clearly that older speakers had better command of linguistic skills.
Forty years later, the shift had begun to take effect. In 1910–11 Dorothea
Bleek visited the few remaining speakers of /Xam at Prieska and Kenhardt;
they worked as shepherds or labourers on farms or as servants in the villages.
One of them, the old Janikie Achterdam, had been with W. H. I. Bleek forty
years before; she sang some songs and told the story in /Xam of the moon and
the hare. It is poignant that she ended with the words ‘nu is ik klaar’ (now I am
finished) (Treble Violl 1911: 9).
Bleek’s biographical sketches of members of this group provide brief insights
into their history and linguistic situation. Some still spoke /Xam fluently, but
knew no folklore; others did not speak the language at all. Some had a clear
memory of their personal histories over a period of sixty or seventy years,
but one, Roman Titus, did not know his parentage. Perhaps the most dramatic
case involved Guiman and his wife Rachel, daughter of /ogən-aŋ. Rachel had
been taken as a young girl by a farmer’s wife and had grown up speaking
Afrikaans. She learned /Xam from Guiman, who in turn learned Afrikaans
from her (D. F. Bleek 1936: 201–3).
The fate of the remaining !Kwi dialects or languages differs only in some
of the details. In 1857 W. H. I. Bleek used Lichtenstein’s short comparative
vocabularies of Bushman and Kora to discover that the version of /Xam spoken
in the Colesberg and Burgersdorp district differed very little from the varieties
further west (W. H. I. Bleek 1875: 2). In 1814, missionaries to Tooverberg
ministered and taught entirely through the services of a Khoekhoe interpreter
40 A. Traill

from Tulbagh named Cupido, who had been a farm worker in Graaf-Reinet
and had learned /Xam from the Bushmen farm workers. But within ten years
Tooverberg had become the white farming town of Colesberg, and the /Xam
and their language had begun to disappear. Bleek’s limited investigation thirty
years later of a few speakers from this area unfortunately tells us nothing about
the general state of the language.
The same sequence of events affected the mission stations among the
Bushmen at Bethulie and Philippolis, which were founded between 1820 and
1830 (Sales 1975: 62–3). It is likely that a different language in the !Kwi group
was spoken here (possibly //Ku //e, Seroa, //Ng !k’e).4 But the identity of the lan-
guage was irrelevant. The fact that ‘not even one missionary ever understood the
Bushman language’ (Sales 1975: 63) repeated language attitudes encountered
100 years previously among the Cape Khoekhoe, and did nothing to slow the
demise of any of the languages. The Philippolis Bushmen faced a more daunting
problem than indifference to their language. It came in the form of the Griqua,
who took them as labourers or drove them out. By 1835 all the survivors ‘were
reduced to the level of labourers or had fled for instance to the Orange River
valley’ (Ross 1976: 24–5).
The flight to the east would have brought fugitives into contact with speakers
of the !Kwi language, Seroa, and Southern Sotho. There is no useful record of
Seroa, but it was evidently spoken in what is now Lesotho and in adjacent areas
of the Orange Free State. When the missionary Arbousset travelled through the
eastern Orange Free State in 1836 he remarked that Seroa was the most widely
spoken language. In his remarks on Joseph Orpen’s paper on the mythology of
the Maluti Bushmen, W. H. I. Bleek concluded, on the basis of thirteen words
(including six proper names), that the language later to be called Seroa was
‘essentially the same as, although dialectally differing from, that of the more
western Bushmen’, i.e. the /Xam (Orpen 1874: 12).
One of the words, tsha, ‘eland’, is the same in Dorothea Bleek’s S11e, !Gã
!ne of the Transkei, and the word cagn, ‘deity’ is the same as /kaggen, ‘mantis’
in /Xam (Bleek 1956). W. H. I. Bleek’s knowledge of the relationships of Seroa
to other languages of the !Kwi group could not have been based on much more
than these two words.
In 1870, Bushmen were still numerous in the Quthing district of Lesotho,
despite attacks elsewhere in the region from the Sotho, slave raiding by the
Korana and attempted extermination by imperial troops under Colonel Bowker
(How 1962: 53, 57–8). However, it seems that the language had disappeared
by the 1880s and one must infer that there had been a rapid shift, in this case to
Sotho or the Nguni varieties spoken in that area.
It is most likely that the Bushmen of Natal were also speakers of Seroa, at
least in historical times. Wright (1971: 189) describes how almost all the bands
engaged in raiding Natal between 1840 and 1872 were from East Griqualand
 The Khoesan languages 41

and south-eastern Lesotho, and at least some of these operated from the Quthing
area under the protection of Chief Moorosi; this is precisely where the largest
number of surviving Lesotho Bushmen was found in 1879 (How 1962: 58; Jolly
1994). These raiders had close alliances with the Bhaca and the Mpondomise
of the present-day Transkei and were most likely bilingual in these Nguni
varieties. Wright quotes the statement of one Jacobus Uys, who spoke to a
group of Bushmen in southern Natal in 1840 through an interpreter, a ‘Hottentot
named Jan’ (Wright 1971: 54–5). Since there was no Khoekhoe language spo-
ken in those parts it is likely that Seroa was being used. At least one can
tell from this encounter that there had been no shift to Dutch, as there had
been in the rest of South Africa. Evidence that Seroa survived to some ex-
tent until 1873 in the Qacha’s Nek area comes in the form of Qing, a young
Bushman from that area who acted as Joseph Orpen’s guide in Basutoland.
Orpen used a number of different interpreters to communicate with Qing,
and he described his bilingualism as follows: ‘the language he spoke best be-
sides his own was that of the Baputi, a hybrid dialect between the Basuto
and the Amazizi languages’ (Orpen 1874: 2). Qing’s bilingualism is likely to
have been typical for the period, and it gives an idea of at least one of the
directions of language shift which rapidly culminated in the disappearance of
Seroa.
Everything known about the !Kwi language !Gã !ne, once spoken in the Tsolo
district of the Transkei, comes from the material collected by Anders from two
middle-aged semi-speakers in about 1931. The mother of one of them was a
‘true Bushwoman’; the other had come to the Tsolo district from the Umtata
district and he had spoken the Bushman language with his uncle some forty-five
years before. Since then, he had lived among the Mpondomise, and the sounds
of !Gã !ne ‘were . . . like far off memories of other times. Patience and time
were required to allow his memories to wake up after long dormancy’ (Anders
1934/5: 82). This resuscitation of a language that was almost dead yielded some
140 words. Anders concluded that !Gã !ne was most like the //Ng !k’e recorded
by D. Bleek in Gordonia, Griqualand West and the Vaal River area in 1911
and 1915 (Anders 1934/5: 85). If //Ng !k’e represented a continuum of dialects
spoken in this line through to the Transkei, it is plausible to suggest that Seroa
could have been one of them. Unfortunately, the Seroa material collected by
Orpen is so limited that only the word for ‘eland’ referred to above has a cognate
in !Gã !ne.
Further east, at Lake Chrissie in the eastern Transvaal, the !Kwi variety known
as //Xegwi was spoken. In the 1950s there were fewer than thirty-six speakers
left. They were described as still knowing their language ‘fairly well’ and being
bilingual in ‘Swazi-Zulu’ and Afrikaans (Potgieter 1955), though thirty years
earlier they evidently did not speak the ‘taal’ (i.e. Afrikaans) (D. F. Bleek
1929: 1). Potgieter remarks, however, that children were showing signs of
42 A. Traill

forgetting their language, and he makes the interesting observation that the
//Xegwi were ‘not inclined to speak their own language in the presence of
Swazi or Europeans’ (1955: 7). This probably reflects a strong stigma at-
tached to speaking //Xegwi, a situation that would contribute to language
shrinkage.
According to tradition, the earlier speakers of //Xegwi spoke Sotho as well.
There are in fact a number of borrowed forms in //Xegwi from Sotho, Zulu,
Afrikaans, English and even Tsonga (Lanham and Hallowes 1956b). However,
it is not possible today to estimate where and when the contacts with Sotho and
Tsonga took place. In this small community there also appear to have been such
wide differences in pronunciation that Winter has claimed it is not possible to
decide whether the available descriptions of the language represent only one
dialect (Winter 1981: 342). But this variation probably means the informants
were ‘terminal speakers’ (Tsitsipis 1989: 119). These factors all describe a
language in its last stages.
It has been suggested that the //Xegwi were refugees from Basutoland
(Potgieter 1955). The presence of a Sotho influence in the language may lend
some plausibility to this claim. But given the lack of any linguistic details about
Seroa itself, the claim remains speculative. Nevertheless, the existence of a
number of //Xegwi lexical items with clear reflexes in =| Khomani of Gordonia
(Lanham and Hallowes 1956b) lends some support to the suggestion already
made that there may have been a certain integrity to the !Kwi languages spo-
ken from Gordonia in the west through Griqualand, the Orange Free State and
Basutoland to Lake Chrissie in the east.
Ultimately, the death of //Xegwi seems to have been caused by the death of
all its speakers rather than by a shift to Swazi or Zulu. In 1975 I interviewed
Jopi Mabinda, the last //Xegwi speaker. He was able to reproduce perfectly
the linguistic material he had given to Lanham and Hallowes (Lanham and
Hallowes 1956a) and he was fluent in Zulu. He told me he was the only speaker
of the language and that he spoke it to his sister and brother-in-law, who only had
a passive knowledge of it. He was murdered at Lothair, in the eastern Transvaal,
in 1988 (Boekkooi 1988).
In 1911 Dorothea Bleek visited the Lower Nossop and Auop rivers in
Gordonia (the area that is now the Kalahari Gemsbok Park), to study the
Bushman language spoken there. She found speakers of a !Kwi language called
/Au or /Auo; the people called themselves /Auni (D. Bleek 1937b: 208). (She
erred in her transcriptions, which should have been /’Au, /’Auo, /’Auni respec-
tively.) There was also a closely related dialect named Xatia. She described the
situation as follows:
They were in their natural state, living in bush screens and clothing themselves with
skins. They collected wild vegetables and hunted when they could, chiefly with guns
owned by the ‘Bastaards’ who had made themselves their overlords . . . interpreters were
 The Khoesan languages 43

difficult to find, therefore only a small amount of linguistic material could be collected.
Yet that shows the place of the language among the others. (D. Bleek 1929: 2)
She placed the language as a somewhat distant linguistic relative of /Xam.
Since these Basters would have mainly spoken a variety of Afrikaans and prob-
ably some Nama, we may infer from her remarks that the /’Auni were not
yet bilingual in Afrikaans and were maintaining their language and lifestyle
despite their relationship of clientship. Twenty-five years later the University
of the Witwatersrand’s research expedition to Tweerivieren at the junction of
the Nossop and Auob rivers found a different situation. After a great deal of
effort, seventy Bushmen were collected for anthropological, linguistic and phys-
ical study. Of these, forty-three spoke a hitherto unrecorded language called
=| Khomani, twenty-six spoke /’Auo, one was a Vaalpens5 and the remainder
spoke Nama (Bleek also noted the presence of a ‘Vaalpens’ woman who turned
out to speak Ku/haasi: D. F. Bleek 1937a; Maingard 1937). Maingard makes
the interesting observation that adults and children were speaking =| Khomani,
but he also notes that there was one ‘best’ speaker of =| Khomani who was
the most conversant with the language, Ou Abram or !gurice; that others
were not speakers of pure =| Khomani, and that Ou Abram’s children Malxas
and /Khanako, who were also his informants, had forgotten the lore of their
forefathers. Malxas was also fluent in Afrikaans and translated all Ou Abram’s
folktales into that language (Maingard 1937: 237, 261). Within a year, Ou
Abram was dead.
I interviewed Malxas’s son at Nossop camp in the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in
1973; he spoke only Afrikaans and any remaining =| Khomani speakers had dis-
persed. The fate of =| Khomani follows a classic course: bilingualism, shrinkage
of the language, shift. In this case the shift was to Nama and/or Afrikaans.
One can see that when Maingard conducted his study, the process of obsoles-
cence was well entrenched. It is interesting to read how both Maingard and Doke
attributed phonetic imprecision, morphological variation and the stylistic im-
poverishment they found in =| Khomani to the conceptual style of the Bushman,
in which he ‘is quite content with relative approximations, so long as he is
understood by his fellows’ (Maingard 1937: 253, 260; Doke 1937: 87). Yet all
these features are well-known symptoms of language decay.
Maingard provides evidence of =| Khomani’s relationship to /Xam in the form
of fifty-two words and other shared features. It is worth noting that this list far
exceeds, in quality and quantity, those inadequately transcribed and limited
sources that have so frequently been used to judge that a certain !Kwi variety
or language is merely a version of some other !Kwi variety or language, and
that on this basis there must have been mutual intelligibility between !Kwi
languages and dialects. While it is certain that the two /Xam varieties of the
Flat and Grass Bushmen6 recorded by W. H. I. Bleek and Lloyd hardly differed,
and that /Xam and =| Khomani could not have been mutually intelligible, it is
44 A. Traill

not at all clear from the meagre evidence available what degree of mutual
intelligibility existed between these and any of the other !Kwi languages. We
will never know the answer to this, but the question is worth noting because
of its sociolinguistic importance. For instance, !Xóõ, spoken in south-western
Botswana, and /’Auni share a number of related linguistic features and some
common vocabulary because they are genetically related. But the !Xóõ do not
understand a word of spoken /’Auni and would have to become bilingual or use
a lingua franca in order to communicate. If this situation applied to any extent
between the !Kwi languages of South Africa it would have had an impact on
patterns of bilingualism and language shift and contributed to the death of the
languages.
In 1973 at Nossop camp I also interviewed /Okos, a woman who claimed to be
the last speaker of what she called /Nuhci (i.e. /’Auo). This was probably close
to the truth. I went through all the grammatical and lexical material Dorothea
Bleek had published on the /’Auni language in 1937 and I found that /Okos
had maintained the language in every detail. This is extraordinary. As with Jopi
Mabinda, the last //Xegwi speaker, it seems that the language, having ceased to
be a vital means of communication, must have assumed a powerful symbolic
value which maintained the speaker’s identity in defiance of the forces that had
consumed all the other !Kwi languages of South Africa. Recently, a few more
elderly individuals with some knowledge of /’Auni or =| Khomani have been
found in Gordonia. Independently, they have preserved a strong sense of their
Bushman origins, but Afrikaans is their first language and the only language of
their children.

5 THE SURVIVING KHOESAN LANGUAGES

There are still many vital Khoesan languages spoken in southern Africa. These
are to be found in Namibia, where Ju still flourishes, and in Botswana, where
the greatest variety of Khoesan languages is found. But the attrition continues.
The language of the ‘Masarwa’ studied in 1913 by Dorothea Bleek at Khakhea
in southern Botswana is dead; Eastern =| Huã spoken in the Kweneng district of
Botswana is shrinking and severely threatened; the Tyua dialect of Sepako in
north-eastern Botswana and adjacent parts of Zimbabwe is moribund; Deti of
the Rakops area is dead; the !Xóõ of the Aminuis Reserve in Namibia, whom
Dorothea Bleek (1929: 2) studied in 1913 (she called the people /Nu //en),
is moribund. In Namibia, there has been such a dramatic shift from Nama to
Afrikaans and English that the vitality of the language is seriously threatened
(Cluver n.d.b; Haacke 1989).
Other surviving Khoesan languages are shrinking as a result of a lack of offi-
cial interest, language education policy, and the economic and social conditions
of speakers. There is also wholesale bilingualism in local varieties of Tswana.
 The Khoesan languages 45

These languages are therefore threatened by pressures only slightly less dra-
matic, but no less severe, than those that led to the disappearance of the Khoesan
languages further south.

notes
1 This spelling of the more familiar ‘Khoisan’ has been adopted in this chapter following
Nienaber’s (1990) discussion and rejection of it on linguistic grounds. The conven-
tion not only affects the term ‘Khoesan’, but is extended to other familiar, related
terms. Thus ‘Khoikhoi’ becomes ‘Khoekhoe’ and ‘Khoi’ becomes ‘Khoe’ in all uses.
In this chapter ‘Khoe’ and ‘Khoekhoe’ frequently have a special linguistic sense:
‘Khoe’ denotes a family of languages, one branch of which includes the ‘Khoekhoe’
languages of South Africa (Nama, Gri, !Ora) and Namibia (Khoekhoegowab); the
other branch of the ‘Khoe’ family consists of the non-Khoekhoe languages, none
of which is indigenous to South Africa. In its non-linguistic sense, ‘Khoekhoe’ is
also applied to the people who speak or spoke one of the ‘Khoekhoe’ languages. In
this latter usage, ‘Khoekhoe’ replaces the traditional and now discredited ethnonym
‘Hottentot’. The name ‘San’, derived from the Khoekhoe word saan, is a popular
replacement for the ethnonym ‘Bushman’, which is widely perceived to be offensive.
‘San’, however, lacks any linguistic validity and it may even be confusing when used
as an ethnonym. Thus, there is no valid family of ‘San’ languages, and some ‘San’
speak Khoe languages. Equally, there is no valid linguistic family of ‘Bushman’ lan-
guages; the people commonly referred to as ‘Bushmen’ speak languages from one of
the three distinct Ju, Khoe or Southern families.
2 The term ‘Khoesan’ is linguistically misleading because it does not refer to a single
family of languages. In fact, it is applied to three genetically unrelated groups of
languages, which may be referred to for convenience as the Northern (including Ju,
!Xung etc.), Central (including Nama, Cape Khoekhoe, Naro, etc.) and Southern
(including /Xam, !Xung etc.) families (D. F. Bleek 1929). The Khoe languages do
constitute a genetic unity, but not the so-called ‘San’ languages (Northern and Southern
families), either with one another or with the Khoe languages.
3 There are currently 4,000 Bushmen living at Schmidtsdrift near Douglas in the north-
ern Cape. They represent a proportion of the South African Defence Forces’s Bushman
Battalion that was deployed in northern Namibia, and their families. The group con-
sists of about 1,200 speakers of Kxoe, a Khoe (Central family) language, and !Xũ
(!Xung), a Northern Bushman language. These languages are mutually unintelligible,
and Afrikaans is used as a lingua franca among males and as a medium of instruction
in school. Females are largely monolingual in either Kxoe or !Xũ. This large num-
ber of Bushmen represents the majority of Angolan Khoesan (L. P. Voster, personal
communication), but obviously they are neither historically nor linguistically South
African Khoesan.
4 The Bushmen at Bethulie had links with those from the Colesberg and Aliwal North
areas. An interview with one in 1877 offers a rare piece of evidence concerning the
lack of mutual intelligibility between certain neighbouring !Kwi varieties. The man,
Toby or Kwa-ha, said: ‘I can speak Bushman language well, but I cannot under-
stand the Bushmen of Riet River; their language is “too double”’ (Orpen 1877: 85).
This presumably refers to a variety spoken about a hundred kilometres north in the
46 A. Traill

Reddersburg area of the Orange Free State. I am grateful to T. Dowson for this
reference.
5 Vaalpens was an ethnonym used by various commentators and Bushmen themselves
to refer to groups of Bushmen from the south-western corner of the then Bechuanaland
Protectorate.
6 The Grass Bushmen lived in the Katkop hills between Kenhardt and Brandvlei. The
Flat Bushmen lived at various waterholes between Kenhardt and Van Wyk’s Vlei
(Deacon 1986).

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3 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical
perspectives

Robert K. Herbert and Richard Bailey

1 INTRODUCTION
The present domain of the Bantu languages extends in an eastward progression
from the Cameroon–Nigerian borderlands through the equatorial zone to the
Kenyan coast and then southwards to the Cape. The geographic expanse is
thus enormous, occupying fully one-third of the African continent, as is the
degree of linguistic diversity. On account of the well-known problem of distin-
guishing languages and dialects, a precise count of the Bantu languages is not
possible; their number is conservatively reckoned at about four hundred. Some
250 million people speak one or more of the Bantu languages as mother tongues
today.
This chapter considers the linguistic sociohistory of southern Africa, with par-
ticular attention to the Bantu languages. The term ‘Bantu’ (Bâ-ntu) was coined
by W. H. I. Bleek in 1857 or 1858 (Silverstein 1993 [1968]), and popularised
through his Comparative Grammar (1862). Bleek noticed certain recurrent
patterns among widely distributed languages on the African continent, and
he happened upon the composite term Bâ-ntu to name these languages and
their speakers. The prefix ba-, the so-called class 2 prefix, is the plural marker
for many noun stems with human referents in these languages.1 The stem *-ntu
names representatives of the given class; hence Bantu is conveniently translated
as ‘people/persons’. (Cf. Zulu abantu; Northern Sotho batho; Tsonga vanhu;
Venda vhathu, etc.) Bleek’s coinage follows the frequent onomastic tradition
where a group self-identifies itself as ‘(true/real) people’, reserving ethnonyms
for outsiders.2
It is not possible to date with any certainty the arrival of the first Bantu-
speaking Africans into the territory of present-day South Africa. It is clear,
however, that their arrival preceded the arrival of European settlers by many
centuries. The notion, long promulgated by many settler historians, that the first
Bantu speakers crossed the Limpopo around 1652 is convenient fiction. To the
contrary, archaeological research shows conclusively that there were Bantu-
speaking groups who kept livestock and practised cultivation by at least 300 ad
(Maggs 1991: 37). The precise relationship between these prehistoric groups

50
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 51

le
Ni

er
Nig

NON-BANTU NIGER-CONGO

Congo

BANTU

3.1 Present-day range of Bantu languages

and modern-day Bantu-language speakers remains an open question. It seems

likely, however, that the earliest Bantu-speaking migrants were themselves dis-
placed and absorbed by later arrivals some time after 1000 ad.
It is often asserted that nine discrete Bantu languages are spoken in South
Africa today: Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa), Ndebele, Sesotho (S Sotho),
Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.3 The theoretical issues asso-
ciated with this delimitation will be discussed below. All nine of these languages
are counted among the eleven co-official and co-equal languages recognised by
the South African constitution (Act 108 of 1996).4 The history, delimitation,
codification and promotion of these nine languages are of considerable interest
to the historical sociolinguist.

2 WIDER RELATIONS: AFRICAN LANGUAGE PHYLA AND FAMILIES

The outstanding feature noted by Bleek in his description of the grammatical

structure of the Bantu languages was ‘a concord of the pronouns and of every
part of speech, in the formation of which pronouns are employed (e.g. ad-
jectives and verbs) with the nouns to which they respectively refer, and the
52 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

A
E E
C
B D

F
L
G
H
L

M P
K
N
R

3.2 Guthrie’s language ‘zones’ (1967–71)

hereby caused distribution of the nouns into classes or genders’. Apart from
the misidentification of prefixes as pronouns, Bleek’s statement is a reasonable
description of that structural feature which continues to figure prominently in
characterisations of the Bantu languages. Guthrie (1948: 11) lists two criteria
which are determinative in the identification of a language as belonging to the
Bantu family:
1 a system of grammatical genders, usually at least five . . .
2 a vocabulary, part of which can be related by fixed rules to a set of hypothetical
common roots.5

The linguistic label Bantu is thus reserved for a group of languages exhi-
biting marked similarity in structure and vocabulary, both of which are pre-
sumed to derive from common ancestry. Guthrie (1948) developed a referential
scheme for the Bantu languages, which divided them into geographical
zones labelled A–T (later revised as A–S); subdivisions within the zones were
grouped numerically, e.g. S.30 names the Sotho-Tswana languages, S.31
Tswana, S.33 Southern Sotho, etc.; each of the latter may name a dialect cluster,
e.g. S.31b Kgatla, S.31d Kgalagadi, etc. Following the tradition of historical
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 53

rber
Be
A r a b i c
Nubian
gay Beja
Son
Ful Bamba
ra Hausa Kanuri
Amharic
Oromo
Akan Yoruba Zande
Dinka Somali
Igbo
Sango
Luo

Lingala
Kongo
Luba Swahili
Hadza
Sandawe
Bemba
Phyla Makua

Afroasiatic Shona
Nama
Nilo-Saharan Tswana
ho
Niger-Congo Sot
Zulu
Khoisan
Xhosa

3.3 Distribution of African linguistic phyla (source: Williamson and Blench

2000)

linguistics, the term Proto-Bantu is reserved for the hypothetical ancestor lan-
guage, the Ursprache, of the modern descendants distributed throughout the
subcontinent.
Greenberg (1963) was the first to establish the clear relationship between the
Bantu languages and related languages called Benue-Congo, most of which are
spoken in Nigeria and Cameroon. Prior to Greenberg’s classification, Bantu was
generally taken to be an independent language family. The Benue-Congo family
of languages is in fact a subfamily within a much larger phylum generally known
as Niger-Congo. Grimes (1996) lists 1, 436 languages for Niger-Congo, making
it the largest of the world’s phyla. The other major, independent language phyla
of Africa include Afrasian (Afroasiatic), Nilo-Saharan6 and Khoesan.7 Only
the latter has significant historic presence south of the equator; indeed, much of
54 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

the region presently occupied by Bantu-speaking peoples may have originally

been occupied by Khoesan speakers (Ehret 1997: 165).

3 BANTU LANGUAGES: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

3.1 The question of a ‘Bantu language homeland’

The two major questions that first arise in any discussion of the history of Bantu
languages concern their place of origin and their spread. The first of these
is considered to be settled: the original homeland of the Bantu languages is
generally accepted as lying in the Cameroon–Nigerian borderland. Originally
proposed by Greenberg and considered somewhat controversial at the time,
there is virtually no dispute about this assertion today. Greenberg (1963) noted
that the closest linguistic relatives of Bantu, other Benue-Congo languages,
were to be found in this area. Further, the north-west of the Bantu-speaking
area is marked by sharp linguistic divergence from the rest of Bantu; it is
fairly widely agreed that there is a primary split within Bantu which separates
the north-west (Guthrie Zones A, B, C and parts of D) from the rest of the
Bantu languages (Williamson and Blench 2000: 34–5). The postulation of a
homeland in the Nigerian–Cameroon borderland is in keeping with the belief
that the linguistic homeland for a group of related languages is often located in
the area of greatest linguistic diversity within the group. ‘In general, a homeland
is the area in which the greatest concentration of linguistic diversity in the group
is located or where its nearest relatives are found’ (Nurse 1997: 168). Thus, the
claim is that the pre-Bantu community was a segment (or series of communities)
of some Benue-Congo-speaking area.
There is, however, a continuing debate about the spread of Bantu languages
(and their speakers) throughout the African subcontinent. It is impossible to
describe the linguistic prehistory of southern Africa in much detail. Most traces
of pre-Bantu languages have been erased, as populations were displaced and
absorbed by Bantu-speaking migrant groups. All of the Bantu languages are
assumed to be descendants of a dialect cluster spoken north of the equatorial
rain forest more than three thousand years ago. Knowledge of this hypothet-
ical ancestor is based upon application of historical linguistics, including the
comparative method and internal reconstruction. The reasons for the Bantu
migrations are unknown, though it is generally assumed that changes in sub-
sistence patterns may have created population pressures or opportunities.

3.2 Bantu and Bantoid

As mentioned above, the identification of individual languages as Bantu is
not without problem or controversy. The terms Bantoid, Semi-Bantu, Sub-
Bantu, etc. have been used in the literature, though their theoretical status
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 55

Bantoid

Tikar South
Mambiloid

Dakoid (Narrow) Bantu

Jarawan
Tivoid Beboid
Wide Grassfields North-west Other Bantu

Ekoid-Mbe Nyang

3.1 Bantoid language relationships (source: Williamson and Blench 2000: 35)

has occasionally been questioned. The problematic cases are languages in

the north-west of the Bantu domain which reveal intriguing similarities to
Bantu, though they are sufficiently divergent to warrant a separate treatment.
Williamson (1971) introduced a distinction between ‘Wide’ and ‘Narrow’ Bantu,
which she claimed was useful to adopt in discussing the Bantu borderland:

NARROW BANTU refers to the Bantu of Meinhof and Guthrie (zones A, B, C, D, E,

F, G . . . ), also sometimes called ‘traditional Bantu’ (by this is meant those languages
traditionally accepted by Meinhof, Homburger, Doke, Cole, Meeussen, and Guthrie etc.
as Bantu).
WIDE BANTU is meant to embrace Narrow Bantu as well as certain aberrant or geo-
graphically non-contiguous groups in the Cameroons and Nigeria. These languages are
not as typically ‘Bantu’ as the ‘Narrow Bantu’ languages.

There was much looseness in this framework, and it has been subjected to con-
siderable debate and elaboration over the past three decades. The most pressing
issue is the relationship between Bantu and adjacent languages, a problem that
is acute in south-western Cameroon where there are a number of languages
that are transparently related to Bantu, though ‘not Bantu’. The label Bantoid
is now often used to name Bantu and these closest relatives, i.e. Bantu is today
seen as a subgroup within a larger Bantoid unit.
A number of scholars have offered opinions and models on the question
of Bantu’s closest linguistic relatives within the Benue-Congo sub-branch of
Niger-Congo. The major dispute is about the exact placement of Bantu within
the larger Bantoid branch; the delimitation of Bantu from the other Bantoid
languages is certainly not straightforward (Watters 1989: 404ff.; Blench 1997:
94; Maho 1999: 40–5; Williamson and Blench 2000: 34–6). The details of this
debate are not relevant to present purposes; the integrity of (Narrow) Bantu
56 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

within the Niger-Congo tree is generally not disputed, though see Bennett and
Sterk (1977) for a contrasting view. Williamson and Blench (2000: 35) pro-
pose that there is a basic split within (Narrow) Bantu between the North-west
(Guthrie’s Zones A, B, C and part of D) and ‘Other Bantu’, though they recog-
nise that there are also some grounds to separate East and South Bantu from all
of the remaining Bantoid languages. Piron (1998) gives a detailed description
of the analytical problems in subgrouping within Bantoid.

3.3 The spread of Bantu languages: out of the forest and beyond
The notion of a ‘Bantu expansion’ originated in the late nineteenth century. The
idea, originally promoted by Sir Harry Johnston (1858–1927) and his contempo-
raries, was that marauding Bantu armies marched forward, conquering land and
populations, with an unstoppable military might. The march of Bantu-speaking
invaders was generally accepted as the explanation for the spread of Bantu
languages throughout the present domain. In its most common form, the in-
vaders comprised males alone; presumably, women and children would have
slowed the march. There were few details regarding chronology, but it was
generally believed that the ‘Bantu hordes’ arrived in South Africa during the
period of European settlement at the Cape. Werner (1933) suggested that local
men were killed, and that the invaders married the local women. As Herbert
(chap. 15, this volume) notes, the ‘myth of invading Bantu males’ has been
seriously overplayed in the literature and is deficient in important conceptual
and analytical details. In place of militaristic ‘invasions’, ‘conquerors’, ‘armies’
and ‘hordes’, it is perhaps more accurate to think of opportunistic agricultural
migrants.
It was only in the 1960s that Roland Oliver’s (1966) work in African
history attempted a synthesis of the material from linguistics, history and
archaeology. Advances in archaeology, coupled with increased sophistication
in historical linguistics, allowed scholars to set aside the myth of the invad-
ing Bantu and replace it with another scenario. In this latter view, the spread
of the Bantu languages was linked to the spread of metalworking, agricul-
ture and village life, and (perhaps) the replacement of small-statured hunter-
gatherers with larger (presumed) speakers of Bantu languages (Phillipson 1977,
1985).

By the 7th century ad, related people had spread throughout subequatorial Africa.
Since these later occurrences coincide with an introduction of agricultural economies,
new forms of society and metallurgy, and domesticated plants and animals previously
unknown, even in wild form, in the subcontinent, it is safe to conjecture that this
constellation of traits was brought into the region by people who had not previously
lived there. Since these early settlements are all found in regions now populated by
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 57

Bantu speakers, it is also reasonable to believe that the arrivals of agricultural societies
and Bantu speakers are synonymous. (Vogel 1997: 436)

That is, population growth replaced conquest as the modus operandi of Bantu
language spread. By this time, radiocarbon dates had yielded sites in the far
south from 1,600 years ago. The original outward movement of peoples and
languages (Eastern Bantu) from the purported homeland was assumed to have
taken place in the past 2,500–3,000 years.
Certain difficulties in the dispersal model became apparent in the 1980s.
Most notably, there was a mismatch of data from Iron Age archaeology, which
was concentrated in central and southern Africa, with the crucial missing data
from historical linguistics, especially in southern and central Cameroon, the
hypothesised homeland for the Bantu languages. The chief critic of the expan-
sionist viewpoint was Jan Vansina (1979, 1980). In more recent work, however,
Vansina (1995) has accepted the idea of an expansion from a homeland located
somewhere in north-west Cameroon. Notably, he rejects the idea of a single
great expansion caused by population pressure from the adoption of agriculture
and iron working.

3.4 Eastern and western Bantu

Following Guthrie (1967–71), the Bantu languages have been commonly di-
vided into a Western group, spoken in forested central Africa and regions to
the south-west including Angola and Namibia, and an Eastern group, spoken
on the savannahs of the east and south-east. All of the South African Bantu
languages are classed with the Eastern group of languages.
As Vogel (1997: 436) noted, reconstructed vocabularies for earliest Bantu
already had words relating to pottery manufacture and the cultivation of root
crops. This suggests that the first outward movement of speakers from the
homeland occurred after the practices of pottery manufacture and agriculture
were established in the homeland 5,000–6,000 years ago, but before metallurgy
and stock-keeping were established. Words for the latter cannot be reconstructed
for the proto-language.
Much of the archaeological evidence for Bantu expansion comes from cera-
mic traditions, whose interpretations are disputed. Phillipson (1977) argued
for separate Eastern and Western streams on this basis. It is worth noting that
most of the Early Iron Age ceramic facies south of the Limpopo belong to
a single (Western stream) tradition. Huffman (1989) argued for a complex
migration of Eastern Bantu speakers during the Late Iron Age, originating in
the interlacustrine area in East Africa about 1000 ad. Simultaneously, there was
another movement of people from western areas, represented by a disjunction
in the ceramic record in central Africa.
58 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

3.4 Guthrie’s Eastern–Western Bantu division

The Eastern Bantu established themselves in the interlacustrine region,

having acquired the habits of keeping stock and smelting metals somewhere
in East Africa. The earliest firm evidence for Bantu speakers in the area of
the Great Lakes dates to about 2,500 years ago. Most recent models of expan-
sion postulate that Proto-Bantu was spoken in the extreme north-west of the
present Bantu domain as early as 5,000 years ago, this date being required to
explain the degree of divergence between Bantu and its closest linguistic rela-
tives in Benue-Congo. It is possible that a differentiated community (or indeed
chain of communities) speaking Proto-Bantu may have existed in the homeland
for several centuries. There is some good reason to believe that the ancestral
Western Bantu migrated first and that a Proto-Eastern Bantu language differ-
entiated in the homeland prior to migration. Vansina (1995) has argued that
one needs to conceptualise the spread of languages as a succession of migrant
waves southwards, especially through the river valleys and along coastal areas.
He hypothesises an initial movement of people from the homeland towards the
Great Lakes, differentiating into Western and Eastern groups of languages
en route. Sometime during the last millennium bc, a subset of Eastern peoples
(the Mashariki) moved into the Great Lakes area of Africa and fairly quickly
began an expansion across eastern Africa and southwards (Ehret 1997: 165).
Successive waves of outmigrating people met with earlier emigrants, and the
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 59

consequent intermingling of populations perhaps explains the difficulties of

subgrouping languages within Bantu.

3.5 The southward movement

Bantu-speaking peoples in western Africa probably began migrating towards
southern Africa perhaps as early as 2,500 years ago, certainly arriving during
the first four centuries of the first millennium ad. These agriculturists moved
into a territory that was sparsely populated by hunter-gatherers. It is important
to stress that these earliest arrivals are not the direct ancestors of present-day
Bantu language groups in South Africa. Rather, present groups reflect a later
movement of Eastern Bantu speakers, probably along the coast and internal
routes. Huffman (1989) suggests an equation of different pottery styles with
separate ancestral movements of the Sotho-Tswana and Nguni-speaking groups.
These more recent immigrants absorbed and displaced existing populations,
which would have included earlier (Western) Bantu speakers.
There is now growing agreement that the strict West–East split in Bantu lan-
guages is not tenable. Although much of Eastern Bantu, including the Southern
Bantu languages, descends from an Early Iron Age nucleus in the interla-
custrine area, migrations from the Western Bantu heartland during the Late
Iron Age interrupted the southerly flow of languages and produced Western-
affiliated languages within the Eastern region. The background and arguments
for this reanalysis are set out in Herbert and Huffman (1993) and Huffman
and Herbert (1994–5). In brief, those authors suggest that the closest lin-
guistic relatives for the Southern Bantu languages are to be found in East
Africa. These groups are geographically discontinuous, apart from a narrow
coastal belt, owing to a later movement of Bantu-speaking ‘matrilineal peoples’
from the west. These ‘Western Bantu’ speakers were absorbed by descen-
dants of earlier Eastern migrants. The authors point to certain discontinu-
ous traits in Eastern and Southern Bantu that can only be explained if one
assumes an interruption of geographic continuity by other (Bantu-speaking)
peoples. The typological features cited in support of Eastern and Southern
relationship include patterns of diminutive and locative formation, patterns
of relative conjugation, pronominal forms, reductions in noun-class opposi-
tions, etc. Linguistic evidence is supported by archaeological and cultural
data.

4 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOUTHERN BANTU LANGUAGES

Linguistic classification is generally, though not always, taken to have his-

torical implications. The distinction between classifications with and without
such implications depends on the type of classificatory scheme, but these have
60 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

often been confused in the literature on African languages. Generally speaking,

at least four types of classificatory schemes have been recognised: genetic,
typological, areal and referential. The four types address different needs, goals
and data; consequently, the methodologies vary from one type to another.
The earliest classification schemes in Bantu linguistics were referential, i.e.
they were admittedly ahistorical, designed solely to impose some system of
reference upon the chaos presented by several hundred Bantu languages. The
association of language groups into ‘zones’ is, however, a regular feature of
early scholars’ work, most particularly Doke and Guthrie, the doyens of early
linguistic classifications. Doke is perhaps more careful in not confusing ref-
erential and genetic classification, though both scholars admit to the use of
geographic and linguistic criteria as well as arbitrariness in the choice of lin-
guistic criteria for the delimitation of language zones.
Guthrie (1948) divided the Bantu languages into sixteen zones, two of which
included Southern (Eastern) Bantu languages. Zone S included Venda, Sotho
and Nguni; Zone T included Shona, Tsonga, giTonga and Chopi. With the
exception of Shona, which had been subject to detailed linguistic description
(cf. Doke 1931), there was almost no published description of the Zone T
languages in the 1940s. Since zones were exclusively referential, no claim
was made about a closer relationship among languages within the zone and
between languages across zones. Guthrie (1948: 70) does say about the Tsonga
group that ‘there is a fairly close relationship’ with Zone S languages. It is
important to note that the zones were not linguistic subgroups, though they were
often interpreted as such by other scholars. In a later work, Guthrie (1967–71)
eliminated Zone T by folding it in within Zone S, although there is still no claim
that Zone S represents a valid subgroup8 (see map 3.2 above). Guthrie’s later
classification identified the following grouped languages within the Southern
Bantu zone (1967: II, 61–3, adapted):

S.10 Shona S.11 Korekore

S.12 Zezuru
S.13a Manyika
S.14 Karanga
S.15 Ndau
S.16 Kalanga
S.20 Venda S.21 Venda
S.30 Sotho-Tswana S.31 Tswana dialects
S.32 Kutswe (Northern Sotho)
S.32a Pedi
S.33 Southern Sotho
S.40 Nguni S.41 Xhosa
S.42 Zulu
S.43 Swati
S.44 Ndebele
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 61

S.50 Tsonga S.51 Tshwa (Mozambique)

S.52 Gwamba
S.53 Tsonga (Mozambique, South Africa)
S.54 Ronga
S.60 Chopi S.61 Chopi [Lenge] (Mozambique)
S.62 giTonga (Mozambique)

The terms ‘South-eastern Bantu’ and ‘Southern Bantu’ are often used inter-
changeably to refer to the languages of Zone S, though the latter term is
sometimes used to refer to this set of languages, excluding Shona. Ehret
(1999: 53) excludes Shona from a ‘Southeast-Bantu’ subgroup which includes
S.20–60 plus Lozi (K. 21), which he describes as ‘a nineteenth century creole
of an S.30 language’ (1999: 49). In Ehret’s scheme, there are four co-ordinate
branches on an intermediate family tree of which South-east Bantu is one:

Mashariki (= Eastern Bantu)

Kaskazi Kusi

Nyasa Makua Shona South-east Bantu

N.20-40 P.10 S.10 S.20-60 and K.21
except
N.41

3.2 Linguistic relations for Zone S languages (Ehret 1999)

The evidence for this particular structure is based upon shared innovations,
though the published data do not address the integrity of the South-east Bantu
subgroup itself, which seems to be taken for granted.
There are regular sound correspondences in much inherited lexical material
for the South African Bantu languages.
Pedi Tsonga Venda Zulu gloss
/f/ /h/ /fh/ /ph/
-fála -hala -fhálá -phála scrape
-féla -hela -fhélá -phéla to end (v.i.)
leswafó hahu fhafhú iı́phaphú lung
lefele hele (beté) iı́phela cockroach

A number of linguistic questions arise in modelling the spread of Eastern Bantu

languages southwards to present-day South Africa. Most pressingly, there is
the question of whether this assortment of languages represents a valid lin-
guistic subgroup, or whether any shared similarities are due to shared inher-
itance, diffusion or other contact phenomena. In part, the answer depends on
62 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

whether differentiation into the distinct language groups occurred in East Africa
before the southward movements of peoples or during/after the southward
spread. The nine officially recognised South African languages are conveniently
subgrouped:
S.40 Nguni languages (Ndebele, Swati, Xhosa, Zulu)
S.30 Sotho languages (Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tswana)
S.53 Tsonga (classed with Tshwa, Ronga, etc. in Mozambique)
S.21 Venda (isolate, though possibly linked to Shona in Zimbabwe)9

The relations among the various Southern Bantu languages are usually repre-
sented along the lines sketched by Doke (1967):

Nguni Sotho Venda Tsonga Inhambane

Zulu Xhosa Tekeza Ronga Tonga Tswa

Chopi giTonga
S Sotho N Sotho Tswana

3.3 Southern Bantu languages (Doke 1967)

Strictly speaking, only the lower-level groupings were asserted by Doke to have
any genetic meaning; the higher level arrangement of five language groups was
exclusively referential. Differentiations within subgroups Nguni and Sotho are
best viewed as local phenomena, though there are some outstanding questions
in this regard. One such question concerns the precise relationship of clus-
ters of languages within Nguni. Mainly on the basis of phonological facts,
it has been traditional to distinguish Zulu and Xhosa forms from a disparate
collection of clearly related languages. This separation goes back to the work
of nineteenth-century scholars, most notably A. T. Bryant. The term zunda is
sometimes used for the former; the latter, often called tekela or tekeza languages,
include Swati, Northern Ndebele, Hlubi, Baca, Phuthi and others. Among the
phonological features setting Tekela apart is a distinctive affrication of alveolar
stops (Z. -thathu, ‘three’; umuntu, ‘person’; thina, ‘we’ vs. Sw. -tsatfu, umuntfu,
tsina) and the correspondence of zunda /z/ for tekela /t/. The more common ci-
tation name for the Swati language is in fact the Zulu form Swazi; compare also
Zulu izimbuzi, ‘goats’ with Swati timbuti. Further, Zulu and Xhosa have three
distinct points of articulation for click consonants whereas most of the Tekela
dialects have a single position:
Zulu Swati gloss
-xoxa -coca chat (lateral click [||])
-qala -cala begin (prepalatal click [!])
-cela -cela ask for (dental click [|])
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 63

Doke’s (1967) representation of the relationship among the various Nguni lan-
guages raises an important issue. In particular, the status of the Tekeza group
as an ancestral unit opposed to Zulu and Xhosa has never been demonstrated;
indeed, there is little reason to class these languages together other than on
the basis of shared retentions that distinguish them from Zulu and Xhosa. The
current linguistic situation in South Africa is complex on account of pressure
from the standard languages, but there is little or no evidence to support the idea
that Tekeza represents a linguistic subgroup. More likely, the so-called Tekeza
group is a collection of languages spoken by peoples who were not subjugated
and assimilated to Zulu. In cases where Xhosa and Tekeza share features, it is
most safely assumed that Zulu has innovated.
The larger issue for language historians is whether the collection of Zone S
languages diverged prior to their arrival in southern Africa. There is no convinc-
ing evidence for a Proto-Southern Bantu (‘Proto-Zone S’) language from which
the present-day languages descend. The demonstration of such a unit would de-
pend on a set of innovations which characterise this group of languages and
distinguish it from other Bantu languages. In the absence of such evidence,
the genetic ‘unity’ of the Southern Bantu languages needs to be called into
question.10
Huffman (1989), using ceramic evidence, argued that Sotho-Tswana and
Nguni movements are reflected in separate migrations and ceramic paths, which
he terms Moloko and Blackburn, respectively.
The earliest Iron Age sites in southern Africa are all in areas either still or
comparatively recently occupied by Sotho-Tswana. The Nguni seem to have
been later arrivals. Following Louw and Finlayson (1990), Janson (1991/2) has
suggested that Makua (Guthrie’s P.31), a Bantu language presently spoken in
Mozambique, and Sotho-Tswana share a period of common development in
present-day Zimbabwe; Janson’s hypothesis is based on similar developments
in the two sets of languages, which he argues must be shared innovations.
These innovations include the evolution of the Proto-Bantu prenasalised voiced
stops into voiceless unaspirated stops, e.g. *mp > p; this unusual change does not
occur elsewhere in Bantu. Bailey (1995b: 47) suggested that this change might
be due to a Khoe or San substratum. There are other similarities between Makua
and Sotho languages, especially the Sotho varieties that show less evidence of
contact with Nguni speakers. The possibility of historical links between Sotho
languages and Makua was first noted by van Warmelo (1927), though this
observation is generally not cited in the later literature.
Janson suggests that the Sotho-Makua community was displaced in the
eleventh century by incoming Shona, Chewa and Sena groups with the results
that Makua was removed to the north and east, separated from the other Southern
Bantu languages, and Sotho-Tswana moved to the south and west, where it came
64 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

WESTERN
B ANTU
HEA RTLAND Early Iron Age
Nucleus

(Ng wana)
uni)
-Ts
tho
(S o

KO
MOLO
N
UR
KB
AC
BL

3.5 Sotho-Tswana and Nguni migrations (after Huffman 1989)

into contact with the Nguni. This hypothesis suggests that Makua is historically
a Southern Bantu language, which has undergone change in contact with other
Bantu languages; in certain regards, it is not typical of the languages of the area
in Mozambique where it is today located.
Apart from the low-level subgroups identified above, it is not possible to as-
sert anything definitive regarding possible relations within the class of Southern
Bantu (Zone S) languages. In part, the difficulty arises from language con-
tact and diffusion over the past millennium. From certain limited perspectives,
Nguni and Tsonga seem closely related. Baumbach (1987: 2) suggested that
Tsonga is properly viewed as part of the Nguni cluster commonly called Tekeza
or Tekela, which is co-ordinate with Zulu and Xhosa.
Thus, the Tsonga group is, according to Baumbach, co-ordinate with the
so-called Nguni Tekeza dialects (Swati, Bhaca, Phuthi, etc.) and, ultimately, a
descendant of Proto-Nguni. However, Baumbach’s proposal has met with little
enthusiasm.11 One cannot ignore the possibility that any linguistic similarities
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 65

Zulu Tekeza Xhosa

Tekeza Tsonga

Hlubi Phuti Baca Swati Ronga Tshwa Gwamba Tsonga

3.4 Proposed Nguni relations (Baumbach 1987)

between Tsonga and Nguni are the result of longstanding contact, or shared
Southern Bantu heritage. There are few, if any, linguistic innovations that are
shared by Tsonga and Tekeza, and the demonstration of such shared innovations
is generally taken as a prerequisite to the postulation of common ancestry. As
Herbert (chap. 16, this volume) notes, Zulu incursions into Tsonga-speaking
territory are of longstanding duration, and Zulu was the prestige and dominant
group. How such ‘despotic domination’ might have affected language practice
is a topic for investigation. Louw and Finlayson (1990: 403) noted ‘strong
affinities’ between Nguni and the Tsonga of South Africa and neighbouring
Mozambique, but they also reported that more northern forms of Tsonga show
‘strong influences’ of Shona.
Prehistoric language contact is, of course, one of the most confounding fac-
tors in reconstructing the linguistic history of the region. We do not know, for
example, how historic movement of peoples displaced during the Mfecane (see
chapter 1) might have affected language patterns. In part, the problem becomes
all the more acute when we recognise the non-tenability of early models of
monolithic movements, e.g. the notion that any whole, bounded speech com-
munity (‘a tribe’) relocated itself with no effect on language practice. The more
likely scenario is that some populations were absorbed and that some displaced
populations co-mingled to form new speech communities. Further, the data
available to us are not ideal since language variation has been dramatically
reduced on account of language standardisation and the promulgation of stan-
dard languages over the past seventy-five years in South Africa.
For contact among the Bantu languages, there is the further problem that
the languages themselves, precisely on account of their shared ancestry, are
broadly similar in structure and shared vocabulary. The analyst is on firmer
ground in reconstructing the effects of contact with Khoesan speakers, the
earlier inhabitants of the region, on inmigrating Bantu languages (see chap. 15,
this volume).
At a general level, there is a rather poor understanding of historical rela-
tions among the various Bantu language clusters (Guthrie’s ‘groups’). To a
66 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

large extent, linguistic subgrouping within these groups (e.g. within Nguni, or
Sotho-Tswana, or Tsonga) has not progressed significantly. Nicolaı̈ (1998) pro-
vides a useful review of the many problems presented to historical linguists
working exclusively with non-text-based data.
This section is concerned with the traditional four clusters of Bantu lan-
guages in South Africa: Nguni, Sotho, Tsonga and Venda. As noted above,
there is no convincing evidence for in situ differentiation of these clusters. There
are so-called mixed languages, e.g. Phuti and Northern Transvaal Ndebele, but
these are both more appropriately viewed as Nguni languages that have been
Sotho-ised relatively recently rather than points on a linguistic continuum.
Phuthi is relatively well described (Mzamane 1949; Donnelly 1999), whereas
Northern Transvaal Ndebele (Ndrebele) is now virtually extinct under the influ-
ence of Northern Sotho. Wilkes (1999) provides a useful statement of Northern
Sotho/Tswana influences on Southern Transvaal Ndebele.12 Although clearly a
Nguni language, Southern Transvaal Ndebele shows important Sotho-Tswana
influences in lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntax. The topic of language
contact has been woefully understudied in South African linguistics, with the
exception of urban vernaculars.

4.1 Nguni (S. 40)

The major Nguni languages are Ndebele, Swati, Xhosa and Zulu. The effect of
language standardisation on the development of the separate Nguni languages
is, of course, considerable. Louw (1983: 374) noted that the development of a
single written standard for Zulu and Xhosa in the nineteenth century was pre-
cluded by competing missionary interests and rivalries, rather than by dialectal
considerations. It is well known that linguistic autonomy has often to do with
socio-political rather than linguistic criteria. The term Xhosa, originally one
group’s eponym, has been vigorously promoted as a cover for unifying the
various Cape Nguni groups.
Within the past quarter of a century, there have been active campaigns to
solidify the differentiation of Swati and Zulu. These campaigns have been
vigorously promoted as part of socio-political agendas in both Swaziland and
South Africa; the actual structural and lexical differences between the two are no
greater than between two dialects of Zulu. Before the establishment of Standard
Swati, Zulu materials were used for literacy; Standard Zulu was recognised and
used by educated Swati.
The creation of ‘language boards’ in the first half of the twentieth century
was motivated, at least in part, by a perceived need to standardise the African
languages. Standardisation is notoriously political as a process, and experiences
in South Africa are no exception. The selection of ‘conservative’ rural varieties
must been seen as the context of an eventual association of African-language
speakers with rural homelands. For more than half a century, a centrepoint of
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 67

political and education discourse was the location of ‘real’, ‘true’ or ‘proper’
Africans in the traditional homeland. So, for example, Zulu speakers resident
in South Africa’s cities were ‘out of place’.13 Within the education arena,
adherence to rigidly conservative rural language standards worked to the se-
vere disadvantage of urban schoolchildren, many of whom consistently failed
‘mother-tongue’ matriculation examinations.
The delimiting of South African indigenous languages has traditionally been
associated with a delimitation of population groups. For a variety of reasons,
central government sought a small, manageable number of population groups.
Eventually, the language = cultural group equation was extended as a justifi-
cation of the failed homeland policy of the apartheid government: language =
culture = homeland. On the basis of this extension, the government sought to
deny citizenship and residence rights to its African populations.
Language census data are notoriously unreliable since there is little interest
in defining what counts as ‘a speaker’. In South Africa, it is often taken to
be axiomatic that Zulu persons speak Zulu, Xhosa persons speak Xhosa, etc.
Bearing in mind their inherent unreliability, population numbers for the relevant
language/population groups according to recent census data are:14

Zulu: 22.9% 9,200,000 in RSA;15 76,000 in Swaziland; 37,480 in Malawi

Xhosa: 17.9% 7,196,000 in RSA; 18,000 in Lesotho
Swati: 2.5% 1,013,000 in RSA; 650,000 in Swaziland
Ndebele: 1.5% 587,000

These data are asserted to reflect the number of mother-tongue speakers. Bearing
in mind that the majority of South Africa’s population is urban, multilingualism
is widespread.
There have been several calls to ‘harmonise’ the Nguni languages into a sin-
gle written standard, the most recent by Alexander (1989). Since mother-tongue
speakers of the various Nguni languages account for approximately 45 per cent
of the national population, the implications and potential education and literacy
consequences would be considerable. Alexander also called for a similar har-
monisation of the Sotho-Tswana languages, which are spoken by an additional
24 per cent of the population. The two remaining African languages, Venda
and Tsonga, which are spoken by 2.2 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively, are
language isolates within South Africa.
Harmonisation was never seriously considered, and there was little popular
support for the idea, which speakers perceived as a threat to their ‘traditional’
ethnic identities. Understandably, there was little appreciation of the relative
recentness of the creation of standard languages, and for the government’s role
in the selection, identification and reification of those ‘traditional’ identities.
Whether harmonisation was linguistically practicable is an open question. See
Msimang (1998) for a useful discussion of related issues in the harmonisation
debate.
68 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

It is also an open question whether the existence of a written standard lan-

guage can lead to the development of a new spoken language in any meaningful
sense. As Hagège (1990: 65–6) noted, ‘the intrusion of writing is a danger not
only for the societies into which it enters, but for the languages themselves’.
The difficulties of crafting and promoting a standard that is ‘no one’s mother
tongue’ is amply described in the language planning literature.
Instructively, one can compare the development and establishment of Union
Shona in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1930s with the South
African situation. The South African linguist Clement Doke was the chief
architect of Shona, which was a unified standard language for five major
ethnic groups, speaking recognisably related forms of language (Doke 1931).
After nearly three-quarters of a century, most Zimbabweans find it natural and
commonsensical that a single standard serves for the varieties now known as
Shona. Indeed, many of today’s citizens assert their identity to be Shona, an
idea that would have been anathema for their Manyinka, Korekore, etc. great-
grandparents. Reactions to Doke’s unification and the subsequent ‘spelling
wars’ in (then-) Southern Rhodesia are described by Fortune (1993). The pro-
motion of Union Shona was made possible, in large part, because there was
no existing standard that it needed to supplant. There are established standards
that would need to be set aside in South Africa, which preclude consideration
of the benefits of harmonisation.

4.2 Sotho-Tswana (S. 30)

The second largest of the present-day Bantu language groups is usually iden-
tified as Sotho-Tswana today, though the simple label Sotho was formerly
used. There are three major standard languages recognised, usually known as
Southern Sotho (Sesotho), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa, based on Pedi)
and Tswana. As noted above, these three clusters constitute about 24 per cent
of South Africa’s population:

Southern Sotho: 7.7% 3,104,000 in RSA; 1,493,000 in Lesotho

Northern Sotho: 9.2% 3,695,000 in RSA; 11,000 in Botswana
Tswana: 8.2% 3,302,000 in RSA; 1,070,000 in Botswana; 11,200 in Namibia; 29,500
in Zimbabwe

These three labels mask considerable linguistic diversity.

Southern Sotho was the first to be codified, and it is the most homogeneous of
the group. As is well known, in addition to being a linguistic issue, standardisa-
tion is also about control and power. Control of the standard occasionally equates
with control of print, and as noted above it may be a useful tool in the shaping of
identities. The active promotion of a standard language may have the effect of
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 69

promoting language convergence, especially when the standard serves a large

number of dialects. King Moshoeshoe noted in 1840 that the earliest efforts
to write Sesotho (Southern Sotho), the language of modern Lesotho, would
standardise the language and bring about a heightened sense of common unity
among the Sotho peoples (Arbousset 1991 [1840]). The extinction of several
Sotho dialects may be attributed to the spread of standardised Sesotho. Indeed,
the practice of standardisation is essentially about the reduction of variation
and diversity. Southern Sotho is considerably more homogeneous than either
of the other recognised Sotho-Tswana language communities. Southern Sotho
also shows the greatest cultural influence from Nguni, particularly Northern
Nguni, including the adoption of hlonepho avoidance language by women (see
chaps. 14 and 15, this vol.; Kunene 1958). On a linguistic level, Southern
Sotho again shows considerable influence from (Northern) Nguni. For example,
Zulu /ph, th, kh/ often remain unadapted as Southern Sotho /ph, th, kg/ whereas
regular Sotho-Tswana development would predict /f, r, h/. Compare:

Tswana N. Sotho S. Sotho Zulu gloss

kámmámosó kamoswáne hosasa kúsâsá tomorrow
kámosó moswána hoseng ékúséni in the morning
tháta kudú haholo kakhûlu a lot
séntle gábotsé hantle kahlé well (adv.)
-phothatsa -phútháza take something carelessly
-phephetha -phéphétha blow (as wind)
-fetolela -fetolela -phetolla (-phendula) translate, change
-gólófala -kgolophala -khúlúphála to become fat

(The Southern Sotho examples have not been marked for tone in the above
examples.)
Tswana was originally known as Western Sotho, and the indeterminacy of
naming the language and its speakers are once again instructive. The Kgatla
dialect is the basis of the South African written standard. Some of the varieties
included within the scope of Tswana, e.g. Sekgalagadi, are sufficiently diver-
gent to warrant consideration – on linguistic grounds – as separate languages.
Schapera and van der Merwe (1943: 3) noted that Sekgalagadi was no closer
to Tswana than it was to Pedi or South Sotho. Janson (1995: 401) reported that
Tswana and Kgalagadi are not mutually intelligible. Present-day speakers of
Kgalagadi are dispersed over a large part of Botswana, in the Kalahari desert
or around the fringes. There is some suggestion that Kgalagadi represents a
‘purer’ form of the language, uninfluenced by surrounding languages. This is,
of course, not a tenable linguistic position to adopt. The promotion of a single
identity follows from the use of Standard Tswana in the educational context.
Janson (1991/2) argued that the phonology of Kgalagadi is more conservative
than the rest of Sotho-Tswana.
70 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

The case of Northern Sotho is also instructive. The ‘ethnic group’ Northern
Sotho was demonstrably invented by the Nationalist government to unify a
diverse set of people, who formerly were called ‘the Transvaal Sotho’, some-
times distinguishing Northern Sotho and Eastern Sotho. Pedi, the language of
one prestigious group, was selected as the basis for the standardised language.
The range of linguistic and cultural diversity within the Northern Sotho group is
very wide, so wide that van Warmelo declared that the ‘Northern Sotho language
is a fiction’ (1974: 76). Van Warmelo also noted (1974: 72) that it was difficult
to draw any real boundary between Tswana and the Northern Sotho cluster on
linguistic grounds, and that the basis for differentiation was entirely political
and administrative. The Northern Sotho peoples lack any traditional endonym,
i.e. a name used internally to refer to the group of people, and were known as
maAwa, based on a common form for the word meaning ‘no’ (NS awa; SS che;
Tsw. nyaa) (Herbert 1996: 1346).
In addition to the influence of North Nguni on South Sotho there is con-
siderable evidence of contact from Nguni (perhaps North Nguni again) on the
Sotho-Tswana group of languages as a whole. Laterals are absent from peri-
pheral Sotho languages and dialects such as Kgalagadi, Phalaborwa, Lobedu,
Dzwabo, Kgaga, Hananwa, Tlokwa etc. Bailey (1995b: 45) noted a relation
between the distribution of laterals in Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Tsonga, and
the spread of the Nguni central cattle pattern. Laterals are absent from the other
Zone S languages, and these do not show direct evidence of Nguni contact. At
another level, it is worth noting that the standardised forms of Sotho-Tswana
languages are based on the speech of the largest and most successful groups
(Kgatla, Ngwato, Hurutshe, Pedi, Southern Sotho), and it is these groups that
were most affected by Nguni culturally and linguistically, absorbing other Sotho
groups. The so-called relic languages such as Kgalagadi, Pai, Phalaborwa and
Dzwabo are perhaps better sources for data on the pre-contact character of
Sotho-Tswana.

4.3 Tsonga (S. 50)

Within South Africa, the term Tsonga is typically reserved today for groups
of speakers resident mainly in Northern Province (62.8 per cent of all Tsonga
speakers), but also represented in North West (8.9 per cent) and Mpumalanga
(5.6 per cent) as well as in major urban centres, especially in Gauteng (21.8 per
cent). The number of mother-tongue speakers is relatively small – 1,756,000,
comprising 4.4 per cent of the South African population. An equal number of
Tsonga speakers reside on the Mozambique side of the border, and there is also
a small number (c. 19,000) resident in Swaziland, mainly refugees.
The people who are called Tsonga had no real sense of shared or common
identity until such identity was ‘discovered’ in their languages and customs
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 71

by Swiss missionaries early in the twentieth century, who bestowed the name
Thonga, a Zulu form, upon the group (Harries 1988). Most of the people are
now content to call themselves vaTsonga and their language xiTsonga. How-
ever, there is an alternate name for part of this group, Shangaan, which is an
eponym for one of the Zulu chiefs, Soshangane, who subjugated many clans
in the nineteenth century. This label is rejected by those clans that were never
subjugated, but preferred by many who were. The analyst is thus presented
with a group of people who are demonstrably similar in language and custom,
with some sense of shared history, who variously self-label as vaTsonga and
maShangana and call their language either xiTsonga or xiShangana. As noted
above, a few analysts, most notably Baumbach (1987), have suggested a his-
torical affiliation between Tsonga and Nguni, but this idea has met with little
support. Bailey (1995b: 45) noted: ‘Impressionistically, the Tsonga group as
a whole shares more phonological and grammatical features with Nguni than
with any other Bantu language group. It may be that the relationship of genetic
differentiation between Nguni and Tsonga occurred in situ.’ However, one must
also allow that there has been considerable Nguni-isation of Tsonga varieties
over several centuries, and in particular as a result of the Mfecane disturbances
in the nineteenth century. The notion that Nguni and Tsonga (and other lan-
guages of Mozambique such as Ronga and Tshwa) differentiated in the present
domain poses a significant challenge to the historical linguist.
The other Tsonga group in South Africa is the so-called Tembe Thonga
of KwaZulu-Natal, most closely related to the Ronga of Mozambique. This
language is virtually extinct, though there are some older speakers, particularly
women, who have full facility in the language. The label Gondzze is sometimes
used for this variety of speech.

4.4 Venda (S. 20)

Venda is a language isolate. It is the smallest of all the indigenous African
language groups in South Africa, with 876,000 speakers, about 2.2 per cent of
the population; there are also 84,000 speakers in Zimbabwe.
From a cultural perspective, it is frequently said that the Venda affiliate
more closely with Shona than with any South African group. Similarly, the
language shares features with Shona (Doke 1967: 154) and with Pedi (Northern
Sotho), spoken to the south. Lexical similarities are the most striking, and it
may well be that the language underwent a partial relexification as a result
of Shona overlordship in the eighteenth century. Intriguingly, the musanda
courtly language shows the greatest Shona influence, e.g. the term /-ponga/,
‘to kill’ is used when a chief is the subject of the sentence instead of the usual
Venda /-vhúlaha/. The form /-ponda/ L occurs in central Shona dialects with the
specialised meaning ‘commit murder (by striking)’. Venda tradition holds that
72 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

the ruling lineage in most chiefdoms came ‘from the north’, i.e. north of the
Limpopo in present-day Zimbabwe. This would explain the higher frequency
of Shona lexical items in the courtly language. Equally striking to the Shona
influence is the absence of Nguni influence, which is pervasive in neighbouring
Sotho languages; again, this suggests that the Venda were within a protective
orbit when the Nguni were penetrating elsewhere in southern Africa.
Venda is well described (Poulos 1990; van Warmelo 1989), and there is also
a description of the musanda courtly language by Khuba (1993). Despite the
lexical borrowings from Shona, there is no good evidence for Shona morpho-
logical or phonological influence on Venda. It should be noted that the influence
of Shona on other neighbouring languages, e.g. Northern Sotho and Tsonga,
has also confounded historical investigation.

4.5 Other languages and dialects

The above represent the officially recognised languages of South Africa. It is
clear that there has been considerable movement of peoples and consequent
linguistic influence over the past centuries. There are a number of endangered
languages, whose status has been disputed for the past fifty years. Among
the latter, the best-known example is Phuthi, a Nguni language showing exten-
sive Sotho vocabulary, spoken by around 20,000 people in the Sterkspruit and
Matatiele regions of the eastern Cape, and in several parts of southern Lesotho
(Donnelly 1999).
Similarly, there is some interest in Lovedu although it has lost much of its
distinctive character under the influence of standardisation to Northern Sotho.
Once again, there are claims to Shona ancestry for the people, a relationship that
is manifest in ritual life. One may also include the Tembe-Thonga of KwaZulu-
Natal among groups of mixed languages, though Thonga has effectively ceased
to be a language of everyday speech. The most complete description of language
use in this community is by Ngubane (1992), who prefers the label isiZulu
sase Nyakatho, which he glosses as ‘Northern Zululand Zulu’, or isiNyakatho
‘Northern language’, reflecting both political and linguistic fact.
The South African government, through the auspices of the Department of
Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, has expressed some support for the
revitalization of endangered languages. However, there is little known about
the present state of these varieties, which have undoubtedly suffered under fifty
years of apartheid classification and education. It seems unlikely that the effects
of this standardisation could be undone, though it may be possible to engage
in some linguistic description of varieties used by very old speakers. The Pan
South African Language Board (PANSALB), established in 1995, has been
charged with the allocation of funds for the preservation and development of
African languages, but has showed little inclination to support sociolinguistic
(as opposed to applied linguistic) work on the Bantu languages.
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 73

5 CONCLUSION
A consideration of the socio-history of Southern Bantu languages reveals that
there are more questions than answers available to scholars. While there is no
question about the Bantu character of all nine of the officially recognised in-
digenous South African languages and the linguistic classification of these
into four distinct groups (Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Tsonga and Venda), it is
not possible to demonstrate whether two or more of the latter groups repre-
sent a valid (higher level) linguistic subgroup. Indeed, the historical unity of
the Southern Bantu languages (with or without Shona) remains an empiri-
cal question for investigation. It is worth noting that this characterisation is
largely true for the vast majority of Bantu language groups. The extent to which
prehistorical contact, bilingualism, movement and so forth obscured speech-
community boundaries and eventually confounded linguistic inheritance is an
obvious complication for historical linguistics. At the same time, linguists are
on firm ground in recognising an ‘eastern quality’ for all of the Southern Bantu
languages.
Prior to standardisation, the linguistic situation in South Africa no doubt con-
sisted of a chain of language varieties rather than recognisable, homogeneous
speech communities. The creation of ‘tribal groups’ is clearly, in some very
large measure, a product of colonialism and its residue (see e.g. Harries 1988).
One needs to recognise that the number nine is simply the output of histori-
cal accidents and design perpetrated by missionaries and government agents.
Of course, the successful promulgation of these nine ‘identities’ among the
indigenous population has been variously, though largely, successful.
The challenges for sociolinguists working in South Africa are manifold.
These include the uncovering of linguistic history and relationship with a view
to reconstructing the lineage of the nine indigenous languages with official
status. Equally daunting is the challenge of discovering the effects that language
standardisation, under the aegis of the former language boards, has had on
linguistic diversity. In the present dimension, the challenges are to document
patterns of language use and change. Within the scope of the latter topic is
the constitutional directive to provide for the development and protection of
the country’s linguistic resources. The sociolinguistic future of South Africa’s
indigenous languages will depend on the creation of conditions and incentives
for their maintenance and promulgation throughout the citizenry.

notes
1 Doke (1993[1960]: 80) notes that, according to Alice Werner, the original coinage
may have been Sir George Grey’s. The form builds upon an earlier suggestion by
Barth that they be called ‘the Ba-languages’.
2 Indeed, the form bantu and its cognates reveal such exclusive marking even in the
modern-day languages. Forms deriving from muntu (sg.) in the various languages
74 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

name a person like the speaker; Europeans and other non-Bantu speakers are excluded
from the scope of the term. Bantu are ordinary people, ‘true people’. Whites cannot be
bantu since they lack *ubuntu, ‘the quality of personhood’. This observation is not to
argue that the Bantu languages or their speakers are inherently racist. Rather, the point
is that Bleek’s original coinage nicely captures the scope of his intended distribution
since outsiders are excluded.
3 There is some ongoing debate within South Africa as to whether African language
names should be cited with or without the language appropriate prefix, e.g. Zulu
or isiZulu, Tsonga or Xitsonga/xiTsonga. Within this chapter, languages names are
cited in their most common forms within the scholarly literature, which are usually
prefixless. Bailey (1995a: 34–5) identifies many of the structural problems inherent
in the proposal that native forms, including class prefix, be the citation form in other
languages.
The other onomastic controversy surrounding language names in South Africa is
the family name Bantu, which despite its genealogy was applied to racist discrimina-
tory policies during a long period in recent South African history. As an ethnonym,
the form is highly offensive in South Africa. Its usage is restricted to languages
(Bantu languages, Bantu-speaking peoples). Khumalo (1984) suggested that the term
Sintu be used in its place, based on the Zulu/Xhosa prefixal form isi- (< Proto-
Bantu *ki-), e.g. isiZulu, and Sotho-Tswana se-, e.g. Setswana. This class 7 prefix
precedes most language names in South Africa, e.g. isiZulu. More recently, Maho
(1999: 264) makes a similar proposal and suggests that Proto-Bantu be appropriately
named Kintu, which would presumably have the meaning ‘the (true) language’. The
data on Bantu language names are complex; lu- and li- prefixes are common outside
the south and east, and many ki- (and its derivatives) names show an initial l- that
may be a remnant prefix. Venda is unique among the southern languages in hav-
ing two endonyms, Tshivenda (< *ki-) and Luvenda (<*lu-). The latter form has a
more restricted scope than the former, being used exclusively to name the language,
whereas Tshivenda also refers to custom, to ‘the Venda way’. The latter is the more
common form today, although Luvenda may be used to refer to ‘very good’ forms of
speech.
4 The other two co-official languages are the settler languages, Afrikaans and English.
5 Guthrie adopts the term ‘Sub-Bantu’ for languages in which the agreement system is
fragmentary or missing; he used ‘Bantoid’ for languages meeting his first criterion
but not the second, i.e. languages exhibiting prefixal agreement but lacking cognate
vocabulary with Bantu (1948: 19). It is important to note that the current use of the term
Bantoid is quite different; it is used to name a larger unit of which Bantu languages
form a subgroup. This usage is attributed to Greenberg (1963).
6 A few scholars give credence to the idea of a genetic relationship between Niger-Congo
and Nilo-Saharan. This idea was suggested by Gregersen (1977) under the heading
Kongo-Saharan. In present schemas, Niger-Congo is seen as most closely related
to Central Sudanic, with which it is a co-ordinate branch within a Niger-Saharan
macrophylum (Blench 1997: 99).
7 Depending on the inclusion of Madagascar within the African continent, a fifth lan-
guage family is sometimes noted: Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian). Malagasy, the
national language of Madagascar and the only representative of this language family
in Africa, was brought to Africa from insular Southeast Asia less than two thousand
 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives 75

years ago. Good arguments are made for a Bantu stratum in Malagasy (Dahl 1954),
but these do not affect the central concerns of the present discussion.
8 Nurse (1997: 168) refers to ‘the languages of southern Africa (Zone S)’ as a linguistic
subgroup that is ‘tacitly assumed by many but not really proved’.
9 A possible link between Venda and Shona is a controversial topic. The strongest
evidence for such a relationship comes not from linguistics but rather archaeology.
Huffman (1996) provides the relevant evidence. From a linguistic point of view,
there are intriguing occurrences such as the use of some Shona terms in the courtly
musanda language (Khuba 1993). It may be, however, that the pre-Shona exercised
a kind of overlordship relationship with the Venda.
10 There are, however, interesting data here. For example, the Proto-Bantu form for
‘ear’, */-tú/ or */-kutú/, is not attested in the southern region. All of the Zone S
languages have a form based on the root */-njebé/ (class 9). This may be evidence
for a Proto-Southern Bantu innovation; however, one cannot rule out diffusion as an
explanation for such sporadic examples.
11 One of the present authors (Bailey) believes that there was a more significant Tsonga
presence in the historical region now known as KwaZulu-Natal. According to Bailey,
pre-Tsonga speakers were overwhelmed by incoming Southern Nguni speakers, and
this Tsonga substratum is cited as the source for the Tekela accent. Vocabulary within
the Tekela group is, however, overwhelmingly of Nguni origin.
12 There is some confusion surrounding the language name Ndebele, which is ap-
plied to three distinct entities: Zimbabwean Ndebele, Northern Transvaal Ndebele
and Southern Transvaal Ndebele. There is occasional confusion in this regard, e.g.
Grimes (1996) notes that Southern Transvaal Ndebele is sometimes called a dialect of
Northern Sotho. Despite contact influences from Northern Sotho, Southern Transvaal
Ndebele is unambiguously a Nguni language. Northern Transvaal Ndebele, described
by Ziervogel (1959) is now extinct, having been replaced by Northern Sotho.
The zeal with which the Nationalist homeland policy was implemented led to the
elevation of several minor dialects to the status of official languages, e.g. Ndebele
(Southern Transvaal Ndebele) and Swati, both North Nguni dialects. Until the 1980s,
these languages were classed as dialects of Zulu, and Zulu materials were used
in education without major difficulty. Ndrebele (Northern Transvaal Ndebele) was
spoken over too dispersed an area for a homeland to be consolidated while a history
of widespread bilingualism with Pedi rendered it bureaucratically unnecessary. Thus,
the ‘tenth’ indigenous Bantu language of South Africa was rendered unnecessary
and obsolete.
13 The failed homeland policy of the Nationalist government sought to legislate this
sense of order by stripping Africans of their South African citizenship and replacing
it with citizenship in one of the bantustan creations.
14 Data for South Africa are extracted from the 1996 Population Census Report
(http://www.statssa.gov.za/census96). Data for other countries are from Ethnologue
(Grimes 1996).
15 It is often claimed that Zulu functions as a lingua franca for 70 per cent of South
Africa’s population (Government Gazette, vol. 407, no. 20098, 28 May 1999), but
the empirical basis for this claim is uncertain. However, it is important to stress that
the Population Census numbers reflect home-language status only, not patterns of
language use or knowledge.
76 R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey

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4 Afrikaans: considering origins

Paul T. Roberge

1 INTRODUCTION
The three groups primarily responsible for the formation of Afrikaans –
European settlers (from 1652), the indigenous Khoekhoe and enslaved peoples
of African and Asian provenance (from 1658) – were quite distinct during
the first decades of the Cape Colony. This distinctness was defined by physi-
cal appearance, culture, religion and language. By the end of the Dutch East
India Company (VOC) era in 1795, a number of processes had eroded these
boundaries, inter alia: the incorporation of the Khoekhoe into the European-
dominated society as wage-labourers subject to Dutch law; conversion of slaves
and free blacks to Christianity or Islam; and miscegenation and intermarriage
among groups (cf. Elphick and Shell 1989: 184). Descendants of these groups
had further come to share in a common vernacular that was unique to southern
Africa.

2 THE NETHERLANDIC DETERMINANTS OF AFRIKAANS

During the VOC era (1652–1795), the language of European settlers in southern
Africa reflected not the emerging standard Dutch of the metropole but rather the
popular and regional varieties of the rank and file. Kloeke (1950) concluded that
the Netherlandic base of Afrikaans must lie in the southern part of the modern
province of South Holland. Scholtz (1963: 232–56) acknowledged Hollandic
affinities, even though he disputed the idea that the metropolitan base could
be located in one specific region in Holland. There is reason to believe that
Afrikaans has historical links to an inchoate koine that formed in Amsterdam
and other urban centres in Holland during the seventeenth century due to internal
immigration and an influx of refugees from Germany and French-speaking
regions. Because the cities were not able to absorb all the immigrants into the
mainstream economy, these groups must have been well represented in Dutch
colonial populations (cf. Ponelis 1993: 122, 127–9; Buccini 1996). We know, of
course, that the Dutch-speaking population at the Cape of Good Hope reflected
a variety of dialectal backgrounds (Utrecht, Zealand, Brabant, Flanders, the

79
80 P. T. Roberge

eastern provinces of the Netherlands). The link between Hollands and Afrikaans
may be attributable to a strong ‘founder effect’ exerted by the Dutch outpost’s
first commander – Jan van Riebeeck (1619–77) – and his entourage, as Kloeke
thought. Alternatively, the link may reflect an inchoate seventeenth-century
koine that had formed in the cities of Holland (especially Amsterdam) among
speakers who were constitutive of the founder population of the Dutch colony
in southern Africa.
The Cape Colony included significant numbers of Europeans to whom Dutch
was not native, namely speakers of Low German dialects (which constitute a
segment of the dialect continuum that stretches from the Netherlands through
northern Germany), High German dialects and French, with the arrival of
Huguenot refugees at the Cape in 1685.

3 DUTCH IN CONTACT WITH OTHER LANGUAGES AT THE CAPE

OF GOOD HOPE DURING THE VOC ERA

3.1 Contact with Khoekhoe

About fifty thousand Khoekhoe inhabited the south-western Cape prior to the
establishment of a VOC victualling station in Cape Town in 1652 (Elphick and
Malherbe 1989: 3); most lived as pastoralists. Afro-European contact required at
least a minimal form of communication between speakers of mutually unintel-
ligible and typologically very different languages. Individual, ad hoc solutions
to the problem of inter-ethnic communication were a natural, if not inevitable,
development, and our source material preserves fragments of jargonised and
inter-language forms of Dutch in the mouths of Khoekhoe. Fluency in Dutch
was rare before the early eighteenth century. Save for individual settlers along
the frontier, Europeans seldom achieved even the most rudimentary proficiency
in a Khoekhoe dialect.
Within sixty years of Dutch occupation, the traditional Khoekhoe economy,
social structure and political order had almost entirely collapsed in the south-
western Cape. VOC policy and operations undermined critical sectors of
Khoekhoe life (see Elphick 1977: 237–8; Elphick and Malherbe 1989), while
the smallpox epidemics of 1713 and 1755 decimated the Khoekhoe population.
In addition to these catastrophes, the inland Khoekhoe came under severe eco-
nomic pressure in the form of stock disease (from 1714) and the advance of
European settlement during the eighteenth century, which destroyed some
Khoekhoe groups, absorbed others, and drove others deeper into the interior.
The decline of Khoekhoe identity as it had existed prior to 1652 was exacer-
bated by attendant language shift. The Khoekhoe continued to speak their own
language among themselves until the mid-eighteenth century, at which time
their dialects began to disappear from the western Cape.
 Afrikaans: considering origins 81

By 1800, there were few Khoesan in the colony who were not in the service
of the Europeans as farm and domestic labour. From 1775, the offspring of
female Khoekhoe and male slaves – known as Basters or Bastaard hottentots –
were legally indentured until the age of twenty-five. The inboek system was
later construed by farmers to apply to all Khoesan children (Elphick and
Malherbe 1989: 32). Along the northern frontier, the class of Cape Dutch-
speaking Khoekhoe who had been in service came to be known as Oorlams; one
such group pushed into present-day Namibia at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. The Basters were of mixed European, Khoekhoe and slave parentage.
From this class there emerged in the early nineteenth century a series of Cape
Dutch-speaking communities along and to the north of the Orange river, known
collectively as Griqua. In the mid-nineteenth century a group of Basters settled
in Rehoboth in Namibia.

3.2 Contact with slaves

Language contact in the early Cape society was furthered by the importation
of approximately 63,000 slaves between 1652 and 1808, the year in which
the legal international slave trade was abolished (Shell 1994b: 12). Prior to
1658, there were only a handful of personal slaves at the Cape, including a
few in van Riebeeck’s household. The first significant numbers arrived in that
year from Angola and Dahomey. Subsequently, the Cape turned to the East
for most of its slaves – to the Indonesian archipelago, the Indian subconti-
nent, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, the Mascarenes and Mozambique (Shell 1994b:
12–13). Slaves from the Eastern possessions of the VOC outnumbered all other
slaves imported to the Cape and remained in the majority until the mid-1780s,
when the East African mainland and Madagascar became the primary sources
of slave labour. The period 1784–1808 saw the largest influx of slaves from
abroad.
Between 1808 and 1865, at least five thousand ‘prize Negroes’ (illegal slaves)
were captured by the British navy and landed at Cape Town, where they were
housed in the Company Lodge along with other slaves and apprenticed to
established slave owners for a period of fourteen years (Shell 1994a: 148).
Slaves were thus drawn ‘from a multitude of starkly different geographical
and cultural origins, constituting easily the most diverse population of any
recorded slave society’ (Shell 1994b: 11). Furthermore, the labour system at
the Cape often entailed the separation of new arrivals from their linguistic
and cultural groups. In this regard Worden (1985: 86) makes the important
point that in the rural Cape under the VOC, it was not possible for slaves
to construct a ‘world’ of their own, shaped by common cultural traditions,
religious beliefs and relatively stable family units. According to Worden, the
small size of most farms implied limited contact and interaction among slaves.
82 P. T. Roberge

Only in the urban milieu of Cape Town was there sufficient opportunity for
the emergence of a slave ‘community’, abetted especially by the growth of
Islam.
The slave population also increased naturally by procreation. From the 1760s,
the percentage of the Cape slave population that was locally born was at or
near 50 per cent (Shell 1994b: 16–17). The children of liaisons between slave
women and European or Khoekhoe men were de iure slaves (Elphick and Shell
1989: 202). By 1834, when the institution was abolished at the Cape, as in
other British colonies, the slave population had risen to 36,169 (Armstrong and
Worden 1989: 109).
The ethnic diversity of the Cape slaves meant linguistic diversity as well.
While some slaves were proficient at several European and/or Asian languages,
others brought only their own languages, which were of little utility for com-
munication among themselves and with their masters and indigenous South
Africans. Two lingue franche gained currency: some slaves used a variety of
Creole Portuguese, which persisted throughout the VOC era (cf. Valkhoff 1966:
146–91; den Besten 1997), and/or a more-or-less koineised South African
variety of Malay (cf. den Besten 2000). But most new arrivals used jargonised
forms of Dutch to converse with their masters, with indigenes and with one
another.

4 GENDER AS A VARIABLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF

AFRIKAANS

Gender was an important sociolinguistic variable at the old Cape. Edith Raidt
(1994: 175–257, 1995) has examined a corpus of fifty-seven Cape Dutch texts
dating from between 1710 and 1805 either written by women or containing
speech attributed to them. She attempts to reconstruct the social networks
of each of these women, to the extent possible, with a view toward reveal-
ing patterns of variation. Women are shown to have been on the vanguard of
change in the direction of Afrikaans and at the same time conservative in their
preservation of Dutch dialectisms. However, upper-class women seem to have
been instrumental in the preservation of Dutch at the Cape. In 1751, Hendrik
Swellengrebel (1700–60) retired as governor of the Cape of Good Hope and
returned to Holland with his children. His eldest daughters, Helena Johanna
(1730–53) and Johanna Engela (1733–98) – both born at the Cape – kept a jour-
nal during their voyage from Cape Town to the Dutch Republic that is written
in a very good Dutch (Barend-van Haeften 1996). The pietistic diarist Susanna
Catharina Smit (1799–1863), born in Uitenhage, put her religious experience
to paper between 1843 and 1851 in a less elegant but still quite passable Dutch
(Puddu 1996).
 Afrikaans: considering origins 83

5 THE CHRONOLOGY AND SPREAD OF AFRIKAANS

It is customary to date the existence of Afrikaans as a language separate from
Dutch between 1750 and 1775 (cf. Raidt 1983: 6–8, 15, 27–8), although there
are good reasons to be critical of the received terminus post quem. Variation
continued for at least another century (cf. Roberge 1994b), and Deumert (1999)
has established the existence of a relatively stable linguistic continuum up to
the turn of the twentieth century.
The first truly ‘Afrikaans’ texts are some doggerel verse from 1795 and
a short dialogue transcribed in 1825 by a Dutch traveller. From the 1830s
we find letters to newspapers written in the vernacular (usually in a jocular
vein) and some comic sketches. At about the same time, a tradition of writing
Afrikaans with Arabic orthography arose within the Cape Muslim commu-
nity (see Davids 1991), even though the first published text – the Bayânudı̂n
(An explanation of the religion) of Abu Bakr Effendi – was not printed until
1877 (cf. Van Selms 1979). Starting in the 1870s, language served as a uni-
fying factor in the Afrikaner drive for political empowerment. From 1875 the
Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Society of True Afrikaners) sought to foster
ethnic solidarity among Cape Afrikaners and establish Afrikaans as a written
medium. A second language movement arose in the aftermath of the Anglo-
Boer War (1899–1902), from which a literature of genuine merit emerged. In
1925 Afrikaans was recognised in lieu of Dutch as the second official language
(alongside English) of the Union of South Africa.
Since van Rensburg (1983), it has been customary to distinguish three basic
varieties of Afrikaans: Cape Afrikaans extends from Cape Town and the Boland
(Stellenbosch, Paarl) along the Atlantic coast to approximately the Olifants river
in the north and eastward along the south coast to the Overberg district (east of
the Hottentots Holland mountains) and the Little Karoo. It is represented in its
most extreme form by the Kaapse Afrikaans of the Cape coloureds and the Cape
Muslims, which is based on the varieties of the early slave and Khoekhoe com-
munities in the western Cape. The sectarian Cape Muslim community of Cape
Town, which numbers perhaps 130,000 or so, is treated in some respects as a
separate linguistic subgroup (cf. Kotzé 1984, 1989 and especially Davids 1991).
Orange River Afrikaans (Oranjerivier-Afrikaans) is spoken by people of colour
in the north-western Cape (Namaqualand), in Namibia up to Etosha Pan, and
in the southern Free State (with an offshoot near Kokstad in south-eastern
KwaZulu-Natal: see Rademeyer 1938; van Rensburg 1984 and 1987; Links
1989). The differences between Cape and Orange River Afrikaans are attri-
butable to the fact that historically, the greater the distance from Cape Town, the
larger the proportion of Khoekhoe among the speakers of Cape Dutch. Eastern
Cape Afrikaans (Oosgrens-Afrikaans) reflects the Cape Dutch vernacular of
the settlers who established themselves along the eastern frontier from the
84 P. T. Roberge

late eighteenth century, and subsequently in the former Orange Free State and
Transvaal. Standard Afrikaans developed between roughly 1900 and 1930, and
is drawn mainly from the eastern frontier variety, with adlexification from Dutch
in learned vocabulary.

6 ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF DUTCH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA:

MAJOR POSITIONS AND ISSUES

‘If we go back in time, the problem of what Afrikaans is becomes more and
more difficult’, wrote Valkhoff (1972: 2), and notwithstanding a far better
understanding of the material facts, his words remain true today. Exactly how
extra-territorial Dutch was transformed into Afrikaans has been a warmly dis-
puted question for more than a century. Currently, there are three basic positions
on the formation of Afrikaans, with varying degrees of overlap and difference
in emphasis. They are not necessarily incompatible (cf. Kloss 1978: 151); and
it is important to bear in mind that the questions asked are often not the same.

6.1 The superstratist hypothesis

The main tenet of the superstratist hypothesis is that most of the structural
features of Afrikaans are to be traced back to dialectal Early Modern Dutch.
According to the two most prolific advocates of this view, J. du Plessis Scholtz
(1963, 1965, 1972, 1980) and Edith H. Raidt (1974, 1983, 1989, 1991, 1994),
Afrikaans evolved by a series of internally motivated changes that took place
in the absence of strong normative pressures. After 1700 there is a discernible
slope toward deflection and regularisation. Our source material indicates a tran-
sition period between 1740 and 1775. Some changes that define Afrikaans were
already fully in place, while others were still in progress. By 1775, and certainly
no later than 1800, however, we can assume a more or less uniform and stable
vernacular (Raidt 1983: 6–8, 15, 27–8), somewhat different in the mouths of
the Khoekhoe, slaves and subsequent generations of mixed descent.
In its strong formulation the superstratist hypothesis contends that beyond
some obvious lexical borrowing from Khoekhoe (e.g. kierie, ‘cudgel’; gogga,
‘insect’), (Creole) Portuguese (e.g. kraal, ‘pen, corral’; tronk, ‘jail’) and Malay
(e.g. baklei, ‘fight’; nooi/nôi ‘young lady, mistress of the house’), Afrikaans
owes relatively little, if anything, to the languages of the peoples who came
into contact with the Dutch from the second half of the seventeenth century.
But clearly, the changes that characterise Afrikaans vis-à-vis Dutch are much
too extensive to have occurred solely by means of ‘normal’ linguistic evolution
within the elapsed time (Kloss 1978: 151; Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 255).
Moreover, ‘the drastic inflectional simplifications and consequent remodelling
of Dutch structures in Afrikaans are not typical, as a set of changes, of any
 Afrikaans: considering origins 85

European Dutch dialect or dialect group’ (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 255).
The superstratist hypothesis asks us to believe that any number of non-standard
dialects in the Low Countries contributed rules and features to Afrikaans (the
cafeteria principle in its original sense). The Flemish dialectologist J. L. Pauwels
(1958, 1959) claimed that the Brabantine dialect of Aarschot preserves the
model for the etymologically opaque double negation (Sy het nie gesê dat sy
môre gaan wen nie, ‘She didn’t say (that) she is going to win tomorrow’)
and the neologistic demonstrative pronouns hierdie, ‘this’, daardie, ‘that’ (lit.
‘here, there + that’) replacing Dutch deze/dit, ‘this’, die/dat, ‘that’; in a sim-
ilar vein on the demonstratives, see Raidt (1994: 161–74). Such claims are
undermined by the fact that both features are not attested until quite late in
our Cape Dutch source material, and that Afrikaans does not otherwise show
strong affinities to southern Netherlandic dialects (i.e. Brabants, Flemish and
Zeeuws). In fact, Buccini (1996) has shown that the European base of Cape
Dutch/Afrikaans shares essentially the same demographic and dialectal pro-
file as New Netherland Dutch in North America, where Afrikaans-like double
negation and demonstratives (among other features) are entirely unknown.
According to Raidt (1978: 119, 1983: 24–8 and 191, 1991: 124–31, 176–7),
native-language (L1) ‘interference’ and imperfect approximation of Dutch re-
sulted in ‘broken language’ on the part of the large number of non-native
speakers – European as well as non-European – in a multilingual society –
but not outright pidginisation, much less creolisation (similarly, Pheiffer 1980:
1–11; Conradie 1998). Speech ‘errors’ that were initially random and unsystem-
atic eventually coupled with parallel internal changes in progress (most notably
the deflective tendency). Yet it is hardly likely that German- and French-based
inter-language varieties played a critical role in the restructuring of Dutch at the
Cape. As Buccini (1996) points out, the European population of New Netherland
was no less heterogeneous, yet New Netherland Dutch shows nowhere near the
same degree of deflection and restructuring as Afrikaans. The different linguis-
tic outcomes are surely due to radically different sociolinguistic conditions in
the two former Dutch colonies.
To be sure, superstratists do acknowledge some limited substrate influence.
Raidt derives reduplication in Afrikaans (staan-staan, ‘stand-stand’, i.e.
‘standing’) from Malay (1983: 169–72, 1991: 225–6, 1994: 148–60) and the
object marker vir (Hulle ken vir ons baie goed ‘They know us very well’) from
Creole Portuguese (1983: 183–7, 1991: 226–7, 1994: 116–47). (Further to these
features see now, respectively, den Besten et al. forthcoming; den Besten 2000.)

6.2 The variationist/interlectalist hypothesis

This stresses the levelling of grammatical systems between closely related
and mutually intelligible West Germanic dialects in contact (van Rensburg
86 P. T. Roberge

1983: 138–9, 1985, 1989). Competition among, and selection of, linguistic
variants imported from the metropole is an ongoing process in the history of
Afrikaans. To cite but one example: Afrikaans reflexive pronouns are identical
to the oblique forms of the corresponding personal pronouns: Hy was hom, ‘He
washes himself’; Hulle besin hulle, ‘They change their minds’, beside Dutch
hij wast zich, zij bezinnen zich. Non-standard varieties of Dutch frequently use
the oblique forms of the third-person pronouns as reflexives; Standard Dutch
zich is borrowed from German and did not become common in Holland until
the sixteenth century. Both variants are in competitive alternation in our Cape
Dutch source material to the end of the eighteenth century, by which time the
latter had become recessive. To the extent that traditional diachronic formu-
lations are translatable into terms of synchronic variation and selection, the
variationist component of this hypothesis qualifies mainly as a shift in perspec-
tive. As such, the problems associated with the superstratist hypothesis may
present themselves as before in less clear-cut cases.
Combrink (1978: 72–77) explains the demise of personal agreement in the
Afrikaans verb as the linguistic consequence of mixing between similar but non-
identical inflectional systems in the Netherlandic and Low German dialects
represented at the Cape. Because the exigencies of efficient communication
implied greater reliance on syntax and lexical roots, verbal inflections became
completely redundant and thus dispensable. In this way Cape Dutch could be
morphologically stripped even while retaining its Continental West Germanic
syntactic typology. It is true that koineisation can produce inflectional sim-
plification while leaving intact more complex grammatical systems (Holm
1988: 10). But these same exigencies of perceptibility and ease of decoding also
underlie the loss of inflectional morphology during pidginisation and creolisa-
tion. While verbal inflection was reduced in New Netherland Dutch (especially
in the last stages), this reduction was largely phonologically motivated; ‘the
principle remained until the end’ (Buccini 1992).
According to the interlectalist component of the hypothesis under discussion,
language shift within the Afro-Asian substratum was preceded by spontaneous,
untutored approximations of Dutch (imperfect code-switching) on the part of
adult language learners in the early years of the colony, with succeeding gener-
ations acquiring Cape Dutch natively (as bilinguals for an indeterminate period
of time). The contemporary Afrikaans of people of colour still bears the im-
print of the interlanguages of their forebears, even though there was, according
to this view, no pidgin or creole ancestor in the conventional sense of these
terms (cf. van Rensburg 1985: 138–54, 1989: 137–8; Kotzé 1989; Webb 1993).
Ponelis (1988, 1993: 27–30, 1994) provides the most coherent articulation of
the interlectalist position: (1) The Cape Colony was a heterogeneous, multilin-
gual society in which Dutch was a minority first language in the early years and
was approximated in a haphazard, untutored way on account of its extensive use
 Afrikaans: considering origins 87

as a lingua franca. Furthermore, the colony continually received new interlectal

speakers. (2) There was no withdrawal of the superstrate language. Dutch con-
tinued as the first language of a significant portion of VOC personnel and of the
free settler population. (3) There was a spectrum between ‘(spoken) matrilec-
tal Dutch and . . . a whole range of interlectal varieties’. The interlectal codes
within this continuum were characterized by varying degrees of substrate trans-
fer, reduction, simplification and overgeneralization, ‘depending on closeness
of contact’ (1993: 30). (4) Afrikaans today exhibits many structural proper-
ties attributed to creole languages generally due to interlectal modification. Van
Rensburg (e.g. 1989: 142) finesses the question of pidginisation and creolisation
in Afrikaans by representing these phenomena as two acquisition stages along
an inter-language continuum. For Ponelis (1993: 27, 30), restructuring due to
secondary proficiency is creolisation, and the difference between his position
and that of van Rensburg appears to be one of terminology, not substance.
The fundamental interlectalist thesis – that adults attempting to master a
foreign language under difficult circumstances provided the driver for the
restructuring of Dutch (rather than the agency of children) – seems to me clearly
correct. Unfortunately, there is no attempt to explain how highly idiosyncratic
L1 transfers, simplifications and hybrids could become conventionalised as long
as language learning remained targeted in the direction of metropolitan Dutch.
With subsequent bilingualism and language shift within the Afro-Asian sub-
stratum in the course of the eighteenth century, the result would have been
indigenised varieties of Cape Dutch spoken natively and not a totally new lan-
guage. Only Ponelis (1993: 30) is fleetingly aware of the crucial distinction
between targeted versus non-targeted acquisition (i.e. towards the superstrate).

6.3 The creolist hypothesis

In the view of many linguists Afrikaans is a ‘semi-creole,’ that is, a transitional
language located on a continuum somewhere between creole and non-creole
(see Markey 1982: 201–2; Makhudu 1984: 96; Thomason and Kaufman 1988:
148, 251–6; Holm 1989: II, 339–40, 2000; Bruyn and Veenstra 1993: 30). The
idea is far from new. For the Dutch linguist D. C. Hesseling (1899, 2nd edn.
1923: 59), creolisation results from the sudden encounter of two completely
different peoples and languages. With the introduction of slavery to southern
Africa in 1658, Creole Portuguese with an admixture of Malay is supposed to
have become so widely spoken in the Cape Colony during the period 1658–85
as to leave a very strong impression on the Dutch language. Ultimately, how-
ever, creolisation was only partial due to regular arrivals of VOC personnel
and new immigrants from the Netherlands, and also to the conserving influ-
ence of the Dutch church and Bible (1923: 59–60, 128). J. L. M. Franken
(1927–31, collected 1953) concluded from his study of early archival materials
88 P. T. Roberge

that Afrikaans evolved from ‘broken’ forms of Dutch that emerged during the
first fifty years of Dutch occupation as the vernacular of slaves, Khoekhoe and
their descendants of mixed race. It was during this time also that the speech of
European children came under the influence of these varieties (1953: 26, 95,
202–3). Thus Franken followed Hesseling in stressing contact with people of
colour, even while de-emphasising somewhat the latter’s construct of a mixed
‘Malayo-Portuguese’ lingua franca (cf. 1953: 43). Hesseling’s thesis was revis-
ited by Marius Valkhoff, according to whom Cape society from the second half
of the seventeenth century and still in the first half of the eighteenth century was
so much integrated that there was a very close intercourse between Europeans,
indigenes and slaves. Valkhoff assumed the emergence of a ‘proto-Afrikaans’
among the latter groups during the first fifty years of Dutch occupation (1966:
204–7, 1972: 48–9). During these ‘linguistic encounters’ Creole Portuguese
provided the flux in the semi-creolisation of Dutch, though Malay gradually
overtook it as a lingua franca in the East and slave language in southern Africa
during the eighteenth century and left its mark as well (1972: 72, 83).
Nowadays, the creolist hypothesis is perhaps most closely identified with the
research programme of Hans den Besten (e.g. 1978, 1986: 224 et passim, 1987,
1988, 1989, 1997). From as early as 1590, local Khoekhoe used jargonised
forms of Dutch and English in their contacts with Europeans who called at
the Cape of Good Hope. The period 1652–8 saw the emergence of a ‘fort’
situation (1989: 226–7); that is, a situation in which Europeans established a
permanent outpost on the shores of continents and developed complex rela-
tions with indigenes. According to den Besten (1989: 219–20), the Khoekhoe
‘could develop a pidgin of their own without interference of other groups of
non-native speakers of Dutch. The resulting pidgin was called Hottentots-
Hollands or Hottentot-Dutch.’ From 1658, the slaves (re)pidginised Dutch
in their encounters with the Khoekhoe and Europeans, and contributed their
own modifications. Creolisation occurred in the western Cape around 1700
following the withdrawal of Khoekhoe into the interior to escape European
domination and in the aftermath of the 1713 smallpox epidemic. The Cape
Dutch pidgin(s) may have become a native language for at least some speakers
among locally born slaves and the mixed offspring of Khoekhoe who remained
in the western Cape. The Khoekhoe who withdrew from the western Cape,
however,
took their pidgin (creole?) with them, and probably influenced the other Hottentots in
the north and in the east, so that those Cape farmers who – from about 1700 onward –
started to colonize the future eastern districts of the Cape Colony could again meet with
Khoekhoen who spoke some kind of Dutch. Things were different in the north, in the
Orange River area, since whites appeared there relatively recently, i.e. in the 19th century.
(Den Besten 1989: 224)
 Afrikaans: considering origins 89

Modern Cape and Orange River Afrikaans are traceable to the pidgin and creole
Dutch formerly spoken widely by people of colour in these regions. Euro-Cape
Dutch exerted a ‘decreolising influence’ on these varieties, although decreolisa-
tion was ‘counterbalanced by “creolizing” influences exerted upon Cape Dutch
by the Dutch Creole (or Creoles)’ (1989: 225). By about 1850, one may speak
of an ‘Afrikaans koine with dialectal differentiation’ (1989: 226).
As a class, fort creoles typically differ less radically from their lexifier lan-
guages than do plantation creoles. That Afrikaans has remained linguistically
much closer to Dutch than the Caribbean Dutch creoles is in den Besten’s view
(1989: 227) attributable to three factors: (1) The population of the Cape Colony
comprised a high percentage of Europeans. (2) The Cape Dutch pidgin/creole
was a second or third language, for many slaves could avail themselves of creole
Portuguese and/or Malay. The availability of these lingue franche limited
somewhat the importance of Cape Dutch pidgin for inter-ethnic communica-
tion. (3) The legally free Khoekhoe were in a better position than the slaves to
improve their performance in the direction of the superstrate by virtue of their
greater access to that language.
Ponelis challenges den Besten’s assertion that ‘Hottentot Dutch’ supplied
the foundation for subsequent developments: ‘[Den Besten] considers no so-
ciohistorical evidence . . . [and] his position is based entirely on shaky linguistic
evidence’ (1993: 33–4). Although the latter assessment seems unduly harsh,
it is improbable that ‘Hottentot Dutch’ could have developed beyond unstable
and highly variable jargons and interlanguages into what one could reasonably
construe as a pidgin sensu stricto, that is, a code that is characterised by social
norms and some measure of grammatical fixity.
The length of time between the beginnings of immigration and what Baker
(e.g. Baker 1993: 137–8) calls ‘Event 1’ – the point at which the slave popula-
tion surpasses the slave-owning European population – is crucial. The longer
this period, the greater the exposure of newly arrived slaves to the superstrate
language. In the Cape Colony, the pre-Event 1 period was roughly fifty-two
years, that is, 1658–1710 (cf. Armstrong and Worden 1989: 121), and thus of
sufficient length to produce a linguistic variety much closer to the superstrate
language than in other slave societies (cf. Corne’s contribution on Réunionnais
in Baker and Corne 1982).
Subsequent to Event 1, the rate of dilution of the superstrate language is
determined by the rate of increase in the slave population. In the Cape Colony,
the slave population never greatly exceeded the settler population. Moreover,
there was no subsequent formation of a plantation society. The Cape was poorly
suited to plantation agriculture, and there were no large slave holders save for the
VOC itself and a few of the bigger farms in the western Cape. The demographic
event corresponding to Baker’s Event 2 – when the number of locally born slaves
90 P. T. Roberge

surpasses the slave-owning population – did not take place in southern Africa.
These facts suggest that L2 acquisition on the part of subsequent arrivals could
be more directly targeted toward the language of Europeans than in other slave-
labour systems in which creole languages have formed – as den Besten and
others (above) have rightly stressed.
At the same time, however, the scenario above makes implausible the for-
mation of a Cape Dutch creole in the conventional sense of the term. A Cape
Dutch pidgin cannot have been nativised in the sense that it provided the pri-
mary input for L1 acquisition; there was, after all, no actual withdrawal of the
superstrate language. Furthermore, we find no evidence whatsoever to substan-
tiate the view that decreolisation (loss of basilect) represents a developmental
stage in the history of Afrikaans.

7 THE CREOLIST HYPOTHESIS REFORMULATED

Although I am in agreement with den Besten’s version of the creolist hypothesis

in principle, I believe that reformulation is indicated along the following lines:
(1) We can readily stipulate that jargonised forms of Dutch emerged among
the Khoekhoe, who comprised the primary substrate community during the
initial period of European contact and occupation.
(2) Between 1658 and roughly 1710, newly arrived slaves would have had
ample opportunity to achieve adequate L2 versions of Dutch. However,
sociolinguistic conditions at the old Cape following Event 1 afforded sub-
sequent newcomers a greater exposure to the superstrate language than was
available in slave-labour systems in other parts of the world. Thus, L2 ver-
sions of Dutch were not filtered through succeeding mass concentrations of
slave labour, becoming more and more diluted as they spread further from
their point of origin.
Still, there was always a need for communication between the various
segments of a polyglot society: between Europeans and indigenes; between
slaves of varying ethnic backgrounds; and between slaves of whatever
background, Europeans, the Khoekhoe and free blacks. Neither Creole
Portuguese nor Malay were in general use as lingue franche because too few
colonists and indigenes knew these languages. Members of the Afro-Asian
substratum sharing no common language used their jargonised versions of
superstrate Dutch as their primary medium of inter-ethnic communication,
augmented by adlexification from Creole Portuguese, Malay and Khoekhoe
dialects. We therefore posit the existence of a stable Cape Dutch pidgin
within the Afro-Asian substratum.
Ponelis (1993: 28) believes the likelihood of a stable Cape Dutch pid-
gin having existed to be rather small. To be sure, the degree to which
 Afrikaans: considering origins 91

jargonised Dutch would have stabilised into a pidgin would depend on

the intimacy of the linguistic encounters between Khoekhoe and slaves.
However, the German traveller O. F. Mentzel, who spent eight years at the
Cape from 1737, has left to posterity an important observation: ‘Since the
arrival of the Europeans the inhabitants of these kraals [the Khoekhoe] that
were near the new settlement greatly enriched their vocabulary by contact
with the newcomers; they learned still more from the slaves, and borrowed
some [my emphasis] of the so-called Portuguese, or more accurately, of
the lingua franca, common among all Eastern slaves’ (1921 [1785]: I, 49).
Throughout the eighteenth century, slaves from a wide variety of areas of
origin were brought into the colony, where they worked alongside
Cape-born slaves and, increasingly, the Khoekhoe with very different cul-
tural traditions and who in most cases maintained some contact with their
own kraals (Worden 1985: 90). By the mid-eighteenth century, stabilisation
of Khoekhoe and slave jargons into the Cape Dutch pidgin had occurred in
the colonial service community, albeit with regional and ethnic variation. In
the frontier regions Portuguese and Malay elements in the pidgin were less
prominent. Traditional Khoekhoe with very infrequent contact with slaves
would not have spoken the pidgin but instead retained jargonised versions of
Dutch.
(3) In the course of the eighteenth century locally born language learners drew
on the resources of a fully developed superstrate language (acrolectal Cape
Dutch) alongside a developing system, that is, a co-territorial stabilised
Cape Dutch pidgin.
(4) Europeans can be expected to have transmitted their vernacular without
interruption to their descendants. However, given the intimacy of their own
linguistic encounters with the labour force, Europeans accepted individual
features from the Cape Dutch pidgin but did not adopt either in its entirety.
(5) Convergence between acrolectal Cape Dutch (section 8 below) and the
Cape Dutch pidgin (section 9) also led to independent innovations that
are etymologically opaque in the sense that they have no easily and dis-
tinctly identifiable ancestry in either superstrate or substrate languages
(section 11).

8 ACROLECTAL CAPE DUTCH

Acrolectal Cape Dutch is the variety closest to the metropolitan language at the
end of the VOC era. It is preserved in the diary fragment of Johanna Duminy
(1797, published in Franken 1938). Limitations of space do not permit more
than a cursory overview of important linguistic affinities and divergences.
Although gender in the noun had virtually disappeared by 1797 (de huijs,
Dutch het huis, Afrikaans die huis, ‘the house’), acrolectal Cape Dutch does not
92 P. T. Roberge

show the same degree of verbal deflection as Afrikaans, which, as a general rule,
has done away with inflectional oppositions entirely (Dutch werken, ‘work’: ik
werk, ‘I work’; jij werkt, ‘you (sg.) work’; wij werken, ‘we work’, etc. beside
Afrikaans werk: ek, jy, ons werk).
Duminy consistently distinguishes between finite and non-finite forms of
the verb. As concerns personal agreement, the direction of change in acrolec-
tal Cape Dutch seems to be towards invariant finite inflection, the result of
which would be a simple binary opposition between finite and non-finite forms
of the verb. It is the singular (the exponents of which could be either zero
or -t) that has encroached on the plural termination -e(n) and not vice versa. In
the plural Duminy’s usage vacillates between inflected and endingless forms
(wij sliep beside wij sliepe, Dutch wij sliepen, ‘we slept’); one finds neither
deflected infinitives (sij liet haar wage inspannen/*inspan, ‘She had her wagon
inspanned’) nor intrusions of plural -e(n) into the singular (Ik gaf, ‘I gave’,
but not *ik gave(n)). Final cluster reduction is evident in the Duminy diary
(direk: Dutch direct, Afrikaans direk), and one would think that it brought ad-
ditional pressure to bear on second- and third-person singular verb forms in -t
and on the weak past participle (gewerk for gewerkt). However, cluster reduc-
tion may not have been as general in acrolectal Cape Dutch as it is today in
Afrikaans. Several idiosyncrasies of Duminy’s usage are hardly consonant with
the assumption of a fully diffused rule, namely, the presence of ahistorical -t
in the present-tense first-person singular (ik komt, Dutch ik kom, ‘I come’)
and plural (wij komt, Dutch wij komen), and in the strong preterite ik gaft
(for ik gaf ).
Acrolectal Cape Dutch preserved the pan-Germanic distinction between
‘strong’ (ablauting) and ‘weak’ (dental suffixal) inflection in preterital con-
jugation (laten/liet, ‘let’; bestellen/bestelde, ‘order’) and in the past participle
(krijgen/gekreegen, ‘get’; opbrengen/opgebragt, ‘bring up’). It also maintained
both hebben, ‘have’, and zijn, ‘be’, as auxiliary verbs in periphrastic tense
formation:

(1) a. hij see niet minder als die ander man heeft gekreegen
‘He said not less than that other man got’
b. ik bin buyte geweest
‘I was outside’
c. ik hat ook een groote caatel gekogt
‘I had also bought a large “caatel” ’
d. sij ware de voorige dagt al na de vandiesie gereeden
‘they had already driven off to the sale the previous day’

Afrikaans has retained only ‘have’ as the tense auxiliary. It has eliminated the
preterite and pluperfect tense (1c, 1d) altogether and has regularised the past
participle (kry/gekry, bring/gebring).
 Afrikaans: considering origins 93

The Duminy diary is no less important for the hallmark Afrikaans features that
it does not show: the double negation (nie . . . nie), the demonstrative pronouns
hierdie, ‘this’/daardie, ‘that’, reduplication, subjectival ons for wij, ‘we’, etc.

9 THE CAPE DUTCH PIDGIN

The sorts of simplification just noted for acrolectal Cape Dutch are plausibly
explained by autochthonous internal development; that is, by some combination
of evolutive change and koineisation. Among the first casualties during jargoni-
sation were gender distinctions, personal agreement in the verb, the preterite,
ablaut, and periphrastic tense formation. Furthermore, the stabilising pidgin
developed its own conventions for marking grammatical categories. To illus-
trate this last point, let us consider briefly the expression of tense, modality and
aspect in the Cape Dutch pidgin.
In his Travels in Southern Africa in 1815, Hinrich Lichtenstein made the fol-
lowing cryptic comment on the Dutch of Khoekhoe along the frontier: ‘Farther,
there are no auxiliary verbs; and the Hottentots, even in speaking Dutch, do not
know how to make use of them . . . The want of auxiliaries to express the time,
is often transferred by the Hottentots into the Dutch language’ (1930 [1815]:
II, 467). The accuracy of this observation for Khoekhoe is of far less interest
than the allusion to the omission of the tense auxiliaries hebben and zijn in their
Dutch. Orange River Afrikaans appears to show, albeit sporadically, precisely
this kind of omission:
(2) Interviewer: En bring een van u kinders u hier na die werk toe?
‘And does one of your children bring you here to work?’
Informant: Ja die een seen bring my op werk toe hiernatoe en hy kom haal my hier.
Dis die ene wat’n onderwyser is. Da kom haal hy my hier, saans ok, sos meneer
gesien gistraand. (Van Rensburg 1984: II, 212)
‘Yes, the one son brings me here to work and he comes and gets me here. This is
the one [son] who is a teacher. He comes to get me here, evenings, too, as you, sir,
saw yesterday evening.’

In the Cape Dutch pidgin a preverbal particle ge, together with a phonological
variant ga (thus, gesien/gasien), marked events situated in the past. The fact that
Afrikaans developed in a multilingual contact situation raises the possibility of
multilevel syncretism, in which phonological, syntactic and semantic properties
of morphemes can be traced to multiple sources. The use of ge/ga as a past-
tense marker closely corresponds to the Dutch past particle prefix ge-. There
is also evidence to suggest that Khoekhoe preverbal preterital particles with a
similar canonical shape may have reinforced the observed usage; Nama gye,
go (Kroenlein 1889: 101, 106); kò (recent past), kè (remote past) (Hagman
1977: 62).
94 P. T. Roberge

As concerns modality, the Cape Dutch pidgin employed maskie, ‘never mind,
perhaps, (even) if’ (Creole Portuguese maski, Portuguese mas que) to indi-
cate that the action or state of the predicate is uncertain and has not (yet)
become part of reality. Consider the utterances attributed to Khoekhoe (3a) and
slave (3b–c) speakers:

(3) a. Duytsman altyt kallom: ‘Icke Hottentots doot makom: Mashy doot,
Icke strack nae onse grote Kapiteyn toe.’ (ten Rhyne 1686, in Schapera and
Farrington 1933: 140)
‘Dutchmen always say: I Hottentots dead make [I will kill Hottentots]: never
mind dead [i.e. if I die], I soon [go] to our great chief.’
b. Maski ik wil dat bloed ook wel drinken, dan word ik sterk. (1707, cited from
Franken 1953: 48)
‘Maybe I (will) also want to drink that blood, then I become strong.’
c. Seijde dien slaaf teegens hem: ‘Maskij jouw, komt maar hier.’ (CJ 344 1739:
371)
‘The slave said to him: “Never mind you, just come here!”’

The morpheme kam(m)e is attested several times in our Cape Dutch pidgin
corpora, being attributed to Khoekhoe (4) and slaves (5).
(4) a. kamme niet verstaan (Kolbe 1727: I, 504)
‘truly do (will/would) not understand’
b. Ey Vrouw die Tovergoeds ja zoo bytum, ons ik kame niet verdragen. (Kolbe
1727: I, 528)
‘Oh, woman, this/that medicine stings so, we I (?) truly do [shall] not endure
it.’
c. Vrouw, jou Tovergoeds bra bytum, dat is waar, maar jou Tovergoeds ook weer
gezond makum, dat is ook waar. Ons Tovermanns kame niet helpen, maar die
Duits Tovervrouw ja bra, die kame helpe. (Kolbe 1727: I, 528)
‘Woman, your medicines sting very much, that is true, but your medicines
also make healthy again, that is also true. Our medicine men truly do/will not
help, but the Dutch medicine woman [is] indeed good, she truly helps (will
help).’
(5) a. kammene Kumi, Kammene Kuli (Mentzel 1944 [1787]: III, 99)
truly-not food, truly-not work
‘If I have nothing to eat, I do not work.’
b. Kammene Kas, Kammene Kunte (Mentzel 1944 [1787]: III, 99)
truly-not money, truly-not cunt
‘If you have no money, I shall give you no sex.’

Den Besten resolves kam(m)e as kan, ‘can’, plus a verbal marker -me. Although
the contexts in (4)–(5) do allow interpretation as ‘can’ (indeed, kame in (4c)
might be better parsed as kan me [ mij], ‘can me’), the obscurity of the second ele-
ment militates against this analysis. I make so bold as to etymologise kam(m)e
as the root contained in the Khoekhoe form that Sparrman recorded as kammasa
and glossed as ‘truth, it is true’ (1977 [1786]: II, 265). Cognates are to be found
 Afrikaans: considering origins 95

in Nama ama-b, ‘truth’; ama-se, ‘truly’ (Nienaber 1963: 519), Kora kx’ama,
‘true’; kx’ama-b, ‘truth’, Gri k’ama-se, ‘truly’ (Meinhof 1930: 143, 148). The
basic meaning ‘truly’ seems to have been preserved in the utterances in (4)–(5).
But in the latter data set, the semantic range of kam(m)e subsumes future time
reference, prediction, and even counterfactuality. It is possible that syncretism
occurred in the Cape Dutch pidgin between kamma(sa) and what Lichtenstein
(1930 [1815]: II, 473) recorded as Khoekhoe t’2 kamüh, ‘lie’ (//kamüh or
=| kamüh, according to Nienaber 1963: 373; cf. Nama =| hòmi, ‘lie’).
Completion of an action in the Cape Dutch pidgin appears to have been
expressed by (al ) gedaan (lit. ‘(already) done, finished’) within the middle
field before the main verb or adjective (gedaan being the past participle of the
Dutch verb doen, ‘do’). Den Besten (1987: 19–20, 22, 1989: 238) cites (6)a–c
in support of this reconstruction:

(6) a. Ons soek kost hier, ons al gedaen wegloopen . . . (slave, 1706, cited from
Franken 1953: 89)
‘We seek food here, we have run away.’
b. de Clercq heeft gesegt jij mijn Cameraat gedaan vast maken . . . (slave, 1720,
cited from Franken 1953: 50)
‘De Klerk said you have tied up my comrade.’
c. Die Gift al gedaan dood, wie kan hy meer wat schaden (Khoekhoe speaker,
cited from Kolbe 1727: II, 114).
‘This/that poison has died, whom can it harm any more even a little?’

Expression of completive aspect by words meaning ‘already’, ‘finished’ or

‘done’ should hardly surprise us, given what we find in pidgins generally
(cf. Tok Pisin pinis < English finish) and locally at the old Cape. As den Besten
(1989: 238) points out, Cape Creole Portuguese ja, ‘already’, and Malay sudah,
‘finished’, could indicate completion of an action in these languages.

10 CONVERGENCE OF ACROLECTAL CAPE DUTCH AND THE

CAPE DUTCH PIDGIN

10.1 The basilectal variety of Cape Dutch

This came into existence during the period 1680–1750 among descendants of
inter-ethnic unions within the slave community, free blacks in and around Cape
Town, and most notably the Basters (descendants of Trekboer frontiersmen,
remnants of Khoekhoe tribes, escaped slaves from the south-west Cape, free
blacks and Bantu-speaking Africans). Several factors would determine the de-
gree of influence of one code on the other. Members of the prosperous burgher
class in Cape Town and the wealthiest wine and grain farmers in the Boland
would not have known more than a smattering of the pidgin (if any). Settlers of
lesser means in the Boland and along the frontier had at least a passive – often
96 P. T. Roberge

active – knowledge of the Cape Dutch pidgin. Acrolectal Cape Dutch would
have become more and more diluted with increasing social and geographic dis-
tance from centres of power. The extent of dilution would naturally be greatest
in the rural areas along the frontier (where speakers were simply not as familiar
with prestige norms), within the slave community generally by virtue of multiple
inputs, and among the Khoekhoe and Basters. In other words, the Dutch lan-
guage at the Cape of Good Hope formed a continuum from the most basilectal
varieties within the Afro-Asian substrate to the extra-territorial Dutch of the
European superstrate. The speech of individuals took on or avoided pidgin fea-
tures depending on the interlocutor, the nature of their communicative networks
and the sociolinguistic circumstances (code-switching: cf. Roberge 1994b). L1
acquisition of acrolectal Cape Dutch simultaneously with the Cape Dutch pidgin
resulted in a number of functional convergences.
Convergent deflective tendencies having different origins, motivations and
degrees of intensity are presumed to have triggered the stripping of verbal
morphology that is a defining feature of Afrikaans today.
Convergence between acrolectal Cape Dutch and the pidgin has left indirect
reflexes or residue in Afrikaans. During this process the tense auxiliaries hebben,
‘have’, and zijn, ‘be’, were reintroduced. Yet not all inflectional categories were
fully restored even though their exponents managed to survive. The result is a
residue of allomorphs for ‘have’ that are used more or less interchangeably in
Orange River Afrikaans: het (< Dutch heeft), had (< Dutch had ):

(7) Die goue pondtjie baas? Ja, ek had hulle gakjen baas. Ek het die tiensielings
ook gakjen. (Van Rensburg 1984: II, 275)
‘The gold pound, sir? Yes, I was familiar with it, sir.
I was familiar with the ten shilling piece, too.’

The same holds true for vestiges of ‘be’, which is also to be discerned in Orange
River Afrikaans:

(8) a. Die boere was baie laat hier gakom. (Van Rensburg 1984: II, 40)
‘The boers came here very late.’
b. want ek is maar op hom [die plaas] grootgeword (van Rensburg 1984: II,
219)
‘because I grew up on [this farm]’

Standard Afrikaans, by contrast, uniformly uses het as the sole tense auxiliary.
(See Roberge 1994a: 80–2 for details.)
A rather more direct legacy of the Cape Dutch pidgin is manifest in the
adverbialisation of kamma. Although we do find vestiges of the canonical mean-
ing ‘truly’ (9a), kamma in colloquial Afrikaans bestows a nuance of pretence
or ostensibility, as we see in (9)b:
 Afrikaans: considering origins 97

(9) a. Dokter moet dadelik kom, my ma is kamma siek. (WAT: V, 210).

‘Doctor must come at once, my mother is really sick.’
b. Kietie lag nog. Sy speel kamma klippies op die stoep, soos ‘n kind.
(Small 1965).
‘Kitty is still laughing. She does as if she is playing with pebbles on the stoop,
like a child.’
The secondary function of kamma (‘will be true in future, if true’), as attested in
(5), has overtaken the primary function of the Khoekhoe etymon (‘true, truly’)
to produce the irrealis meaning (‘as if true’) of (9)b.
The pidgin aspectual marker gedaan has lexicalised in all varieties of
Afrikaans as a predicate adjective meaning ‘finished, used up, exhausted, dead’
and is separate from doen, ‘do’, past participle gedoen.
(10) a. Ek voel so gedaan na die lang reis. (WAT: III, 58)
‘I feel so done in/exhausted after the long trip.’
b. Sy hele keners ees gedaan. (Rademeyer 1938: 130)
‘All his children are dead.’
However, both Euro- and Orange River Afrikaans preserved gedaan with the
adverbial meaning ‘completely’ well into the twentieth century. That meaning
lies very close to and continues the old aspectual function of the etymological
past participle in the Cape Dutch pidgin:
(11) a. Die kalk het my hande gedaan gevreet. (WAT: III, 58)
‘The lime has completely corroded my hands.’
b. Heule had gedaan gedôd. (Rademeyer 1938: 76)
‘They have completely died [i.e. they all died].’

Den Besten (1989: 238) points out that Dutch klaar, ‘ready, finished’, can
also mean ‘already’ in Afrikaans. In colloquial speech klaar often occurs in
combination with al (cf. Donaldson 1993: 206, 232).
(12) a. Brand die vuur al? Ja, ek het dit klaar (= al/alreeds) gemaak. (Donaldson
1993: 266n.)
‘Is the fire going? Yes, I’ve already got it going.’
b. Heule had klaar gedôd. (Rademeyer 1938: 76)
‘They have already died [i.e. they are all dead].’
c. Kietie sy was eintlik al klaar doot gewies, want sy was ‘n plaasmeisie.
(Small 1965)
‘Kitty, she was actually already dead because she was a farm girl [trying to
survive in the city].’
d. en lôp sê vir hulle . . . lat hulle hom regmak want hulle-t al klaar gebetaal
(van Rensburg 1984: II, 222).
‘and go tell them that they have made him right because they have already
paid’
The capacity of (al ) klaar to express completive aspect in Afrikaans almost cer-
tainly continues the pattern (al ) gedaan in the Cape Dutch pidgin (cf. den Besten
98 P. T. Roberge

1989: 238). The development of a competitive alternate with parallel aspec-

tual meaning from klaar, ‘ready’, is understandable when one recalls that
gedaan continued to function for a time in Cape Dutch as the past participle of
doen, ‘do’.

11 CONVERGENT HYBRIDISATION

Another aspect of the formation of Afrikaans is convergent hybridisation, that

is, the generation of structures that cannot be directly traced back to any of
the contact-language inputs (etymological opacity). This is illustrated by the
so-called ‘double negation’ in Afrikaans (Ek ken nie daardie man nie, ‘I do not
know that man’). Nienaber (1955) tentatively suggested that when Khoekhoe
speakers acquired Cape Dutch, there was interference from a sentence-final
Khoekhoe negative particle. The idea of Khoekhoe ‘interference’ was received
sympathetically by Combrink (1978: 79–85) and has been greatly elaborated
upon by den Besten (1978: 40–2, 1985: 32–5, 1986: 210–24). The history of
this structure is far too complex to deal with here. Suffice it to say that the case
for direct substrate influence is a difficult one.
I have argued (Roberge 2000) that the Afrikaans negation is an innovation
that came about through the reanalysis of a discourse-dependent structure in
metropolitan Dutch, i.e. emphatic tag negation in nee(n)/nie(t), ‘no’, in the end
field of sentences. The agents of the change were Khoekhoe and enslaved peo-
ples at the Cape in the context of language shift and basilectalisation under the
pressure of a socio-economic order based on caste. Given the intensive mixing
between metropolitan and basilectal features as part of a shared repertoire, the
innovation was accepted by rural, lower-class Europeans living in closest prox-
imity to indigenes and slaves, with stylistic and social variation (cf. Deumert
1999: 232–40).
The Afrikaans demonstrative pronouns hierdie, ‘this’, and daardie, ‘that’,
show a similar development sequence. We can be reasonably certain that die
was the sole determiner in the Cape Dutch pidgin, serving as both definite
article and demonstrative pronoun, with proximal and distal interpretations
governed by context. Speakers constructing a medium of inter-ethnic commu-
nication innovated a means of expressing degrees of proximity drawing upon
the resources of a fully developed superstrate language (specifically a pragmat-
ically conditioned sentence-initial hier, ‘hier’/daar, ‘there’ plus DP structure in
metropolitan Dutch), the universal semantic relationship between locative and
demonstrative elements, and their formal connection in both Khoekhoe and
Malay. (Further to the etymology of the Afrikaans demonstrative pronouns see
den Besten 1988: 19–27 and Roberge 2001; on their status as linguistic variables
in Cape Dutch, see Deumert 1999: 227–30.)
 Afrikaans: considering origins 99

12 CONCLUSION
Four factors have been shown to be pivotal in the formation of Afrikaans:
(i) the emergence of an extra-territorial variety of Dutch in course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, namely acrolectal Cape Dutch; (ii) the
existence of a fully developed system in contact with developing systems such
that the degree of basilectalisation of colonial speech was far less drastic than
in creole communities where there was significant attrition of speakers of the
lexifier language; (iii) the development of a stable Cape Dutch pidgin for
inter-ethnic communication within the Afro-Asian substratum; (iv) linguistic
convergence between the various segments of colonial society, with attendant
hybridisation.

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5 South African English

Roger Lass

1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Introduction
According to the 1996 census figures, English is the mother tongue of some 3.45
million people in South Africa. In terms of the old racial classifications, about
1.71 million of these are white, 0.58 million coloured, 0.97 million Indian and
0.11 million ‘African’. Broadly speaking, white, coloured and Indian English
in South Africa are distinct ‘ethnolects’. This fact, however unpalatable its
sociopolitical implications and however unsavoury its origins, is nevertheless
historically significant. English was brought to this country from England, and
was in its early days an instrument of English (= white by default) hegemony.
Because of the education system then (as now), and the contingencies of inter-
group relations, English must be seen primarily as a language that diffused
from white European (specifically British) mother-tongue speakers to other
communities.
The whole history, and the particular kinds of diffusion that occurred, have
an important bearing on the structural properties of all varieties of English
spoken in South Africa. Communities that shift from one language to another,
whatever they ultimately make of the language shifted to when it becomes a
mother tongue, are severely constrained by the properties of the input. To put
it crudely but usefully, if South Africa had been settled mainly by Scots, and
Scottish English had been the main input, and taught in the schools, all varieties
of South African English (SAE) would now pronounce postvocalic /r/ (in far,
mother), would not distinguish the vowels of foot and food, and would have
three distinct vowels in bird, heard and word. If on the other hand the main input
had been from West Yorkshire and Lancashire, SAE would not distinguish the
vowels of cut and put, but would distinguish won and one.1 In fact there was a
large settler input from both Scotland and the north of England (not to mention
Wales and Ireland); but virtually nothing has survived of this heritage except a
few words and usages.2
So it should not be construed as racist or insensitive to take white SAE as a
kind of reference point for all other varieties; this is simply a matter of history.

104
 South African English 105

Indeed, as I will show below, all mother-tongue varieties spoken in South Africa
(and even second-language varieties such as Afrikaans English) are not only
autonomous dialects of English, but specifically dialects of Southern British
English (SBE), with a distinctly eastern rather than western cast.3
A comment on the sense of ‘dialect’ is necessary here. To say that SAE is
‘a dialect of SBE’ is not to say that in some way it ‘deviates’ from a modern
SBE norm; rather, all modern SBE varieties are what they are because they
share a common ancestor or set of closely related ancestors; and that because
of this (and in many cases because of subsequent contact with the descendants
of their own ancestors), they are clearly recognisable in a wider perspective
as southern. Thus a ‘dialect’ is a member of a cluster of (historically) related
varieties that normally share a common name (and whose speakers normally
consider themselves to speak varieties of ‘the same language’). In particular, I do
not use the term in the lay sense: ‘dialect’ as opposed to ‘standard’. Standards
are dialects too, in the technical usage.
This is important, because of the frequent use in South Africa of ‘SAE’
and ‘Standard English’ as opposed terms. This is historical and sociolinguistic
nonsense. Virtually every regional variety of English has its own sociolinguis-
tic continuum from ‘standard’ (= educated, non-stigmatised, favoured by the
schools, normal for public discourse) to vernacular (non-standard, stigmatised
by at least part of the standard-speaking community). As we shall see below,
SAE constitutes just such a continuum, though with the special complication
that there are in fact two standard types: one local and unmistakably South
African, and one (perhaps nostalgically and ignorantly) looking to an image of
the speech of southern England as its source of norms.

1.2 What it is to be ‘southern’

The term ‘southern’ is not very informative except for the dialectologist or
historian of English. But it encapsulates a set of specific features, due to dif-
ferential historical developments in different parts of England from about the
fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. I will present here a very brief sketch of
these features, enough to enable the reader to identify any dialect as southern
or not.4
In what follows I will identify vowel categories not by symbols, but in terms
of Wells’ (1982) ‘standard lexical sets’. In this framework strut and foot
for instance are names for the classes of items exemplified by these words.
For example, whatever particular phonetic quality a speaker’s vowel in ei-
ther of these words might have, if the one in strut (and but, cut, some . . . )
is not the same as that in foot (and good, wood, cook . . . ), the speaker has a
strut/foot contrast. Similarly if trap (and cat, back . . . ) do not have the same
vowel as bath (and pass, half . . . ), the speaker has a trap/bath distinction.
106 R. Lass

And so on. These categories should be self-explanatory. (For the most part
they reflect particular historical vowel phonemes, but this is not always relevant
here.)
The most important southern features are:
(1) [æ] (or a higher vowel) in trap. This is a seventeenth-century development
of older fully open [a], which is retained in the north and Midlands of
England and in Scotland, and to a large extent in Ireland. In the Southern
hemisphere Englishes (see the next section), and to some extent now in
London vernacular and certain posh (‘Morningside’) Scots varieties, it tends
to raise still higher, to [ε].
(2) strut/foot split. All southern and south-Midland English dialects (and
their descendants), and in this case Scots as well, have distinct vowels in
these categories. foot usually has something in the vicinity of [u], and
strut a large range, from lower mid back [∧] to something much fronter,
e.g. central [–a] to centralised front [ä] or even raised [ε].
(3) Lengthening I. In this (seventeenth-century) southern change, /æ/ length-
ened before the voiceless fricatives /f, θ, s/ and often /nt, ns/, so that
for typically southern dialects trap will have a short vowel and bath
(= bath, pass, dance . . . ) a long one, usually different in quality. The
quality change dates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus
Australian (AusE) and New Zealand (NZE) English have [æ] or [ε] in
trap, and low front [a:] in bath; SAE has the same qualities in trap,
but usually centralized back [ä:] or back [a:] in bath; and most of the
USA has more or less the same quality in both, but short trap and long
bath.
(4) Lengthening II. This later change lengthened /æ/ before voiced stops and
nasals except /ŋ/: so typically [æ] in trap, [æ:] or a slightly raised version
in bad, bag, man. This affects all southern dialects, and the United States,
South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well.
In short, any variety of English that has [æ] or a higher vowel in trap, distinct
strut and foot, a distinction of length or length and quality between trap
and bath, and a length contrast in cat versus cad is southern. And obviously
all varieties of SAE fall into this group.

1.3 North versus south, ‘American’ versus ‘British’

SAE, like the Englishes of America, Australasia and Ireland, is an extraterritorial
(ET) variety. That is, a ‘transported’ language spoken outside its metropolitan
or mainland home. (In the same way, Afrikaans is ET Dutch and Yiddish is ET
German.) The ET Englishes (ETEs) fall into two quite clearly defined groups,
largely as a function of the history of colonisation.
 South African English 107

(1) Northern hemisphere ETEs. Mainly American and Canadian, though Irish
English (if not in all its features) also belongs to this group. The primary
input to these varieties is from the seventeenth to the early eighteenth
centuries (e.g. the USA first in 1607; Canada in part from 1583, but mainly
from 1713).
(2) Southern hemisphere ETEs. SAE and its offshoots such as Zimbabwean
(historically more correctly, Rhodesian) English, and Australasian English
(AusE, NZE). These derive from later colonisations (Australia in 1788;
New Zealand (from Australia) beginning in 1792, but established as a colony
in 1840; South Africa first in 1795 (Cape Colony), again in 1806 and 1814,
but with the first really large input in 1820, followed by major settlements
in the 1840s and 1870s).
We might expect that the earlier an ETE was established, the more ‘archaic’ its
features will be. Thus the stereotypical American will have [æ] in trap and [æ:]
in bath (the quality change of the lengthened vowel is mid-eighteenth century);
Australia and New Zealand have [a:] in bath (a typical late eighteenth-century
value), and SAE has the nineteenth-century backer vowel. In addition, the
Southern hemisphere ETEs are typically non-rhotic (do not pronounce postvo-
calic /r/: see section 3.3.4 below); /r/ loss begins seriously in the eighteenth
century, and is not complete until the early nineteenth.
There is another north–south divide as well. The southern ETEs are in most
ways typically ‘British’, as opposed to ‘American’: not only in pronunciation,
as we have seen, but equally striking in vocabulary. A few examples:
BRITISH SAE USA
petrol petrol gas(oline)
bum, arse bum, arse ass
dustbin dustbin garbage-can
chemist chemist drugstore
silencer silencer muffler
dinner-jacket dinner-jacket tuxedo
There are other (non-phonological) ‘British’ features as well, such as got as
past participle of get as opposed to the American distinction between got and
gotten (I’ve got some = I have some, I’ve gotten some = I’ve obtained some).
This is of course due to the USA having cut itself off from the larger British
community through the rebellion (or as the Americans call it, the revolution) of
1776, while South Africa, Australia and New Zealand retained their ties with the
mainland throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. (One
can still find out more about the British royal family from the Cape Times than
from the Washington Post.) These distinctions (at least grammatical and lexical)
are beginning to erode; the dominant world-wide role of American popular
culture is making American English increasingly familiar, with American terms
108 R. Lass

sometimes becoming alternants to characteristic British ones. The effect is

particularly strong in South Africa because of the saturation of South African
television by American shows initially due to the Equity ban on sales of British
material to the SABC during the apartheid era.

1.4 The establishment of English in South Africa

The first Germanic language spoken in South Africa was Dutch, brought by the
Dutch East India Company settlers in 1652; it has of course remained widely
spoken, in its subsequent guise of Afrikaans. The second Germanic invasion
began in the late eighteenth century. After the loss of America in the 1770s, the
British were on the lookout for new colonies; their first attempt in South Africa,
however, was a small military holding operation rather than a real colony, when
they occupied the Cape in 1795 to control the strategic Cape sea route. They re-
turned it to Holland in 1802, but during the Napoleonic wars occupied it again,
and held it until 1812. It became British again after the Congress of Vienna
(1814), and Britain remained a colonising power until the establishment of the
Union of South Africa in 1910. It retained a governmental presence until the
declaration of the Republic and South Africa’s exit from the Commonwealth
in 1960.
The early years of the British presence saw little permanent settlement; most
British were military or government personnel and their families, and the great-
est concentration was in the western Cape. The first major influx of English
speakers came after Britain, under pressure from recession and the loss of im-
migrants to America, as well as frontier problems in the eastern Cape, decided
on an official new settlement. One of the purposes was to establish a kind of
buffer along the Great Fish river between the Xhosa to the east and the British
military forces, as well as providing material for informal militias (a kind of
nineteenth-century Dad’s Army). To this end they provided assisted passage,
and land grants were available after a period of indentureship.
In 1820 a group of around five thousand settlers arrived in the eastern Cape,
and these were, in one way or another, the primary input into the development
of a new local variety of English. Even though the British were at this point
a minority in a country where Dutch was the majority European language,
they had sufficient muscle to impose English as an official language; it was
declared so in the Cape Colony in a proclamation by the governor, Lord Charles
Somerset, in 1822. In order to increase the hold of English, Somerset recruited
large numbers of schoolmasters from Britain, and even had vacant livings in
the Dutch Reformed Church filled by Church of Scotland clergy (a reasonable
choice, as they were the most numerous English-speaking Calvinists available).
According to Lanham and Macdonald (1979: 10), by the time of the Great Trek
(1836), some half of the Dutch Reformed clergy in the Cape were Scots. On
 South African English 109

the face of it this should have led to a very strong Scots influence on the new
emerging English, at least in the Cape; but if the sociolectal picture among
the Scots clergy then was anything like that among older ones today, their
speech was probably quite ‘Anglicised’. In any case, their main contact was
with Dutch speakers, and the institutionalised norms for Afrikaans English
(AE) are still southern English, not Scots (e.g. Afrikaans English has distinct
trap and bath, and a goose/foot distinction, neither of which occur in
Scots).
Even after the establishment of the Boer republics (Orange Free State and
Transvaal), English remained among much of the Dutch-speaking population
the language of geleerdheid (‘well-educatedness’), and continued to be used in
commerce and major aspects of public life (see Lanham and Macdonald 1979:
9–18 for a more detailed account).
A second English-speaking influx arrived with the Natal settlers of the 1840s
and 1850s; these, unlike the predominantly rural or urban working-class input
of 1820, were largely standard speakers, e.g. retired military personnel and
financially hard-pressed aristocrats. They brought into the eastern part of the
country another (later) standard variety, and there is still a kind of ‘hyper-
English’ stereotype associated with Natal.
The final major wave, of very diverse origins, came about 1875–1904, after
the discovery of gold on the Rand. This was probably the most dialectally het-
erogeneous lot of them all, but it (like the Natal input) seems not to have had
a major effect on the subsequent development of SAE as a distinct type; the
seeds of that development were already sown in 1820. What the Natal settle-
ment may have done is to entrench more deeply a particular set of ‘colonial’
(i.e. nostalgic) attitudes toward British norms; and this, in all parts of the
country, has been of considerable importance in defining the lay notion of
‘standard’. Lanham has claimed that the Natal input is particularly important as
the source of certain variables such as ‘glide-weakening’ (i.e. monophthongi-
sation) of certain diphthongs, but these processes are so widespread in English
that they cannot be argued to have a specific regional input; they could come
from anywhere, unlike the specifically southern features mentioned above.
(For the type of argumentation involved in showing – or not showing – that
a particular South African feature has a specific regional origin, see Lass and
Wright 1986.)

2 THE GREAT TRICHOTOMY

Southern hemisphere Englishes, because of their histories (settlement and in-

ternal evolution, plus continuous ties with Britain among the upper and middle
classes), tend to develop three major lectal types, typically perceived by speakers
as hierarchically ranked. These are:
110 R. Lass

Type 1. An externally focused, very ‘English’ type, whose norms

are dictated to a great extent by (a vision of ) the southern British
received standard, in particular received pronunciation (RP).5
Type 2. A new local standard, which, while sharing many features
(including prestige) with Type 1, is nevertheless recognisably local,
and may be stigmatised to some extent by (at least older, more
normative) Type 1 speakers. This is sometimes referred to as a
‘provincial standard’.
Type 3. A cluster of local vernaculars, stigmatised by Type 1 and
Type 2 speakers, highly stereotyped by them and ‘corrected’ in
the schools, and very different in many (especially phonological)
characters from both.
Attitudinally, Type 2 speakers would not want to be caught dead really sounding
like Type 3, but they don’t sound all that much like Type 1 either, though many
tend to think they do or wish they did. Type 2 speakers tend, however (with
certain, now recessive, exceptions), to occupy the same public sociolinguistic
niche as the (decreasing) population of Type 1.
The first clear attempt to formalise this kind of trichotomy was made in
Australia, in the work of Mitchell and Delbridge (1965). They characterised the
three basic types above as ‘Cultivated’ (Type 1), ‘General’ (Type 2) and ‘Broad’
(Type 3). Essentially the same trichotomy was drawn here by L. W. Lanham
(1967, 1978; Lanham and Macdonald 1979), but with different terminology:
Type 1 is ‘Conservative’, and the unfortunate terms ‘Respectable’ and ‘Extreme’
are used for Types 2 and 3 respectively. The latter two are rather nasty creations,
but have become virtually standard, so I continue to use them, if with a slight
shudder.
In Lanham’s original formulation, the three lect types were correlated with
a host of social variables in a fairly detailed way. This attempt was not entirely
successful, and though it still holds in broad outline, some of the results are
wrong or misinterpreted. In the original formulation, the associations are:
Conservative SAE: upper class, strong association with Britain, older
than 45, female. Conservative SAE is said to vary inversely with the
properties associated with Extreme SAE (see below).
Respectable SAE: According to Lanham this has the weakest correla-
tion with class, but the strongest with European (especially Jewish)
origin, younger age and no particular British connections. This is
false now and was then; the main social indicator is middle class.6
(Of course there is a lot of stratification within the middle class, as
elsewhere.)
Extreme SAE: The defining variables are lower class, Afrikaans
descent, male. Lanham claims that the presence of the variable
 South African English 111

‘East Cape’ makes social class and gender less indicative; this does
not seem to be the case nowadays, certainly not in the Western Cape,
where stratification is equally clear for both genders, regardless of
Eastern Cape connections.
While these social characterisations may have had some weight in the 1960s
and 1970s, two or three decades later only the bare outlines remain acceptable;
the correlations with gender and class (or better, gender stratification within
social classes)7 are still operative, but in a rather different way, the ‘East Cape’
variable plays no role, and there are many subvarieties of interest (if poorly
studied) within the three groups.
Without going into the details of Lanham and Macdonald’s quantitative stud-
ies, many of whose results are uncertain, we can characterise the lectal hierarchy
in a loose qualitative way, which in the present state of our knowledge is about
the best that can be done, and given present social fluidity is probably safer.
Conservative SAE: The type of speech least distinguishable from
Southern English, at its highest end (what I would call ‘Extreme
Conservative’) virtually RP of a rather archaic type. The most
familiar examples are reflected in the SABC announcer hierarchy
up to the early 1990s.8 Conservative accents were the ones typ-
ical of ‘serious’ news announcers, especially of anchor-persons.
Such speech is also common among the ‘first families’ of older
urban areas such as Cape Town, schoolteachers (especially English
teachers), and in general upper-middle-class people of a normative
disposition.
Respectable SAE: The local standard, that range of accent types asso-
ciated with all other white standard speakers, e.g. Democratic Party
and English-speaking National Party politicians, university lectur-
ers, teachers, physicians, accountants, lawyers (attorneys and advo-
cates both, though some of the latter may tend to be conservative).
Extreme SAE: The range of accent types associated with relatively low
socio-economic status, lack of education, and less skilled or non-
professional (‘blue-collar’) work, and the lower end of the ‘white-
collar’ scale. The more extreme a variety is, the harder it becomes
to distinguish it from second-language Afrikaans English.9
This trichotomy is cross-cut by the results of South Africa’s unfortunate social
history; in particular, the mother-tongue varieties of various ‘non-white’ com-
munities (Indian and coloured) have their own internal varietal stratification,
though speakers may ‘cross over’ in complex ways into the white hierarchy
(see Mesthrie and McCormick, chaps. 11 and 17, this volume). Ironically (see
section 3.2.4 below on goose), at least one of the distinctive characteristics of
112 R. Lass

the speech of those who have so long been excluded from the centre of South
African social life is in fact hyper-conservative.

3 AN OVERVIEW OF SAE SOCIOPHONOLOGY

3.1 The primacy of phonology
The most salient sociolinguistic markers tend to be phonological; one evaluates
a speaker’s social position, regional origin, etc., first on the basis of ‘accent’ – a
combination of phonetic details and phonological properties (e.g. certain
allophonic processes or the lack of them, stress-patterns etc.). This is probably
because the phoneme inventory of a language (compared with its inventory of
morphemes, words or constructions) is extremely small, and a given phone(me)
will have a greater text-frequency than any other unit. (One might have to wait
a long time for an American to say gotten or gasoline, but one token of the
bath or lot classes is usually enough to make the identification.)
This holds so strongly for SAE (with a few exceptions to be discussed in §4)
that I will devote most of the remainder of this chapter to a qualitative socio-
phonetic profile of the mother-tongue English-speaking community.

3.2 The vowel system

3.2.1 Generalities
The vowel systems of English dialects are more variable than the consonant
systems; what we identify as an ‘accent’ associated with some regional or
class dialect is primarily (though not exclusively: see §3.3) the differences in
vowel pronunciation, especially in accented syllables. Since there is no intel-
ligent way to set up a vowel system for ‘English in general’, I will simply
label vowels by Wells’ class names, and discuss the sociophonetic and other
details under each heading. This will avoid the common tendency in the liter-
ature to describe ETEs in terms of supposed ‘deviations’ or differences from
the present-day mainland British standards (an unfortunate strategy that mars
most published descriptions of Australian, New Zealand and South African
English).
All (non-Scots) varieties of English have three types of (phonemic) vocalic
nuclei: short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs. But the real structural split
seems to be between short vowels, on the one hand, and long vowels/diphthongs,
on the other. Long vowels and diphthongs tend to be roughly the same length,
and in any given environment both are longer than short vowels, and both may
occur in certain positions where short vowels are excluded, e.g. in stressed syl-
lables not closed by a consonant: bee /bi:/, pie / pa/, but no */bæ/, */bi/, etc.
And short vowels may occur in certain positions where both long vowels and
 South African English 113

diphthongs are excluded, for example, before the velar nasal /ŋ/: sing, sang,
song, sung, but not *boung, *beeng, *boong, etc.

3.2.2 The KIT split, TRAP and DRESS: the SAE chain shift
Southern ETEs have (at least in Type 2 and 3 lects) rather higher vowels
in the trap and dress classes than are found elsewhere. SAE also has a
very centralised nucleus (with complex allophonic distribution) in kit (see
below). According to one interpretation, referred to by Lass and Wright (1985)
as ‘atomistic’, these three phenomena are unrelated. Lanham and Macdonald
(1979: 46) say of ‘raised e’ and ‘raised æ’ that ‘origin is unknown’. The central-
ized [ï] in kit (for phonetic details see below) on the other hand ‘originates in
Afrikaans’. They claim this on the basis of qualitative similarity (the vowel in
Respectable and Extreme sit is virtually the same as that in Afrikaans sit). But if
this were in fact the source, it would present the rather extraordinary and highly
unlikely case of a language borrowing one single vowel quality (in the same
etymological category) from another; fortunately, there is another explanation,
which ties together both raised trap and dress and centralised kit.
The three qualities are related because they originate in a single (if very com-
plex) process: a nineteenth-century vowel shift (the ‘South African chain shift’:
see Lass and Wright 1985, 1986), in which raising of /æ/ toward [ε] and raising
of original /ε/ to [e] seems to have forced (most of ) original /i/ to centralise:
I → ï
↑
ε
↑

Or, using lower case for the older (and still mainland British) values, and small
caps for the newer (SA) ones, we can visualise the pattern this way:
kit → kit
↑
dress
↑
dress
↑
trap
↑
trap

At least this was the end result; the shift, however, was apparently not just
a matter of a simple raising at the outset. It seems to have arisen out of an
extremely complex and variable situation, where the vowels in these categories
114 R. Lass

had a fairly large set of realisations, including coexisting raised and non-raised
dress and trap, as well as raised, unaffected and lowered dress. The history
is extremely complex and controversial (see Lass and Wright 1985 for a detailed
discussion); but I can sketch out what the probable developments were.
We are fortunate in having a very good piece of evidence for the state of a char-
acteristic 1820 Settler variety: the enormous Chronicle of Jeremiah Goldswain,
a sawyer from Buckinghamshire who was one of the original immigrants.
Goldswain has left us some 528 foolscap pages in a ‘naive’ (i.e. non-standard)
and apparently partly self-invented spelling, which provide important clues to
the kind of English one would have found in the 1820 input. Among the features
are:10
(a) raised trap: contrector, ‘contractor’; atrected, ‘attracted’; lementation,
‘lamentation’;
(b) lowered dress: amadick, ‘emetic’; hadge, ‘hedge’; sant, ‘sent’;
(c) raised dress: git, ‘get’; kittle, ‘kettle’; liter, ‘letter’;
(d) lowered kit: presner, ‘prisoner’; deferent, ‘different’; sleped, ‘slipped’;
(e) retracted kit: buld, ‘build’; busket, ‘biscuit’; contunerd, ‘continued’.
Such complex developments of single historical categories are not unusual
in rural dialects of mainland English (see Lass 1987b for discussion); but in
South Africa they led in the end to a shift. It seems likely that Goldswain’s
spellings represent at least in part not fixed categorical values, but ‘zones of
convergence’, in which, say, a good part of the trap and dress classes ((a)
and (b) above) would occupy more or less the same part of the vowel space,
and the same with dress and kit ((c) and (d) above). Retracted kit, however,
moved into a ‘free zone’, since there were no other short vowels in its immediate
vicinity (the closest would be strut, and this was at the bottom of the vowel
space). What seems to have happened is that over time the four categories
involved ‘spaced themselves out’ by raising, and kit became more and more
centralised.11
SAE proper (that is, Respectable and Extreme)12 can in fact be defined by the
behaviour of kit: here (and nowhere else in the English-speaking world), the
words it and sit do not rhyme. Initially and after /h/ (it, hit), in velar environments
(kit, sick) and often before /ʃ/ ( fish), kit is closer and fronter; elsewhere it is
more centralized [ï]. (Though this is a good overall description, the pattern may
not always be quite this neat, since the split of fronter and backer allophones
may still be in progress, and there are therefore lexical exceptions. For details
of two speakers’ distributions, see Lass and Wright 1985: §5.)
This kit split (as Wells calls it) is one of the more striking social variables; in
Conservative SAE the contrast is lacking or nearly so; in Respectable (see Lass
and Wright 1985; Lass 1990b) the fronter value is [], as in all environments
in RP and most Conservative SAE; while in Extreme the fronter allophones
 South African English 115

are raised and fronted further, to around [i] (often identical in quality to the
f leece vowel). Thus [] in it, sit marks Conservative (or more formal styles
for some Respectable speakers, especially female); [] in it and [̈] in sit is
the Respectable norm; and [i] in it and [̈] in sit characterises Extreme (and
generally Afrikaans) SAE. In Extreme varieties (and for many Respectable
speakers as well) there is considerable further retraction before syllable-final /l/
and after /w/, leading to merger or near merger with foot: this produces what
are perceived as non-standard homophone pairs like women/woman, bill/bull,
will/wool.13 In Extreme this retraction may also occur before and after /f/ as in
fifty, fit (which then becomes a near-homophone of foot).
The dress vowel is usually half-close front [e], and is not an important
variable, though it tends to be closer in female than male speakers in non-
Conservative varieties, and often quite centralised, approaching the fronter kit
allophones (hence ah big yaws ‘I beg yours’ in Malan 1972; on ah see below).
The pre-/l/ allophones in Extreme SAE often have a preceding [j], especially
initially and after /h/: help [(h)jεlp]. In some Respectable and Extreme, this
vowel lowers and retracts before dark /l/, to around [ε] or even [].
trap, on the other hand, is an important social marker. Both Conservative and
Respectable have [], sometimes a bit higher than RP //, but never approaching
[ε], which is the Extreme value, and used as an imitative stereotype. Some
Extreme speakers apparently perceive trap as so close to (the opener versions
of Respectable) dress that they write it that way: I have seen takkies spelled
tekkies on shop signs. Before dark /l/ in syllable codas it tends to lower and
retract, except, curiously in some Respectable pronunciations of the word Natal,
where it raises ([ntε]).

3.2.3 The other short vowels

(1) lot. A short, rather open and usually weakly rounded back vowel, often
quite centralized, typically around [ ɒ̈]. Younger Cape Town and Natal
Respectable speakers seem to be manifesting raising and further unround-
ing, giving a quality in the vicinity of a rather central [∧].
(2) strut. This is only weakly a social marker. Its values generally fluctu-
ate from low central to centralised front half-close, with the norm around
central open [– a] to [ä]. Impressionistically, the backer and opener values
are associated with Conservative and older Respectable speakers, and the
fronter and higher ones, going even as far as [ε] with younger, especially
female, Respectable ones. The backer realisations tend to be used by all
speakers for Afrikaans short <a> words, so that e.g. Schalk/skulk, pap/pup
are homophones.
(3) foot. A short, centralised half-close back vowel [u] or something a bit
fronter in all varieties, with little social variation. I have noticed, however,
116 R. Lass

that younger (especially female) Respectable speakers often have some-

thing fronter, approximating a lowered [].

3.2.4 The long monophthongs

(1) f leece. A long close front vowel [i:] in all varieties, with no social varia-
tion. In this respect it is very different from AusE and NZE f leece, which

tends to be somewhat diphthongal in all varieties (e.g. [i] [̈i]), with an
opener first element correlating with lower status.
(2) nurse. This marks a distinction between Conservative and the others. Con-
servative speakers tend to have an RP-like mid-central unrounded vowel of
the [:] type, whereas in other varieties it is rounded, usually half-close
centralised front [ø:], or something a bit lower. It is similar in quality to the
vowel in German schön, French peu, or the second element in the Afrikaans
diphthong in seun.
(3) goose. An important social variable. Conservative speakers have a back-
(ish) vowel of [u:] quality, whereas in all other varieties it is never backer
than central [–u:]. In younger Respectable speakers (again with females lead-
ing the change), it may be fully front [y:] (rounded fleece), with ‘com-
pressed’ rather than ‘pouted’ lip-rounding, very like the vowel in Afrikaans
vuur (though there is no likelihood of Afrikaans influence here; this may be
rather a function of the tendency of English in general to have very weak
and non-protruded lip-rounding). In this case, the higher up the respectable
scale, and the younger the speaker, the fronter the vowel.
This central-to-front quality is an ethnic as well as a social marker; it is (on
anecdotal evidence at least) perceived by ‘non-white’ speakers as peculiarly
‘white’. Vernacular Indian and coloured varieties have a back vowel, often
even backer than Conservative; and there is a strong tendency for Indian
and coloured speakers to avoid the fronter values even in very standard
registers. It does, however, occur commonly in the speech of non-white
media personalities.
(4) thought. This is marginally of sociolinguistic importance; at least in the
sense that Conservative speakers have somewhat opener norms (approach-
ing [ɔ:]), whereas both Respectable and Extreme have half-close [o:].
Certain words where the vowel is followed by a voiceless fricative may
have either (long) thought or (short) lot: this is quite variable, and dif-
ferent speakers may have quite different distributions. (Wells has a separate
class, cloth, for such items.) In general, the more conservative the style
or lect, the less likely the cloth words (e.g. off, soft, cloth, wrath, loss,
Austria, Austin) are to have thought; though most varieties have it in off.
(5) bath. The quality of this vowel is socially important. In Conservative SAE
it tends to be centralised back [ɑ̈:], in posher styles even central [– a:]; in
 South African English 117

both Respectable and Extreme it is backer, even fully back [ɑ:] (generally
in Respectable backer for men and younger speakers). It becomes acutely
significant when, as in Extreme SAE, it may round to [ɒ:], and even raise
toward [ɔ:], which is a common stereotype (gimmia chorns, ‘gimme a
chance’, in Malan 1972). There is some evidence that at least weak rounding
is beginning to become less stigmatised now.
Some words with the apparently correct environment for this vowel
may have trap for some speakers (e.g. plaster, transition, substantial,
Flanders); it is unclear whether this is socially significant. Some items
apparently always have trap (masturbate, massive, gas).

3.2.5 The diphthongs

(1) face. This is one of the more important sociolinguistic markers. Both
conservative and Respectable SAE have a norm in the vicinity of [ei],
as in RP, though in some younger (and especially female) Respectable
speakers the second element is very short and rather peripheral and open,
so that the nucleus is almost monophthongal. At the less-standard end of
the Respectable continuum, and especially among males, the onset may

be opener, e.g. [ε ]. Extreme SAE is marked by a lowered and often
 
quite retracted onset, e.g. [ε ä ∧], the latter also characteristic of
Afrikaans English. As a rule of thumb, the closer the onset is to strut, the
more Extreme.
(2) price and mouth and the price/mouth crossover. These two catego-
ries are also sociolinguistically significant. Conservative and Respectable
have [a] for price and something in the vicinity of [au] for mouth, i.e.
the onset has roughly the same backness value as the second element. In
many younger speakers the second element is unrounded. Respectable how-
ever, unlike Conservative, tends to monophthongise both, e.g. to have [a:]
for price and [a:] for mouth; in any given speaker, however, there will
be some covariation between monophthongised mouth and bath: they
do not merge, but mouth is usually higher and a bit fronter than bath.
This monophthongisation is rarely categorical, is commoner for price than
mouth, and appears to relate to speech tempo and register: the more ca-
sual or faster, the more likely monophthongal realisations. My (corrigible)
impression is that monophthongisation is greater in younger than older
speakers, and in females than males.
Extreme SAE has what Wells calls the price/mouth crossover, i.e.
instead of the first elements agreeing (roughly) in backness with the sec-
ond, they disagree: thus front-gliding price has a back onset, i.e. [ɑ],
and back-gliding mouth has a front one, i.e. [u].14 In these varieties
mouth rarely monophthongises, but price commonly does, to [a:]; this
118 R. Lass

frequently correlates with a rounded bath (see section 3.2.4 above), but
in any case the two normally remain distinct. This monophthongisation is
another stereotype: Malan (1972) gets a lot of mileage out of things like
laugh’s larkatt ‘life’s like that’, etc.
Some Extreme varieties have a characteristic triphthong for mouth, or
perhaps a diphthong with a palatal onglide, i.e. [ju], especially after /n/
and (variably deleted) /h/, e.g. house as [(h)jus].
(3) choice. This appears to be virtually the same in all varieties, with the first
element a little lower than the speaker’s thought, and the second the
higher version of kit. Some older Conservative speakers may, as in RP,
have the first element as open as lot.
(4) goat. Another important marker. In Conservative SAE, it is a diphthong
ending in [-u], with the first element centralised half-open [ε] or unround-
ed mid-central, in the general [ə] area; the centralised front realisations
may have some rounding; a general Conservative value would be [εu]
or [!u].
In Respectable SAE, unrounded first elements do not appear, the lip
rounding is stronger, and the normal onset is [!]. The second element may
be central [] or unrounded [¨"], and monophthongisation is common, espe-
cially in younger speakers. This can create a minimal contrast with nurse
([œ:] vs. [ø:]), as in boat, Burt). Outsiders often have trouble distinguishing
monophthongised goat from nurse, which may produce interesting con-
fusions: I recall once hearing an English-speaking politician refer to what
I was convinced was the turtle (total) onslaught.15 The monophthongisa-
tion is commoner among younger speakers (e.g. university students), and
does not seem to be linked with gender, as so many ‘advanced’ Respectable
features are.
In Extreme SAE, the first element of the diphthong is unrounded and
retracted, often in the vicinity of strut, thus making a back-gliding coun-
terpart to face: [∧u] matching [∧].
(5) square. In Conservative SAE, as in RP, this is typically a diphthong of the
general type [ε]. In Respectable and Extreme it monophthongises, more in
the latter than the former, and with a closer articulation. To put it rather sim-
ply, Claire would be pronounced only as [klε] in Conservative, [klε] or [klε:]
in Respectable, and [kle:] by younger Respectable and Extreme speakers.
(In Extreme the vowel may be closer, i.e. raised towards but not merging
with fleece.) This is a highly salient variable, and many Respectable
speakers (even those who monophthongise) stigmatise non-diphthongal
variants. Monophthongisation here then has a quite different value from
that which it has in price. This illustrates the important point that it is not
the actual phonetic nature of a linguistic object that gives it a social status,
but (probably arbitrary) evaluation.
 South African English 119

For monophthongising speakers another potential minimal contrast

arises, this time in length: [e] versus [e:], as in shed versus shared, bed
versus bared.
(6) near. This is normally [ə] for all speakers, though in Extreme it may be
monophthongized to [:].
(7) cure. Most older SAE speakers retain some distinction between cure
[uə] and thought in words spelled with final <-r(e)>, but this may be
on the way out, certainly among younger Respectable and Extreme speak-
ers. One of the most common signs of the merger is the rhyme in for sure
(thought + cure), or homophony between sure and shore, your and
yore. The social value of the merger is unclear, but it will probably (as merg-
ers usually are) eventually be stigmatised by Conservative speakers as an
‘impoverishment of the language’. The distinction seems to be maintained
in all varieties in cure words beginning in /(C)j-/, such as fury, pure, cure,
Europe. In certain contexts in Extreme SAE, especially in the contraction
you’re, there may be monophthongisation, resulting in a vowel very like
goose (see §4 below).

3.2.6 Unstressed vowels (happY, lettER and commA)

Wells distinguishes three primary unstressed vowel sets; all SAE speakers have
a different quality in the weak syllable of happy from that of letter and comma
(the latter two usually [ə], though in Conservative it may be opener, even in some
older speakers as open as [–a]). RP, virtually alone among southern mainland
varieties, has [] in the weak syllable of words like happy, city, and so on,
rather than [i(:)]. This is also true for much Conservative SAE. Otherwise, both
Respectable and Extreme have [i:], often with secondary stress (hence the same
vowel in the weak syllable of city as in the second element of ice-cream), and
this does not appear to be a socially salient category.

3.3 The consonant system

3.3.1 Overview
My treatment of the consonants will not be as detailed as that of the vowels,
since there are fewer inter-varietal distinctions that can be co-opted as social
variables. The general SAE system can be laid out this way:
(a) stops: /p, b, t, d, k, '/
(b) fricatives: /f, v θ, ð s, z ʃ, , x, h/
(c) affricates: /tʃ, d/
(d) nasals: /m, n, ŋ/
(e) liquids: /r, l, j, w, (w
)/
120 R. Lass

Only SAE (all varieties), Scots and some Jewish varieties of English have a
phonemic velar fricative /x/. Except in Scots it does not occur in native English
words, but this is a purely historical matter; words that do have it (e.g. gogga,
gatvol, chutzpah) are normally so well integrated that they can be assumed
to have this extra phoneme. (On the bracketed voiceless /w / see section 3.3.3
below.)

3.3.2 The non-glottal stops and fricatives

All varieties of English have some distinction between two sets of stops, conven-
tionally voiceless and voiced. In most varieties the distinguishing property of
the voiceless stops is categorical aspiration in syllable-initial position. (‘Voiced’
stops may be partly or wholly voiceless.) This is the case for both Conservative
and Respectable SAE.
Lack of initial aspiration, however, either categorical or variable, serves as
an important marker of Extreme SAE. This feature is usually thought of as
a transfer from Afrikaans (due to historical bilingualism in the present-day
Extreme community); this is likely, but not certain (see Lass and Wright 1986).
It is at any rate a very salient variable.
The fricatives are usually distinguished by actual voicing, and in Conserva-
tive and Respectable contrast in all positions. However in Extreme (but less
frequently than in Afrikaans English) the voice contrast in both stops and frica-
tives may be neutralised in word-final position, with only voiceless phones
appearing (bid and bit are homophones). This may be either an Afrikaans or
Scots heritage, or an endogenous development (in most varieties of English
final voiced stops are less voiced than initial or medial ones).
The normal place of articulation for English /t, d/ is alveolar (as for /n/); in
some Extreme varieties, and older Jewish Respectable, the articulation tends
more toward the dental (a feature shared with much coloured English and
Afrikaans English).
One other feature occasionally associated with Extreme SAE, but more com-
monly with Afrikaans English, is substitution of /f/ for /θ/, especially in final
position, as in with [w̈f].

3.3.3 The liquids

Under this heading I include not only /r/ and /l/, but the other ‘frictionless
continuants’ or approximants (there is no need for the special terms ‘glide’ or
‘semivowel’ for /j/ and /w/).
(1) /r/. In Conservative and Respectable SAE, the norm for /r/ is a postalveolar
approximant [ɹ], which may be slightly retroflex, but usually is not (on its
 South African English 121

distribution see section 3.3.4). In emphatic or ‘expressive’ Respectable

styles it is sometimes realised as a trilled [r], often long: for instance in ut-
terances such as ‘It was enough to make you scream [skr:i:m]’, and in words
like skrik, grotty, crazy. (This seems to be restricted to female speakers.) In
older Conservative speakers, an alveolar tap may appear intervocalically in
words like very, but this is becoming increasingly rare.
Non-approximant norms, however, are an Extreme feature (Lanham’s
‘obstruent r’ variable). In these varieties the commonest realisation is an
alveolar tap, for some speakers only in clusters such as /tr-, kr-/, for others
(variably or categorically) in all positions. Increasing non-approximant /r/
correlates with increasing Extremeness.
(2) /l/. The behaviour of /l/ is pretty much the same for all SAE varieties:
‘clear’ (neutral or slightly palatalised) syllable-initially, and in intersyllabic
interludes (lift, lily), ‘dark’ (velarised or uvularised) syllable-finally ( fill,
filth). In general, palatalised initial /l/ seems commonest among younger
female Respectable speakers.
Some Conservative speakers (especially those who have undergone
‘elocution’ training) have a tendency to extend the intersyllabic clear (but
not palatalized) /l/ to word-final positions where the next word begins with
a vowel, as in fill it, call up. There seem to be no properties of /l/ specifically
associated with Extreme SAE.
(3) /w/ vs. /w /. There is a historical contrast between voiced /w/ and voiceless
/w/ (or perhaps /hw/), firmly institutionalised in English spelling (Wales
vs. whales, witch vs. which). This began to weaken in the eighteenth cen-
tury, and is now generally recessive or lost except in parts of the USA and
Scotland and Ireland. It is, however, quite commonly retained in Conserva-
tive SAE (which in this respect is more conservative than the British RP its
speakers often claim to model themselves on). As far as I know the contrast
is at best marginal among Respectable speakers, and does not generally
occur in Extreme SAE.

3.3.4 Rhoticity
Some English dialects allow /r/ to appear in all positions: initially, between vow-
els, before consonants, and finally. Others allow /r/ only initially and medially,
never before consonants, and finally only in connected speech if the following
word begins with a vowel. The former type (/r/-pronouncing) are called ‘rhotic’,
the latter (/r/-dropping) ‘non-rhotic’.
A rhotic dialect then will pronounce /r/ in rat, very, cart, far; a non-rhotic
dialect will pronounce /r/ in rat, very, never in cart, and in far only if the word
following it begins with a vowel (/r/ pronounced in far off but not in far from,
etc.). This is called ‘linking /r/’. Some non-rhotic dialects have an ‘extended’
122 R. Lass

linking /r/, which appears not after certain words, but after certain vowels,
regardless of whether the word in question has a historical (orthographical)
<r>. This (as in Africa-r-and Asia) is called ‘intrusive /r/’. This is rare in any
form of SAE (some speakers with linking /r/ appear not to have it at all), and
tends to be stigmatised by Conservative speakers (even though typical of many
varieties of RP and similar mainland lects.) A third logically possible type,
with only intrusive and no linking /r/, does not appear to exist. There is an
implicational relation: intrusive implies linking, but not vice versa.16
SAE of all kinds, like the other southern ETEs, is generally non-rhotic, but
not always categorically so. Conservative SAE is fully non-rhotic in precisely
the same way as RP; Respectable is as well, but with some differences in detail,
and occasional sporadic rhoticity, especially in /r/-final words before pause or
hesitation, and in the name of the letter <r>. Anything beyond very sporadic
rhoticity (regardless of the quality of the /r/) is an Extreme marker.

3.3.5 /h/ and glottal stop

In Conservative and Respectable SAE /h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative [h]
initially, and may be a breathy ‘voiced h’ [] in medial position (as in ahead).
These varieties never ‘drop h’, except in unstressed positions as in all other
Englishes, e.g. in give him, saw her, etc.
In Extreme SAE, the norm for /h/ is usually (as in Afrikaans) breathy-voiced
[], which often deletes in positions where it is always retained in Conservative
and Respectable (e.g. initially in stressed syllables as in house); at least as
often it does not delete but is perceived as doing so, because the breathy []
is less salient, and lacks the friction associated with voiceless [h]. Because of
the lowered laryngeal setting associated with [], /h/-initial words often have
a low or low rising tone on the vowel following; in rapid speech this can be the
only marker left behind by a deleted /h/, giving rise to potential minimal tonal
pairs like oh versus hoe (level or high falling tone vs. low or low rising tone).
(If /h/ were to be lost completely, these varieties would become potential ‘tone
languages’, at least for a certain class of syllables.)
In all SAE varieties, vowel-initial words under high stress normally have a
glottal stop preceding the vowel, e.g. eye as [ʔa]; in some Respectable and most
Extreme varieties [ʔ] appears under low stress as well, e.g. potentially at the
beginnings of all words in an utterance such as I always order it. The glottal stop
may also be used as a hiatus-breaker within the word, as in cre[ʔ]ate, re[ʔ]act,
li[ʔ]aison. This is stigmatised by many Conservative and Respectable speak-
ers, but is gaining ground (a natural extension from word-initial to foot-initial
position).
Related to this use of [ʔ] is ‘intrusive /h/’, which occurs in the same posi-
tions, and is typically associated with Afrikaans English, though it occurs
 South African English 123

(if not commonly) with native speakers as well, e.g. cre[h]ate, li[h]aison. This is
presumably in origin a weakened glottal stop; but it may have some social mo-
tivation as well, as a hypercorrection (the result of teachers correcting apparent
‘h-dropping’).

4 MORPHOSYNTAX

The morphology and syntax of L1 varieties of SAE have not been well studied,
and it would be premature to try and give any kind of detailed account. A
selection of miscellaneous grammatical South Africanisms can be found in
Branford’s Dictionary of South African English. There are some variables that
do seem (impressionistically) to be socially relevant, aside from those that
distinguish all varieties of SAE except perhaps the most Conservative (e.g. now
and just now with future meaning, loss of obligative force in must,17 lexical
archaisms such as robot for traffic-light, bioscope and of course Afrikaans and
other local loans).
One salient variable is the allomorphy of the definite and indefinite articles.
The common rule whereby the is /ðə/ before consonants and /ði:/ before vowels,
and the indefinite article is a /ə/ before consonants and an /æn/ before vowels,
holds for Conservative and most Respectable varieties; but for some Respectable
speakers the may (variably) be /ðə/ before vowels (normally with a glottal stop
preceding the vowel), though the indefinite article is never a before vowels. The
latter is characteristic only of Extreme (a apple, etc.).
Another feature that seems to be developing some importance as a marker
of Extreme is an extension of the busy V-ing construction to an increasing
range of stative verbs (on this construction see Lass and Wright 1986). In
most varieties of SAE (unlike other Englishes), busy V-ing can be used as a
relatively unemphatic progressive marker with some stative verbs (I’m busy
relaxing, etc.); but in Extreme it seems to have recently extended its domain
to die (I have heard Extreme speakers on television newscasts say things like
When I got to the car he was busy dying). Judging from the reactions I’ve heard
to this usage, it is developing into a strong social marker.
Most other Extreme markers of this kind are scattered and unsystematic, and
often of Afrikaans origin, apparently: familiar and stereotypic ‘errors’ castigated
by schoolteachers include I threw him with a stone = ‘I threw a stone at him’;
bring/come with = ‘bring/come with (someone)’, for example, bring it with for
‘bring it with you’; and the use of by in the sense ‘at somebody’s house’, such
as I had lunch by him.
One stigmatised variable is generally mistakenly interpreted as morphosyn-
tactic but is in fact phonological: this is what is perceived by many speakers
as ‘dropping’ forms of the verb be in (apparent) we going, you going for
we’re/you’re going, etc. A little reflection shows that these do not represent
124 R. Lass

systematic copula loss: *he going for ‘he’s going’ does not occur. What happens
here is simply a consequence of (a) non-rhoticity, and (b) monophthongisation
of near and cure (section 3.2.5). That is, while we has fleece and you has
goose, we’re has near and you’re has cure (the ‘underlying’ /r/ is realised as
[ə]). Deletion of this [ə] leaves behind monophthongs very close (but usually
not quite identical) to fleece and goose respectively.
These scattered examples reflect the state of the art; there has as yet been no
really detailed investigation of morphosyntactic variables of L1 SAE of the sort
there has been for phonological ones. One useful historical study of the grammar
of Settler English of the 1820s is that of Mesthrie and West (1995). They
examined a corpus of letters written by eastern Cape settlers to the governor
in Cape Town between 1820 to 1825. The letters contain a wealth of material
that give a fair idea of the dialect grammar of the period. Mesthrie and West
were particularly interested in (a) those grammatical features that have survived
to the present day (e.g. the use of an ‘adjective with infinitive’ construction,
as in incapable to provide for themselves); and (b) those features that were
eventually lost among Settler descendants but which survive in varieties that
started out as L2s, chiefly Afrikaner English and Cape Flats English (spoken
largely by coloured speakers). The authors provide the example of the dative of
advantage which was fairly common in the Settler corpus (e.g. I likewise dug
me a garden). No longer in use among white South Africans, the construction
survives in the Cape Flats, where it is ironically stigmatised as an incorrect use
of the reflexive. (On Cape Flats English see further McCormick, chap. 11 in
this volume.) The Mesthrie and West study thus offers a historical framework
for dialect syntax in South Africa.

notes
1 Scots has no /u/ vs. /u:/ contrast, but has /u/ or /–u/ in foot, food; bird, heard, word have
respectively/ir, ər, ∧r/. In the north-west of England cut, put both have /u/, as does
won, but one has /þ/ as in top.
2 Among the fragments of Scots heritage are pinkie, ‘little finger’ and timeously; the
north of England is represented by stay in the sense of ‘live in a place’, and the
secondary-stress on the prefixes con-, com- (as in cònfı́rm, còmpúter). Final stress in
educáte and similar words may be an Irish heritage, or an English archaism (since
such stressings were common in the late eighteenth century), or even an indigenous
development; the picture is not clear.
3 This property of Southern hemisphere Englishes (see section 1.3) was noticed as early
as the nineteenth century; A. J. Ellis in his massive dialect survey (1889) classified New
Zealand English as a sub-variety of ‘Southeastern’, along with the dialects of Kent
and Essex. It seems that no matter what the demography of the original settlement,
colonial Englishes turn out to be southern; on this phenomenon of ‘swamping’ see
Lass (1990a).
 South African English 125

4 For more detailed treatments see Lass (1987a, chap. 5; 1990a); the latter is somewhat
technical, but has some maps that may be useful.
5 This is the type often called (somewhat erroneously) ‘BBC’ or ‘Oxford’ English.
For the history and description of RP, see Wells (1982: I, sections 1.1, 1.4, 2.1, 4.1).
6 Lanham and Macdonald (1979: 24) fail to define a white working-class population
(except for certain mining towns), on the odd grounds that ‘there is no labouring
class’, since manual labour ‘correlates almost totally with ethnic identity’ and is
minimally represented in the white population. To the eyes of an observer who spent
over a decade in the UK, this is simply false; there is a white working class as
clearly defined as that in England (both in terms of social attitudes and speech),
though it is not (and this holds for Britain as well) restricted to ‘manual labour’:
many white English-speaking policemen, railway workers, shop-assistants, etc. are
clearly not members of the Type 2 community, and speak Extreme SAE, just as their
counterparts in the UK speak recognisable working-class vernaculars.
7 The tendency of female speakers (especially working class and lower middle class) to
be somewhat ‘posher’ than males, and for lower-middle-class males to have ‘covert’
working-class norms, has been familiar since Labov’s work in New York in the 1960s
(e.g. Labov 1966).
8 This chapter was originally written at a time of major transition in South Africa;
some of the institutional identifications have changed, e.g. SABC is now SAFM (on
radio) and SATV. The varieties, however, will remain, and we need some descriptive
anchor point.
9 The stereotypical speaker of Extreme SAE (Sow Theffricun Innglissh) is the WUESA
(white English-speaking South African) parodied in Ah Big Yaws? (Malan 1972).
10 The only complete edition of Goldswain’s Chronicle is Long (1946–9); for a pio-
neering and still immensely valuable study see Casson (1955).
11 It might seem at first that kit too should have raised; but the original shift seems
to have been of the type that prohibited merger of categories, and raised kit would
intersect the short allophones of f leece (e.g. sit would become a near-homophone
of seat). Later on, however, (see below) some allophones of kit did indeed move
towards f leece.
12 ‘SAE proper’ includes Zimbabwean mother-tongue English as well, which appears
to be a Transvaal offshoot. Conservative SAE is of course ‘SAE’, but because
of its often rather archaic British character not entirely ‘proper’ in the relevant
sense.
13 Actually the homophony is often not total; women, bill may have a slightly less
rounded vowel than woman, bull. But the difference is so subtle that it is stigmatised
as a merger.
14 In some (especially male) Respectable speakers, there is some crossover, with the
first element of mouth at [a] and that of price a centralised back vowel, but fronter
than bath.
15 Judging from irritated letters I have been receiving as a panelist on what used to be
SABC’s ‘Strictly Speaking’ programme (now ‘Word of Mouth’ on SAFM), it now
seems that this monophthongisation has become salient, and stigmatised by older
Conservative speakers.
16 Not only is intrusive /r/ rare in SAE; in Respectable, linking /r/ is less common than
in British varieties, often being replaced by a glottal stop.
126 R. Lass

17 Most South Africans seem not to realise that must in other varieties is a strong
obligative verb; a simple neutral direction such as ‘Passengers must proceed to
Gate 2’ is perceived by non-South Africans at first as an order rather than a request
or piece of information, and they often find it offensive and ‘bossy’.

bibliography
Branford, J. (with B. Branford) 1991. A Dictionary of South African English, 4th edn.
Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Casson, L. 1955. The Dialect of Jeremiah Goldswain, Albany Settler. UCT Lecture
Series 7. Cape Town: University of Cape Town.
Ellis, A. J. 1889. On Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to
Shakespeare and Chaucer. Part V, Existing Dialectal as Compared with West Saxon
Pronunciation. London: Trübner.
Labov, W. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
Lanham, L. W. 1967. The Pronunciation of South African English. Cape Town: Balkema.
1978. ‘South African English’. In L. W. Lanham and K. P. Prinsloo (eds.), Language
and Communication Studies in South Africa: Current Issues and Directions in
Research and Inquiry. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 138–66.
Lanham, L. W. and Macdonald, C. A. 1979. The Standard in South African English and
its Social History. Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag.
Lass, R. 1987a. The Shape of English. Structure and History. London: J. M. Dent.
1987b. ‘How reliable is Goldswain? On the credibility of an early South African
English source’. African Studies, 46: 155–62.
1990a. ‘Where do Extraterritorial Englishes come from? Dialect input and recod-
ification in transported Englishes’. In S. Adamson, V. Law, N. Vincent and S.
Wright (eds.), Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical
Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 245–80.
1990b. ‘A “standard” South African vowel system’. In S. Ramsaran (ed.), Studies
in the Pronunciation of English. A Commemorative Volume in Honour of A. C.
Gimson. London: Routledge, pp. 272–85.
Lass, R. and Wright, S. M. 1985. ‘The South African chain shift’. In R. Eaton, O. Fischer,
W. Koopman and F. van der Leek (eds.), Papers from the 4th International Confer-
ence on English Historical Linguistics, Amsterdam, 10–13 April, 1985. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, pp. 137–62.
1986. ‘Endogeny vs. contact: “Afrikaans influence” on South African English’.
English World-Wide, 7: 201–24.
Long, U. 1946–9. The Chronicle of Jeremiah Goldswain, Albany Settler of 1820, 2 vols.
Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society Publications.
Malan, R. [pseud. Rawbone Malong] 1972. Ah big yaws? Cape Town: David Philip.
Mesthrie, R. and P. West. 1995. ‘Towards a grammar of proto South African English’.
English World-Wide, 16, 1: 105–33.
Mitchell, A. G. and A. Delbridge 1965. The Pronunciation of English in Australia.
Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6 South African Sign Language: one language
or many?

Debra Aarons and Philemon Akach

1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we discuss the signed language used by the Deaf community
in South Africa, and examine the historical conditions for its emergence. We
describe the legal and actual situation of South African Sign Language in South
Africa today, particularly in relation to schooling. We investigate the different
factors that underlie the claims that there is more than one sign language in
South Africa, and we spell out the practical consequences of accepting these
claims without further examination.
We assume without argument that Deaf1 people in South Africa, far from
being deficient, or disabled, are a linguistic minority, with their own language,
South African Sign Language, and their own culture, South African Deaf
culture.2 Like everyone else in this post-modern world, Deaf people have dif-
ferential membership in many cultures, on the basis of, for instance, religion,
lifestyle, daily practices, political beliefs and education. However, what they
all have in common is membership in a community that uses signed language,
and socialises with other people who do the same.3
Thus, the model we adopt is non-medical. We are not interested here in de-
gree of hearing loss, the remediation of hearing, audiological measures, speech
therapy or any other medical views of deafness. We regard deafness only as
the sufficient, but not necessary, precipitant of signed-language development,
and our concern here is to examine certain sociolinguistic issues that come into
play in the consideration of the status of the signed language used in South
Africa.

1.1 The status of natural signed languages internationally

It is by now uncontroversial, at least among linguists, that natural signed
languages used by the Deaf in different parts of the world are fully-fledged
languages, equivalent in all respects to all other natural languages that have been
studied. They are acquired naturally by young children, at the same rate and with
the same ease that spoken languages are acquired. They are functionally capable
127
128 D. Aarons and P. Akach

of expressing the entire range of human experience that spoken languages are
able to express; they have as many registers, and as much complexity as any
other human language. Signed languages have phonological, morphological,
syntactic and semantic levels of representation. These have been shown to be
exactly the same as those proposed for any other human language. The distin-
guishing feature of signed languages is that they are made through the medium
of space, not sound, and that they use the hands, face, head and upper torso for
their realisation.
There is no one universal signed language. Signed languages, just like other
languages, arise naturally, through use by a community of users in a context
of natural use, and they evolve and develop over time as they are passed down
from generation to generation. They differ from most spoken languages in the
important respect that only 10 per cent of Deaf children are born to Deaf parents,
and thus, Deaf children tend to learn signed language from other Deaf children
and adults, and not usually from birth, in their own homes. This, added to the
fact that signed languages are not written down, probably leads to a slightly
higher degree of variability in the signed language of a community. However, in
general, the signed language used in one country is identifiably distinct from the
signed language used in another country, particularly where these countries are
geographically and historically unrelated. Thus, for instance, Namibian Sign
Language and Thai Sign Language are mutually unintelligible.
Furthermore, signed languages are not related to the spoken language of the
geographical area in which they occur. Although English is the primary spoken
language in Britain and the USA, the signed languages of these two countries are
not related. If we compare American Sign Language and British Sign Language,
we discover that these two languages are mutually unintelligible. Historically,
American Sign Language is related to Old French Sign Language, since the first
teachers of the Deaf in the USA came from France. In any event, the indigenous
signed language in the USA did not evolve from the indigenous signed language
in Britain. Thus, although the official spoken language of both Britain and the
USA is English, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are not
mutually intelligible. South African Sign Language (as the case in point) can
trace some of its influences to Irish Sign Language, but less so to British Sign
Language.
In certain countries of the world – for example, Sweden – the natural signed
language used by the Deaf (in this case, the Swedish Deaf) is one of the offi-
cial second languages of Sweden, and users of Swedish Sign Language, as a
result, have all the language rights accorded to users of an official second lan-
guage. Deaf people thus have a legal right to receive their schooling in signed
language, and to have signed-language interpreters provided for all their official
interactions with the hearing public. This accords them full access to the life
of the country.
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 129

Some natural signed languages, such as American Sign Language and British
Sign Language, have been fostered and developed. As a result, their oral
tradition has spawned a body of signed language literature, which is now cap-
tured on videotape and is studied and analysed. Thus, just as users of other
languages keep a more permanent record of their artistic creations by writing
them down and studying them, users of signed languages, with the help of video
technology, have taken the opportunity to do the same.
These are a few examples of signed languages in countries that have recog-
nised the language rights of their citizens and made provision for the devel-
opment of these languages. More common is a deep and unfounded prejudice
against signed languages, and a consequent marginalisation of Deaf people and
their human rights.

2 SIGNED LANGUAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA

It is estimated that approximately 500,000 South Africans use a signed language

in their daily lives (statistics supplied by DEAFSA). The vast majority of these
are Deaf, although there is a small number of hearing people, usually children
of Deaf adults or professionals working closely with members of the Deaf
community, who use sign language regularly and frequently.
Although South African Sign Language is not one of the eleven official
languages of South Africa, it is mentioned explicitly in the constitution of the
Republic of South Africa as one of the languages of South Africa that must be
promoted, and adequate conditions for its ongoing development and use must
be created.
Furthermore, and importantly, the South African Schools Act of 1996 states
that South African Sign Language is to be the medium of instruction (now
known as ‘the language of learning’) in schools for the Deaf. Thus, although
South African Sign Language is not an official language of the country, it does
have the status of a medium of instruction in schools that are set up specifically
to cater for the needs of Deaf pupils.
In reality, the present situation in schools for the Deaf does not, by any means,
conform to the stipulations of the South African Schools Act. Deaf pupils are
not educated through the medium of a signed language, either because there
are very few teachers of the Deaf who are fluent in a signed language, or
because the schools have policies that allow for a combination of speech and
signs (an awkward and unnatural pastiche), or the schools have policies of total
oralism. The current situation is thus illegal, and violates the human rights of
Deaf pupils, who do not physically have access to a spoken language, owing
to the obvious fact that they are unable to hear. In addition there are serious
linguistic issues at stake that have ramifications for the education and literacy
of Deaf children and for their future as productive citizens of the country.
130 D. Aarons and P. Akach

3 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN SIGN

LANGUAGE

3.1 Schools for the Deaf

The history of the signed language used in South Africa is closely linked to the
development of schools for the Deaf. As is the case world-wide, signed language
developed in South Africa where there were communities of Deaf people who
used their hands and faces in order to communicate. The most natural places
for this to have happened are residential schools for the Deaf, irrespective of
their official policies on signing. Deaf people tend to seek out communities of
other Deaf people, and the signing that has evolved around school centres has
tended to spread into Deaf communities, even if only some of their members
have actually attended school.
Not only did residential schools for the Deaf provide the physical conditions
for signed language to evolve, they were, and still are, the centres for the
evolution of Deaf culture. It is in schools for the Deaf that the pupils understand
that what they have in common is the fact that they are all Deaf, and that, in
general, their families are not, and that they can communicate naturally and
easily with other Deaf people. They realise their difference from the hearing
world because of the way in which they live: without sound, needing light and
face-to-face communication, using other ways to call and contact one another.
In the past they have also had to hide the most binding and precious unifying
practice: their use of signed language.
On another level, Deaf pupils start to understand that there are bonds that
unite them to other Deaf people as a sort of extended family. Many Deaf people
continue to live and socialise with other Deaf people, as adults. They regard
other Deaf people as their primary community, with whom they share a com-
mon language, way of living and set of experiences, which bond them to one
another. Thus, many Deaf people regard their primary culture and community
as revolving around the use of signed language and the experience of deafness.
In most cases, Deaf people are not born into this culture: they choose it, usually
as a result of negative communication experiences in their own families and
with the hearing world, and the sense of familiarity and belonging they feel in
interaction with other Deaf people. Typically, Deaf South Africans choose the
company of other Deaf South Africans, and believe they are united on the basis
of language and culture.
Little is known about the history of the Deaf in South Africa prior to coloni-
sation (Heap, in progress). After colonisation, and the beginning of publicly
provided education, the state authorities took little or no responsibility for
establishing schools for the Deaf, and this was left almost entirely to the dif-
ferent churches. During the course of the twentieth century, schools were
eligible for some state aid once they had been established and were functioning.
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 131

It was not until the new constitution of the Republic of South Africa in 1996 that
education was declared compulsory for deaf children. It should be noted that
there were more Deaf children in South Africa (before 1994) who had never
been to school, than those who had attended a school at some time.
The history of sign language in South Africa is, of course, deeply intertwined
with the history of apartheid schooling and its complicated language policies.
For this reason, we present some of the details of the history of schools for the
Deaf in South Africa, with particular reference to the role of different churches,
and apartheid racial and ethnic classifications. Additionally we highlight the
different communication practices that were prescribed or emerged in the dif-
ferent schools for the Deaf.
To help the reader find a way through the morass of detail, we provide a
guiding generalisation: schools for the white Deaf insisted on oralism, whereas
schools for the other races allowed some measure of manualism (in most cases,
not a natural signed language, but a mixture of speech and some signs). It is
clear that speaking was perceived by the authorities as the prestigious form of
language. Hence there was an insistence on oralism in schools for the white
Deaf, while, based on pigmentation, manualism was permitted increasingly in
schools for the Deaf of other racial groups.
The churches most deeply involved in establishing and running schools for
the Deaf in South Africa were the Dominican Catholics and the Dutch Reformed
Church. The first school for the Deaf in South Africa was established in Cape
Town in 1863 by the Irish Dominican Order, under the leadership of Bishop
Grimley.4 This school, from its inception, catered for all race groups, and used
signed language as a medium of instruction. The Dominican nuns, who came
from Ireland, had been influenced by the policy of signed language instruction
originating in France in the eighteenth century, as a result of the work of the
Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Epée. In contrast, the policy in Deaf education in
Britain, and in Germany, was strictly oral; that is, Deaf children were taught
to lip-read, and made to speak. In Ireland, however, probably owing to Deaf
education being in the hands of the Catholic Church, the French policy of
manualism was entrenched.
A landmark event in the history of Deaf education world-wide was the Con-
ference of Milan, in 1880. All Deaf delegates were excluded from voting, and
the World Congress of Educators of the Deaf voted for a policy of strict oralism
in schools for the Deaf. This effectively excluded Deaf teachers from teaching
Deaf children and led, in most Deaf schools of the world, to signed language
going underground. It should be noted that Deaf people, wherever they were,
did not stop signing to one another. However, signed language world-wide was
frowned upon as a medium of instruction, and in many cases was forbidden. The
use of signed language also became stigmatised, and Deaf people, particularly
those who wanted to consider themselves educated, did not sign in public.
132 D. Aarons and P. Akach

By the time of the 1904 census, however, the Dominican Grimley Institute
in Cape Town (also known as St Mary’s) still embraced a policy of manua-
lism in the school. At that time two other schools for the Deaf had been
established in South Africa. These schools served only white Deaf children.
The Worcester School for the Deaf and Blind was established in 1881, by the
Dutch Reformed Church, for the children of the Dutch settlers. The 1904 census
report states that combined oral and manual methods were used in the school.
The folklore is that Jan de la Bat, a Dutch Reformed Church missionary, taught
his Deaf brother by means of signs, and that this heralded the beginning of the
signed language used in Worcester, which is claimed by this community to be
indigenous. Only ‘European’ children were permitted to attend this school.
In 1884, German Dominican nuns established a school at Kingwilliamstown
in the eastern Cape. This too was a school for the ‘European Deaf’ and fol-
lowed a policy of strict oralism, presumably because of the overwhelming
influence of oralism in Germany. The German Dominican School later moved
to Johannesburg, where it became St Vincent’s School for the Deaf, which took
in only white Deaf children.
In 1933, the Dutch Reformed Church set up another school, for the coloured
Deaf, known as Nuwe Hoop. The language policy was the same as that at the
Worcester school for the white Deaf: spoken Afrikaans, and some manualism.
The Grimley Institute for the Deaf in Cape Town remained racially integrated,
and in the 1920s segregated the children on the basis of whether they were to use
manualism or oralism. This occurred after one of the sisters visited the German
Dominican School in Kingwilliamstown, and instituted a policy that all but
the most ‘backward’ children would be taught using the oral method. In 1937,
the Irish Dominicans opened a separate school for the ‘non-European’ Deaf
in Cape Town at Wittebome. Both coloured and African Deaf children were
admitted to the school. However, by 1953, once the Nationalist government
refined the policy of apartheid even further, the Dominican Grimley School at
Wittebome was declared a school for coloured Deaf only.5
In the 1960s, the white Dominican Grimley School for the Deaf moved to
Hout Bay in Cape Town and adopted a policy of strict oralism which it has
continued to this day. Pupils are expected to maintain strict separation from any
signers, and absolutely no signing is permitted on school premises.
In 1962, apparently because there were still African students trying to attend
the Wittebome school, a separate school for African Deaf children was set
up in Hammanskraal (then in the Transvaal Province, some 1,600 kilometres
away from Wittebome), also by Irish Dominican nuns, from the Wittebome
school. There was no school for the African Deaf in the western Cape and
no attempt to set one up until 1986. This was in accord with the Nationalist
government’s policy of influx control (in terms of which no African children
actually officially belonged in the western Cape). Only after influx control had
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 133

been officially scrapped in 1986 did the Dutch Reformed Church set up a school
for the African Deaf in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
The first school for black Deaf children, Khutlwanong, was opened in 1941,
near Roodepoort in the Transvaal. Started originally by the Johannesburg Deaf
and Dumb Society, it was taken over by Dutch Reformed Church trustees in
1954. At this school, a system of signs, invented in Britain, known as the
Paget–Gorman system, was introduced, and teachers and pupils were to speak
and simultaneously use the Paget–Gorman signs. This was a policy that was
to spread to other schools for black Deaf pupils. The Paget–Gorman system
was not a language but a set of invented signs, based on unnatural handshape
permutations, lacking a grammar at any level.
As a result of the homelands policy,6 a number of additional schools for
the African Deaf were established in the rest of the country, divided according
to the spoken language of each ethnic group, and in line with the Bantustan
separate development policy. Thus, from the mid-1950s, the following schools
for the African Deaf were established: The Khutlwanong School moved to
Rustenberg and served the so-called Tswana, South Sotho and North Sotho
‘speakers’; in 1959, the Efata School in the Transkei, for Xhosa ‘speakers’ was
established, also under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church; in 1962,
the Dutch Reformed Church set up Bartimea School at Thaba’nchu for Tswana
and South Sotho ‘speakers’, and in 1965 the Vuleka school at Nkandla for Zulu
‘speakers’. The Catholic Church established St Thomas’s at Stutterheim for
Xhosa ‘speakers’ in 1962. Kwa Vulindlebe was set up by the Catholic Church
in 1979, Kwa Thintwa was established by the Catholic Church in 1983; Indaleni
was set up by the Methodist Church of South Africa in 1986, St Martin’s by
the Catholic Church in 1991, all for Zulu ‘speakers’. The Tsilidzini school
at Shayadima was established to serve Venda and Tsonga ‘speakers’ and the
Thiboloha School at Witsieshoek, for South Sotho ‘speakers’. Yingisani was
established by the Department of Works in 1989 to serve Tsonga ‘speakers’. The
school set up in 1962 by the Dominicans at Hammanskraal officially catered
for Sotho ‘speakers’. In 1978 and 1981, two day schools were set up for urban
black Deaf children, one in Soweto and one in Katlehong.
Until the 1980s the official medium of instruction in all these schools was the
mother tongue, although in the case of Deaf children, it was not clear what this
was. Additionally, the schools were instructed to integrate the Paget–Gorman
signing system with mother-tongue speech. As is the case generally with educa-
tion for black people in South Africa in these years, the whole idea of dividing
schools up on the basis of the mother tongue of their pupils was fraught with
inconsistencies, and based on partial, and often incorrect, information. In the
case of the Deaf children, this was even more confused. Further, the use of
rudimentary signs to accompany the spoken language made the official lan-
guage practices even less communicatively accessible to the Deaf children.
134 D. Aarons and P. Akach

Later, English or Afrikaans was brought in as the official medium of instruc-

tion in schools for the black Deaf, with the added feature of the Paget–Gorman
signs. The twisted logic of ethnic separation on the basis of home language
for apartheid education in general was (given English or Afrikaans medium
instruction) rendered even more ridiculous. In practice, in schools for black
Deaf children, the teachers used an ad hoc system of sign-supported speech
(it is unclear whether they used English, Afrikaans or a Bantu language). This
practice is known in Deaf education as ‘total communication’ but has, in fact,
almost no communicative effect at all. On the ground, the pupils in these resi-
dential schools for the Deaf, left largely to their own devices, developed their
own signed language.
It is known that in the schools for the black Deaf, there was little access to
hearing aids and speech therapists. Although there was an official oralist pol-
icy, sign language thrived. Most of the schools for the African Deaf were vastly
underresourced, underfunded and understaffed. In these schools children were
not forbidden to sign, and a very small number of the teachers picked up some
sign language from the children. Less school time was wasted teaching chil-
dren to speak, and although these Deaf children received an atrocious general
education, an unexpected benefit of the neglect was the development of strong
centres of natural signed-language use.
As far as the other racial groups were concerned, in the 1950s schools for
white Deaf children from Afrikaans homes were set up in Pretoria (Trans-
Oranje School) and the Free State. These schools were offshoots of the De la
Bat School in Worcester, all under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church.
The Fulton School for children from English-speaking homes was set up in
Natal by the Anglican Church in 1958. An Indian teacher was trained by the
nuns at Wittebome, in order to set up the V. N. Naik school in Natal for the
Indian Deaf, and later the M. C. Karbai school for the Indian Deaf was started in
Lenasia. The policy in all these schools was oralist, with signing discouraged,
and not used in the classroom.

3.2 The spread of signed language

Despite the official language policies, pupils signed with one another in all the
residential schools for the Deaf in South Africa, and signed language flourished,
out of the classroom. If the pupils of all these schools were to have stayed in the
geographical location of the school, and not returned home, or moved around
the country, it would be reasonable to expect each of these centres to have
produced its own sign language and for these to have stabilised. It is a very
plausible hypothesis that as a result of apartheid education and social policies,
different signed languages developed in South Africa. This hypothesis was most
clearly articulated and accepted by the makers of the Dictionary of Southern
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 135

African Signs (Penn 1992a). However, there are a number of facts that cast
doubt on its veracity.
Deaf people moved around the country. As a result of the apartheid system of
schooling, Deaf children often had to leave their home districts to go to school.
After leaving school, they either returned home or went to work and live in
other parts of the country. Deaf people socialise with other Deaf people. More
recently, there has been signing on television in programmes for the Deaf,
and interpreting of national news, and thus, Deaf people are exposed to the
signing of different sectors of the Deaf community. There are frequent local and
national Deaf events of a sporting, cultural and educational nature. Initiatives
have been launched for the Deaf people within provinces to hold regular forums;
in the last few years, national Deaf indabas (conferences) have been held.
Deaf people are beginning to train other Deaf people to teach Sign Language
irrespective of whether they are from the same community. Anecdotally, the
most convincing piece of evidence is that Deaf South Africans seem perfectly
able to communicate easily with one another, although it is revealing that many
Deaf people believe that there are different sign-language varieties in South
Africa.
There seem to be reasons to claim that if there are different varieties they are
converging,7 as is the case in South Africa with different Englishes.8 There is a
strong possibility that convergence is taking place, owing to the far greater mix-
ing of different communities with one another, and the (somewhat minuscule)
integration of Deaf schools.
The linguistic decision as to whether there is one South African sign language
or whether there are many can only be made on the basis of linguistic research.
To this end there is a project under way to investigate the structural properties
of the signed language used by different communities in South Africa.9 How-
ever, the decision is also a social one, as people’s perception of whether they
use the same language as another person, or a different one, is frequently based
on considerations other than the structural properties of the language. In the
remainder of this chapter we examine other considerations, some of which are
pertinent to languages in general, and some of which have particular bearing
on South African Sign Language.

4 HOW MANY SIGNED LANGUAGES ARE THERE IN SOUTH

AFRICA?

The question that seems to beset the official development of South African Sign
Language in South Africa is one that might appear to be a non-question: how
many different signed languages are there in South Africa? There are many
different ways of going about answering this question, the first of which is to
ask why it is being asked. Generally, the official response has been that until we
136 D. Aarons and P. Akach

know the answer to this question, we cannot choose a standard variety. Only
then can we begin with interpreter training, and sign-language training for pre-
and in-service teachers, and with the introduction of television interpreting,
school curricula and syllabi for South African Sign Language, and so on. The
next question we might ask is: ‘Who is asking?’ And we may find that it is not
Deaf people who are asking this question, but educators of the Deaf, would-be
interpreters, bureaucrats and financial managers. For it is costly in terms of
time, effort and money to have to take responsibility for the promotion and
development of yet another language group in South Africa.
We propose to examine a number of the arguments, claims and beliefs that
underlie the commonly heard statement that there is more than one sign language
in South Africa. Not all the claims are compatible with one another, as they
are merely culled from received wisdom, and set down here as a list. We show
that in all these cases, the factors that are brought to bear on the discussion of
the signed language are non-linguistic ones. They have nothing to do with the
structure of the language itself. We will list these below as baldly as possible
in order to explicate them:

4.1 Claims
(1) For every different spoken language in South Africa, there is an equivalent
signed language, i.e. there is an English Sign Language, an Afrikaans Sign
Language, a Sotho Sign Language, a Zulu Sign Language, etc.
(2) For every different racial and ethnic community in South Africa, there
is a different sign language. Thus, for example, ethnically Indian South
Africans have their own signed language, English-speaking coloured South
Africans have their own signed language, Afrikaans-speaking coloured
South African have their own signed language, and these are different from
the white English or Afrikaans South African signed languages.
(3) For every different geographical or ethnically separated Deaf community
there is a different signed language. Thus, Deaf people from an English
school in Natal use a different signed language from that used by Deaf
people from an English school in Johannesburg.
(4) There is a word for every sign and a sign for every word (for argument’s
sake, in English).
(5) Signed languages mirror the morphological and syntactic structure of the
spoken languages from which they derive.
(6) Signs or signed-language utterances do not vary in their context of use.
(7) A standard language does not allow for regional, ethnic, gender, situational
or contextual variation.
(8) If people are born into a certain community, or culture, their primary loyalty
and identification must be to the language used in that particular community.
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 137

In order to make our case quite clear we will make some counter-claims about
South African Sign Language and then substantiate them. We claim first that the
reason some people say that there are different signed languages in South Africa
is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the signed language itself: they
assume that signed language is a manual version of spoken language (claims 1,
2 and 3). Second, we claim that the Dictionary of Southern African Signs is
based on a false hypothesis about the effects of apartheid on the signed language
used in South Africa. It also seems to presuppose a close relationship between
words and signs, and fails to recognise variation within different contexts of use
(claims 4, 5 and 6). Although there are certainly different varieties of the signed
language used in South Africa, most Deaf people in the country control many of
these varieties, as is the case for speakers of any other language (claim 7). Third,
we claim that Deaf people themselves frequently confuse language identity
with other kinds of identity and thus sometimes reject the signing of other Deaf
people as ‘other’ (claim 8).

4.2 Claims that are challenged

4.2.1 A signed language is a manual version of a spoken language (claims
1, 2 and 3)
Languages have their own word-order rules. Thus the word order of English
is different from that of Afrikaans, which in turn is different from Japanese. If
we were to arrange English words in Japanese word order we would no longer
be speaking English. Nor would we be speaking Japanese. Similarly, to take
one sign for every English word and arrange these signs in the word order of
an English sentence is not to produce an utterance in a natural signed language.
Nor is it English. It is an attempt to put English on the hands and it is doomed
to failure, for the reasons we discuss next.
Signed languages have their own way of realising their grammatical struc-
ture. They are not based on any spoken language. They exploit the medium of
space efficiently, using location and movement, two of the properties of space,
to encode features such as inflection, verb agreement, deixis and aspect. Further,
the grammar of signed languages is made through facial expressions and head
positions. The essential syntactic organisation of signed languages is no dif-
ferent to the syntactic organisation of any other human language that has been
analysed in these terms, but the surface realisations are those that befit a visual
medium, rather than an oral one.
Various attempts have been made to put spoken languages on the hands. The
basic idea is to match each word and morpheme in a spoken language with
a signed analogue. These codes are clumsy, partial, and inefficient. They are
based entirely on the misapprehension that the only way languages differ is
138 D. Aarons and P. Akach

in the words they use. An equivalent mistake would be to translate English

morpheme-by-morpheme into Zulu, without changing the morpheme order or
the word order, and, where there is no equivalent morpheme, to invent one.
Similarly, manual coded English (MCE) is an attempt to put the surface mor-
phemes of English onto the hands, in an attempt to teach Deaf people English.
However, signed languages do not have signs for ‘the’ or ‘-ed’ or ‘-ing’, because
the features of definiteness, tense and aspect are realised differently in signed
languages. So the designers of these codes invented signs for these and other
morphemes. Such invented signs do not participate in the spatial grammar of a
signed language, which uses a change in the movement of the sign itself, or a
facial expression, to express different sorts of inflections.
The results of these inventions are clumsy, inefficient codes that cannot be
processed or acquired. They are not natural sign languages, and they are not
even good representations of the spoken language, since they code only the
surface morphemes of the language. Furthermore, they do not lead to literacy
in the spoken language that they attempt to model. Deaf people do not use
them when they communicate with other Deaf people. However, these codes
are much favoured by hearing people who want to communicate with the Deaf.
Essentially they take the words and word order of a spoken language and try
to fit signs into this framework. This is invariably accompanied by speech. It is
the use of these artificial codes that gives rise to the idea that there is an English
Sign Language and an Afrikaans Sign Language, a Sotho Sign Language and
so on.
The main problem with this idea is that no one uses these codes naturally.
Deaf people when communicating with one another use natural signed language,
and are not cut off from other Deaf people in their area because they are users
of ‘Sotho’ and not ‘Afrikaans’. It should also be noted that the only people
who are able to use the artificial codes are those who already know the spoken
language itself: the codes are no aid to language acquisition. The idea that
there are many different signed languages in South Africa is one that has been
manufactured by hearing people who have decided on the easiest way for them
to ‘communicate’ with Deaf people, without actually learning the language of
the Deaf themselves.
The notion that there is a different signed language for every ethnic and
racially different Deaf community in South Africa is a very confused one. At
first glance it is contradictory to the idea that there is a signed equivalent to every
spoken language. However, it is indeed the logical extension of the apartheid
idea: different communities have different languages. It is further complicated
by the claim that coloured communities have different signed languages de-
pending on whether they are ‘English’ or ‘Afrikaans’ speaking. This assumes
that coloured Deaf communities are divided along the lines of whether they use
English or Afrikaans, and takes us back to the problems stated above. It also
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 139

assumes that ‘Coloured English Sign’ is different from ‘Coloured Afrikaans

Sign’, which is in turn different from ‘White Afrikaans Sign’. This confusion
has all the hallmarks of an apartheid design writ large.
As it happens, given the relationship of the schools to one another, for in-
stance, the fact that the Irish Dominican teachers controlled white, coloured,
Indian and black Deaf schools, these varieties usually have a good deal in
common. Further, the fact that some coloured students might have attended
the Dominican school in Cape Town, and others the Nuwe Hoop school in the
Cape, does not mean that they did not go home to similar communities. There
are very few people who would be prepared nowadays to defend, in its purest
form, the claim that there is a different signed language for every ethnic and
racially different Deaf community in South Africa.
The claim about ethnically and regionally divided communities using dif-
ferent sign languages is similarly flawed. If Deaf people from white English
schools in KwaZulu-Natal use a different language from the one used at a white
English school in Johannesburg, then this too contradicts the idea that there is
such a thing as an English Sign Language. As it happens, there seems to be
no communication problem between people from these two schools. We have
shown above that it is unlikely that the natural signed language is based on
English. Thus, there must be other reasons for the mutual intelligibility. It is
possible that the influences on the signed language are similar; it is very likely
that members of these Deaf communities mix outside school. Nowadays, the
idea that the language used by (white) Deaf people in Johannesburg and Durban
is significantly different is not even entertained by Deaf people. Thus, we know
(at least for these communities) that despite different geographical origins, and
the fact that the Deaf people do not use signed English, there is a common
signed language. We also know that white Deaf people from De la Bat in the
Cape (a so-called Afrikaans school) communicate very well with white Deaf
people from St Vincent’s in Johannesburg (a so-called English school). Some
claims have been made that in the white schools for the Deaf, the students learn
English and Afrikaans, and that they use signed forms of the spoken language
to communicate. A cursory glance at the written English or Afrikaans of Deaf
school leavers in South Africa should give the lie to the claim that the average
Deaf pupil has enough literacy in a second or third language to even begin to
try to put it on his hands.
We are thus left with the idea that colour may be the variable, and this is
certainly what some Deaf people believe, although it is very difficult to propose
a logical explanation for why this should be so. Indeed, if we recall the history
of the language-medium policy in black schools for the Deaf, we see that
until the 1980s every school was meant to use the spoken language of the
pupils’ homes, plus some Paget–Gorman signs. During the 1980s, English and
Afrikaans would have been used officially, along with Paget–Gorman. None of
140 D. Aarons and P. Akach

this explains why Deaf black South Africans from ten different mother-tongue
backgrounds communicate easily with one another in signed language, nor why
there are conflicting reports from Deaf South Africans of different racial groups
about whether or not they use the same signed language.
What we do know is that Deaf people seem to manage very well to com-
municate with one another across racial boundaries, until there are hearing
people (teachers, social workers, ‘interpreters’) involved. Apparently, many
hearing people use manual codes that are associated with a particular spoken
language. Then only the Deaf people who understand the particular spoken
language understand them. Similarly, some hearing people may understand a
signed form of a particular spoken language, but not the natural signed language
used by the Deaf themselves. Invariably, it is the hearing people who raise the
complaint that they do not understand ‘Zulu sign language’ or ‘Afrikaans sign
language’.
Combined with the complication of accommodation with hearing people’s
signing is the issue of colour. It is our observation that signers tend to decide
whether someone else’s sign language is the same as or different from theirs
on the basis of their skin colour. A skilled signed-language interpreter in the
Western Cape (totally bilingual in English and Afrikaans as well) who hap-
pens to be a coloured South African was informed that the white Afrikaans
Deaf did not understand him. Conversely, one of the authors, who happens to
be Kenyan, and knows no local Bantu languages, is frequently complimented
by black South African Deaf people on how well he uses the local signed
language.

4.2.2 As a consequence of apartheid, there are many different signed

languages used in South Africa (claims 4, 5, 6 and 7)
In 1980, a limited collection of signs, apparently in use in schools for the black
Deaf (many of them unnatural, some based on the Paget–Gorman system) was
produced, under the auspices of the Department of Education and Training
(the department responsible for the education of black people at that time) by
Norman Nieder-Heitmann, the principal of the Khutlwanong School. The book
was called Praat met die Dowes (Talking to the Deaf). Subsequently, this book
was prescribed for use in schools for the black Deaf and constituted the only
permissible signs that could be used.
In the mid-1980s, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the state-
funded council for scientific research, advertised for a researcher to work on the
standardisation of South African Sign Language. The Dictionary of Southern
African Signs (Penn 1992a) was the final outcome of the work commissioned
by that research council. It was developed over seven years at considerable cost,
and consists of five volumes.
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 141

Clearly, as shown above, the various Deaf communities did not mix much
over the years preceding the dictionary, and as one would expect, the signed
language used by different groups would have shown some lexical variation, a
variation perpetuated by apartheid divisions. The dictionary focused on these
lexical differences, attempting to correlate the different lexical items with the
spoken-language communities into which the Deaf users were born. To this
end, the project team documented signs from eleven different racially and re-
gionally based areas in South Africa. Researchers used English words and
phrases to elicit particular signs from the representatives of each community.
These signs were video-recorded, and then a still frame was made from each,
and presented as the sign used by the different communities for the particular
English word or phrase. Thus, each page of the dictionary listed an English
item, then showed eleven or so different signs that informants claimed were
the ways in which the sign for this English word was used in their language
variety.
It is difficult to see what purpose the dictionary would have served in standard-
ising the signed language used in South Africa into a single signed language. It
seems more likely that the dictionary’s purpose was to standardise each of the
different varieties. This idea is quite in accord with the practice under apartheid,
whereby language boards for each Bantu language were set up, usually compris-
ing non-native speakers of that language. The standard for a particular language,
for instance Xhosa, was then decided upon, and then this standard variety was
prescribed for use in and teaching in schools. Native speakers of the language
would find that their own variety was then deemed to be faulty as a consequence
of the decrees of the language board.10
It should also be noted that the dictionary had a stated pedagogical aim (Penn
1992a; Penn and Reagan 1994). Thus, its purpose was not only to describe the
varieties used by the different communities, but to use the items for teaching one
or other signed language. The issue of signed-language syntax is not addressed
directly in the dictionary itself (although there is some discussion of the syntax
of signed languages in general, in the introduction). The pedagogical aim, then,
seems geared more to teaching some sign vocabulary within the context of
an English sentence structure. The pedagogical outcome of such an approach
is unlikely to be the acquisition of a natural sign language. In any event, no
dictionary of any language could be said to actually teach a language.
The first serious misunderstanding upon which the Dictionary of Southern
African Signs is based, then, is that the structure of a signed language is depen-
dent on the structure of a related spoken language. The second misunderstanding
is that there is a one-to-one relationship between a lexical item in one language
and a lexical item in another, in other words, that there is a simple word–sign
relationship. In any event, the base items for elicitation in the dictionary were
English sentences. This seems to underplay the relationship among the different
142 D. Aarons and P. Akach

spoken languages in South Africa, the relationship of these to the signed

varieties, and the relationship of signed items in an utterance to one another.
Signed languages are essentially based on a complex system of classifier
handshapes of movement and location. These form the skeletal structure for
most predicates involving movement or location. They may translate as a long
string of words, such as A car goes very fast up a steep hill with hairpin bends.
Each of these separate pieces of information is embedded as a morpheme into
one sign, which uses its handshape, movement and location to convey all of
this information. The purpose of this example is to show (a) that there is no
simple word–sign equivalent; (b) making a dictionary of signs also requires
a characterisation of the morphological and syntactic structure of a signed
language; (c) arranging a dictionary according to the spoken language makes
it virtually impossible to look up the meaning of a sign, but only makes it
possible to look up a signed equivalent for a word. Thus, the dictionary seems
to be designed for the use of hearing people who want to communicate in a
rudimentary way with Deaf people (assuming, of course, that they know the
‘variety’ that the Deaf person uses).
We have already mentioned that the word order in signed languages may be
different from that in spoken languages. Thus, no user of the dictionary would
be able to construct the simple sign language utterance/s that might be translated
as ‘the girl kicks the boy’.
The possible sign orders are, at least, the following:
GIRL (point over here) BOY (point over here) KICK
GIRL (topic facial expression) KICK BOY
BOY (topic facial expression) GIRL KICK

There are other permutations, depending on aspects of the discourse context.

As we have argued above, morphological affixes in English, or any other
spoken language, do not have one-to-one equivalents in signed languages. In
general, the morphology of signed languages is agglutinating, as well as simul-
taneous. Thus, as shown above in the example, A car goes fast up a very steep
hill with hairpin bends, all these morphemes occur simultaneously in one sign.
Signed languages use differences in the internal movement of the base sign itself
to show morphological inflection. Thus, look for a long time; look intently; look
now and again may each be represented by one sign. These signs have the same
handshape, but differ from one another on the basis of the internal movement of
the sign. Affixes like the English -ing find their equivalent in verb movements
that express continuousness, or other temporal aspects. None of this information
is to be found in the dictionary.
However, a close examination of some of the signs listed in the dictionary
as translations into different varieties for the same English word reveals that
some of these signs differ only in some or other inflectional aspect, and should
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 143

not be considered as different signs, but as different inflections of the same

sign.
Additionally, the dictionary does not take into account that there is more than
one possible sign for a given lexical item, so that although an informant might
provide one sign, this does not mean that s/he does not know or use others
on different occasions or in different contexts. The way that the dictionary is
presented leads to the false impression that there is only one sign that is suitable,
even given a restricted context of use.
It is also the case that signed languages, just like other languages, have
different registers, for formal and less formal occasions, that there are polite
and less polite signs, that there is slang, fast signing, in-group signing, and all
the other variations that languages boast, depending on the context of their use.
The elicitation and presentation of items for the dictionary does not take these
factors into account at all.
Penn and Reagan report that during the elicitation and decision stages of
the dictionary, some of which happened in committee with all the informants,
representatives insisted that their particular sign for an item was the correct one
(Penn and Reagan 1994). The dictionary, being a creature of its time, seemed to
evoke Deaf informants’sense of their ethnic, rather than Deaf, identity. However,
later, as changes started to occur in South Africa, and Deaf people began to mix
across racial and geographical boundaries, many Deaf people noted that their
signs were mutually intelligible.
Interestingly, as well, on completion of the dictionary, a number of the Deaf
informants commented that they understood the entire range of signs, irre-
spective of those they themselves would have used in the particular context of
elicitation.
Not enough research has actually been conducted on the signed language used
in South Africa, to enable one to state either that there is one signed language or
that there are many. The authors of the dictionary argue that there is a syntactic
unity in the different signed languages they examined, but this claim is based on
research using only one sector of the signing community, and is, in any event,
geared towards showing that there are syntactic universals in signed language,
based on the grammatical use of space (Ogilvy-Foreman et al. 1994; Penn
and Reagan 1994). This claim is so general that it does not tell us anything at
all about the structure of signed language in South Africa, other than that it
is a subset of the natural signed languages of the world. Aarons and Morgan
(1998) are investigating variation in different sign-language communities at
the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels, bearing in mind that the
greatest source of variation within a single language is its lexicon. They believe
that if they can show that there is uniformity at the phonological, morphological
and syntactic levels, they are entitled to make the linguistic claim that there is a
single signed language in use in South Africa today.11 Furthermore, this process
144 D. Aarons and P. Akach

of investigation is designed to involve Deaf people being trained to do linguistic

research at all levels, so that the research can feed back into the Deaf community
and be of some use to that community in empowering Deaf people to be the
experts on their own language.12
Thus, although there is a large and official set of documents that declare there
are many different signed languages in South Africa, and despite the fact that
this was a reasonable hypothesis given the separation wrought by apartheid,
it turns out to be based on some faulty understandings of the nature of signed
languages, the role of dictionaries and the part played by other historical forces
in the education and socialisation of Deaf people.
Finally, languages develop and change very fast, particularly when they are
not written down. There is much more movement and fluidity in the Deaf
community than there used to be, and Deaf people from all sectors mix more
with one another, watch others signing on television, engage in Deaf sports
and education meetings, and are much more aware that the method of commu-
nication they use is a language worthy of respect and study. Along with this
natural convergence, another force is coming into play. Deaf people have started
to take pride in their signed language, and are wearing it as a badge of their
identity.

4.2.3 Deaf people’s primary loyalty is to the community, or culture, into

which they were born. They must identify with the culture, and hence
the language used in that particular community (claim 8)
This is a complex issue. Deaf South Africans are also South Africans, and
suffer from all the complicated identity issues with which other South Africans
struggle. Thus, they also have to sort out the issues of race, ethnicity, culture
and language. Most Deaf people use a different language from that of their
parents (except those who were born to Deaf parents). Deaf people in other
countries who see their primary identity as Deaf believe they have a separate
Deaf culture. They say that they have a separate language, and a different way
of doing things and living their lives, and therefore their culture is different
from that of the mainstream hearing culture, although it is lodged within the
mainstream culture of the country.
Many Deaf South Africans are beginning to say that they are Deaf first, and
then they list their other markers of identification. Invariably the next two are
colour and home culture. In our observations (although this is yet to be estab-
lished formally), the majority of black Deaf South Africans say first that they
are Deaf and then black. The most striking claim is from white South Africans
of Afrikaans origin. Many of these people say that they are first Deaf and then
Afrikaans, or even, first Afrikaans and then Deaf, i.e. they identify themselves
along linguistic rather than racial lines.
 South African Sign Language: one language or many? 145

This perception of Afrikaans as their strongest cultural affiliation has several

consequences: it lends a great deal of emotional support to the claim that there
is a separate Afrikaans signed language and that it provides these Deaf people
with further and closer identification with their home mainstream culture. Thus,
despite acknowledging, when pushed, that signed language is not Afrikaans,
they say that they are Afrikaans. This is a cultural identification, not a linguistic
one. It appears to be strongest among white, Afrikaans, Deaf people.
Among the other Deaf people in South Africa, race is usually second on
the list of identities. Black Deaf people see themselves as different from white
Deaf people, and vice versa. It often happens in meetings that these different
communities say they can’t understand one another’s signed language, and then
it is common for people to refer to one another’s languages as ‘black signed lan-
guage’ or ‘white signed language’. When the language samples are examined,
the analyst may be forced to the conclusion that the failure of comprehension is
not related to the language use itself, but to the ways in which the users perceive
one another. It is not difficult to account for why this should be so, but it would
be a mistake to attribute the problems in understanding to differences in the
signed language.

5 CONCLUSION − THE LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS OF

DEAF PEOPLE

As Deaf people in South Africa become more committed to Deaf rights, Deaf
consciousness, Deaf pride, Deaf unity and Deaf power, these language differ-
ences seem to become smaller. Deaf people start to see themselves as bound by a
common language and a common struggle. The debate about how many signed
languages there are in the country becomes a non-question. This divisiveness
serves the needs of communities other than the Deaf and must be recognised
as arising out of important social forces that have a bearing on the social and
political, but not the linguistic, status of the natural language of the Deaf people
in South Africa. The real issue is how the rights of Deaf people as a linguis-
tic minority can be achieved, including the right to have signed language as a
medium of instruction in schools for the Deaf, state funding for the training of
skilled signed-language interpreters and signed-language teacher trainers, and
the provision of interpreters and services to ensure equal access for Deaf people
to the life of the community.

notes
1 In accordance with convention in the field of Deaf Studies, we use upper-case D (Deaf )
when we refer to people who identify with the Deaf community and who use signed
language, and lower case d (deaf ) to refer merely to the audiological condition.
2 See, for further argument and discussion, Aarons (1996).
146 D. Aarons and P. Akach

3 For an interesting and full discussion of, for example, American Deaf culture, see
Padden and Humphries (1990).
4 Note that this was before South Africa existed as a single national state, some forty-
seven years before Union.
5 We use apartheid terminology in order to show the distinctions that were maintained.
6 This was the apartheid policy of separate development, in which the idea was to
separate white South from black South Africans, and then further divide black South
Africans into a number of ethnic groups, each with its own ‘homeland’. Black people
were then considered ‘citizens’ of their designated homeland, and not South Africans.
7 For a discussion of convergence, see Thomason and Kaufmann (1988), and for a
discussion of the convergence of signed language varieties see Okombo and Akach
(1997).
8 See, for example, Lanham 1996.
9 ‘An investigation into the linguistic structure of the signed language/s used in South
Africa’. CSD Grant number 15/1/3/16/0125 to Debra Aarons and Ruth Morgan.
10 See, for example, Nyamende (1994).
11 To establish this uniformity, in conjunction with the well-documented ubiquitous
process by which classifier morphemes are used in signed languages of the world,
it would seem to be sufficient to make the claim that the same language is being
investigated, irrespective of lexical variation.
12 See Aarons (1994, 1996).

bibliography
Aarons, D. 1994. ‘Aspects of the Syntax of American Sign Language’. Ph.D. dissertation,
Boston University.
1996. ‘Signed languages and professional responsibility’. In Stellenbosch Papers in
Linguistics, 30: 285–311.
Aarons, D. and R. Morgan 1998. ‘The Structure of South African Sign Language after
Apartheid’. Paper presented at the Sixth International Conference on Theoreti-
cal Issues in Sign Language Research, Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.,
November 1998.
Constitutional Assembly of the Republic of South Africa. 1996. Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa.
Heap, M. (in progress) ‘An anthropological perspective of the Deaf people in Cape
Town’. University of Stellenbosch, Department of Anthropology.
Lanham, L. W. 1996. ‘A history of English in South Africa’. In V. De Klerk (ed.), Focus
on South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 18–34.
Nieder-Heitmann, N. 1980. Talking to the Deaf. South African Department of Education
and Training and the South African National Council for the Deaf.
Nyamende, A. 1994. ‘Regional variation in Xhosa’. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics
PLUS, 26: 202–17.
Ogilvy-Foreman, D., C. Penn and T. Reagan 1994. ‘Selected syntactic features of
South African Sign Language: a preliminary analysis’. South African Journal of
Linguistics, 12, 4: 118–23.
Okombo, O. and P. Akach 1997. ‘Language convergence and wave phenomena in
the growth of a national Sign Language in Kenya’. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, 125: 131–44.
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Padden, C. and T. Humphries 1990. Voices from a Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Penn, C. 1992a. Dictionary of Southern African Signs, 5 vols. Pretoria: Human Sciences
Research Council.
1992b. ‘The sociolinguistics of South African Sign Language’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.),
Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press,
pp. 277–84.
Penn, C. and T. Reagan 1994. ‘The properties of South African Sign Language: lexical
diversity and syntactic unity’. Sign Language Studies, 84: 319–28.
Thomason, S. and T. Kaufmann 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic
Linguistics. Berkeley and London: University of California Press.
7 German speakers in South Africa

Elizabeth de Kadt

1 DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL HISTORY

German settlers featured prominently in white South Africa from the start of
the settlement at the Cape: it is estimated that at the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury more than half of the white population of the Cape was of German descent.
However, until well into the nineteenth century German-speaking colonists were
speedily assimilated: it was almost exclusively men who came out to the Cape,
and they soon intermarried with Afrikaans-Dutch speakers and were also lin-
guistically assimilated (Steyn 1980: 113). It was only from the mid-nineteenth
century onwards that this willingness to integrate with the other settlers began to
disappear. During the second half of the nineteenth century there was a contin-
ual influx of German speakers as missionaries and settlers into Natal, the eastern
Cape and the south-western Transvaal, and these groups, especially in the rural
areas, formed small German-speaking communities centred around a church
and a school. From a linguistic point of view these immigrants were unusual
in that, in spite of their status as a tiny minority within the white minority in
South Africa, they succeeded in maintaining their language over a number of
generations. Although the last fifty years has seen many of the original com-
munities finally become assimilated, a number still remain, in particular in
KwaZulu-Natal. In this chapter I will therefore attempt to describe aspects of
the present-day distribution and usage of German, especially in KwaZulu-Natal,
and to consider prospects for the future maintenance of the language.
Census figures give an indication of the number of German speakers in South
Africa: in 1970, 49,000 respondents throughout South Africa indicated that they
spoke German at home, whereas in 1980 this had decreased to 41,000. With
regard to citizenship, the 1980 census listed 23,000 citizens of West Germany,
2,000 of East Germany, close to 3,000 of Austria, a total of 28,000 who would
have been included in the 41,000 German speakers listed above; and 4,500
Swiss citizens, who may or may not speak German. These figures indicate
not many more than 10,000 who have been in the country long enough to
have relinquished their German citizenship. In 1980 close to 75 per cent of the
German speakers lived in the major urban areas of the country, with half being

148
 German speakers in South Africa 149

7.1 South Africa, showing places cited in chapter 7

situated in the urban Transvaal, and substantial numbers (7,500) in the urban
Cape. KwaZulu-Natal has relatively small numbers of German speakers: the
1980 figures put the German speakers in the Durban–Pinetown–Inanda area at
somewhat under 2,000. To these, however, must be added possibly twice as
many rural German speakers in KwaZulu-Natal; the census does not provide
details as to these.
The above already gives some indication of the two main groups of German
speakers in KwaZulu-Natal, the urban and the rural. In the rural areas small
communities are scattered throughout KwaZulu-Natal, but especially in north-
ern KwaZulu-Natal and the midlands. The smallest of these (e.g. Harburg,
Hermannsburg (275)1 in the midlands, Braunschweig (219) and Luneburg (316)
in northern KwaZulu-Natal) consist of little more than a church, school, post
office and shop, which serve the surrounding farming communities. Among
the white population these tend to have a majority of German speakers. How-
ever, the larger the settlement the lower the proportion of German speakers
150 E. de Kadt

until, in Dundee (427) and Vryheid (420), for example, it is less than 5 per
cent of whites. This, however, has so far been sufficient to sustain a church and
school. Typically, these German speakers are descendants of the settlers and
missionaries who came to South Africa during the second half of the nineteenth
century.
In the urban areas, on the other hand, German speakers are more scattered,
although here too they tend to be more concentrated in certain (often wealthier)
suburbs (in Durban and surroundings, for example, in the suburbs of Westville,
Kloof, New Germany and Gillitts). Again, these may be descendants of the older
settler families, but they also include a considerable number of more recent
immigrants (pre- and post-Second World War). To generalise again, the ma-
jority of urban German speakers in South Africa tend to be professionals in
technical and managerial fields. In the major urban centres there are generally
German-medium churches and schools available, but considerable numbers
choose English- or Afrikaans-medium facilities.
KwaZulu-Natal German speakers, with the exception of very recent immi-
grants, are typically multilingual: they speak German, English and/or Afrikaans
and, in rural areas, Zulu. On the whole German tends to be used in very restricted
domains: family, church and, to a certain extent, school. Even in the relatively
homogeneous rural communities family life is open to the influence of the media
(newspapers, magazines, radio and television), but here social life is mainly
based on German. In urban areas, in spite of the existence of German clubs,
social life is more open to English and Afrikaans (wider circles of friends, cine-
mas, etc.); however, here there exist some possibilities for the use of German
in a professional capacity, in industry, import–export businesses, shipyards,
travel agencies, etc. One informant spoke of relatively large numbers of German
speakers in middle management in Durban, but no hard data is available on this.
The present trend both in urban and rural communities is increasingly towards
language shift; there is an awareness among German speakers that the next two
generations may well see an irrevocable decrease in numbers. The clearest
indication lies in the rapidly increasing number of so-called Mischehen, ‘mixed
marriages’, meaning marriages between German and English or Afrikaans
speakers, which nowadays, as opposed to twenty years ago, tend to result in the
children speaking English or Afrikaans as L1. This has had important conse-
quences for schools and churches, which have previously played a crucial role
in maintaining German.

2 SCHOOL AND CHURCH EDUCATION

The schools that had been founded by the early settlers were, in the course of
time, integrated into the Natal Education Department (NED) schooling system
as so-called German primary schools. This means that they have departmental
 German speakers in South Africa 151

permission to teach the first four years through the medium of German; in
Grades 5–7 English or Afrikaans is used as a medium, and German is taught as
a subject. The number of such schools has eroded to a certain extent over the last
thirty years: at present there are KZNED primary schools in Luneburg, Uelzen,
Wartburg, Izotsha, Harburg and Moorleigh; state-aided schools in Vryheid and
New Hanover; and private primary schools in Durban and Hermannsburg. Two
‘German’ high schools exist, Wartburg-Kirchdorf, a government school (which,
however, only offers German as a higher-grade subject), and, most importantly,
the private high school at Hermannsburg, which includes a hostel. The much
lower numbers of urban German speakers in KwaZulu-Natal mean that Durban
cannot support a combined primary and high school (the Durban primary school
for example has only approximately eighty pupils), as opposed to the ‘German’
schools in Johannesburg with one thousand one hundred pupils, Pretoria with
approximately seven hundred and Cape Town with over four hundred. Hence
the children from ‘German’ primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal continue their
schooling either at Hermannsburg or at the local high schools, where they
form a tiny minority and are only catered for by the subject ‘German as a
foreign language’. For native speakers of German, this is probably worse than
useless. The Hermannsburg school, on the other hand, uses English as medium
after the first four years and leads to the KZNED matric; but it also offers the
subject ‘German as a mother tongue’ through the Independent Examinations
Board (formerly the Joint Matriculation Board). This should be compared to
the ‘German’ schools in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, which use
German as a medium to a much greater extent. They offer a local matric and
hence switch to English as a medium in part in Standard 6 and completely
in Standard 8, but it is then possible to continue with a thirteenth school year
taught completely in German, leading to the German Abitur.
Most of the rural ‘German’ primary schools are now threatened with closure
due to low numbers; they have been able to justify their continued existence
only by opening to (white) non-German speakers. For example, in Uelzen (near
Dundee), half the pupils (forty out of eighty) are now English speaking; even
in the very homogeneous area around Luneburg, ten out of seventy children are
Afrikaans speaking. It is only the state-aided Michaelisschule in Vryheid that
has so far been able to remain closed to non-German speakers; in 1989 there
were sixty-five pupils.
The private schools, on the other hand, while also faced with similar prob-
lems, show a somewhat different pattern: they too have introduced a stream
of ‘German as a foreign language’, but this is at least in part to accommodate
black pupils. This is a new development over the past few years, and is to a
certain extent the result of pressure applied by the official funding sources in
Germany. In Cape Town, for example, 120 out of just over 400 children are
now non-German speakers; in Johannesburg, the figure is approximately 100
152 E. de Kadt

out of 1,100. The Hermannsburg primary school remains solely German, but
forty non-German pupils have now been admitted into the high school, where
their curriculum includes ‘German as a foreign language’.
Let us now consider the changes taking place in the churches. Most of the
German-speaking churches originated in connection with the Lutheran mis-
sion in KwaZulu-Natal. Today there are a number of different branches of
Lutheranism in KwaZulu-Natal, some of which cater largely or solely for non-
white communities and no longer use German. German-speaking parishes still
exist in the following centres: Izotsha, Durban (Renshaw Road with a second
church in Hillcrest, Westville and New Germany), Pietermaritzburg, Wartburg,
Harburg, New Hanover, Hermannsburg, Moorleigh, Winterton, Elandskraal,
Dundee, Vryheid and Braunschweig. These are all small parishes: for example
in Durban all three parishes together have only 650 members. Increasing in-
termarriage with mainly English or Afrikaans speakers has led most of these
parishes to cater for non-German speakers too. Hence the last ten years or so
has seen the introduction of church services in English, at first once a month,
now generally more frequently; Uelzen (near Dundee) has both a German and
an English service each Sunday. It is only a few parishes in northern KwaZulu-
Natal, e.g. Luneburg and Braunschweig, that even today offer solely German
services, as ‘mixed marriages’ are still the exception in these communities. In
the larger urban areas, on the other hand, services in English also enable parishes
to minister to those non-white members for whom new Lutheran parishes have
not been established; some of these parishes lay great stress on non-racialism.
Of the Durban parishes, New Germany has an English service each week, the
Hillcrest church every second week, Renshaw Road every fourth week and then
together with its English-language sister parish of the Union Lutheran Church.
It is clear that policies of non-racialism will have linguistic effects. For example,
the lingua franca at the small Lutheran residence that accommodates students
training as Lutheran priests in the department of theology at the University of
Natal in Pietermaritzburg has changed during the past few years from German
to English. This is due to the fact that black Lutherans are now also being
admitted.
The tendencies discussed above also hold for the other provinces, with
the difference that German in the rural areas has been eroded to a much
greater extent. The German influence in the Free State was limited from the
start; today small groups totalling perhaps 250 in all are to be found in the
area from Kimberley and Kroonstad to Bethlehem, including Bloemfontein,
which has a German-Afrikaans parish and a German club. In Gauteng only
three ‘German’ primary schools remain: Kroondal, Wittenberg, Gerdau, with
Kroondal (fifty-five to sixty pupils, plus twenty in the pre-primary phase) being
the largest school; in the Eastern Cape schools have been closed and parishes
still exist only in the urban centres, such as Port Elizabeth and East London.
 German speakers in South Africa 153

German church services have either been discontinued, as in Stutterheim in

1980, or are now held in conjunction with services in English or Afrikaans.

3 LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE

From the start the German-speaking settlers made no attempts to integrate

with other settler communities: on the contrary, each ‘German’ community, by
creating its own school and church, expressed very clearly the determination to
distance itself from other settlers and to remain ‘German’. Even today there is a
clear sense of pride in their ‘Germanness’ and ‘otherness’, although informants
hasten to stress that they are, of course, South Africans.
What does this ‘Germanness’ then stand for? In the main for values that go
back to the time of the original settlements in the second half of the nineteenth
century and which were further supported by differences between the typical
English and German settlers of the time. The English settlers in Natal of that
period tended to be much more ‘gentleman farmers’, whereas the German
settlers were, on the whole, of North German peasant and handworker stock.
They saw themselves as conscientious, diligent, honest, frugal and rooted in the
soil, they took pride in their achievements and they strove to inculcate in their
children the same system of values. This ideology found expression in the
typical outward forms of such a German community: the absolute dominance
of the church, the importance of home and family, the role of music (home
music-making, folk-songs, trumpet groups etc.), a German style of cooking
and food preparation, a series of seasonal get-togethers linked to the church and
the school, the expectation that a ‘German mother’ will be at home with her
children and not out working. The present rural communities are still organised
much on this basis.
Language retention in these communities, therefore, was and is not seen as an
end in itself. At issue is rather the survival of the community, with all that it rep-
resents. This has recently been documented through a study of the community
of Wartburg, near Pietermaritzburg (de Kadt 2000), which attempted to over-
come the anecdotal tendency of much previous research by basing the analysis
on theories of ethnicity. Language is shown to be one of four main factors that
have contributed to the survival of the ethnic group, the others being religion,
cultural mores and the system of values, as detailed above. The determination
to retain the German language emerges from the awareness that language, the
Lutheran faith, culture and values are all inextricably linked. Should any one
of these be undermined, the ethnic group as a whole will be threatened.
The final explanation for the retention of German, therefore, lies in the reasons
behind the determination of the group to survive as a group. In this regard
two recent publications offer further insights. Pakendorf’s discussion of the
ethos behind the German mission tradition to South Africa has highlighted
154 E. de Kadt

the central role of the petty bourgeoise worldview which has been perpetuated
in the ethos of these communities, and furthermore of an ethnicity based on
German Romanticism (Pakendorf 1997). Forsythe has investigated mainland
perceptions of the term ‘German’ in the late twentieth century and has shown
how racial, genetic and linguistic elements are intertwined in the central concept
of Deutschstämmigkeit, ‘being of German stock’ (Forsythe 1989). It is self-
perceptions such as these that would seem to underlie the determination to
maintain the German language.
One of the most far-reaching mechanisms of language retention was the
establishment of ‘own’ schools and churches, which was always one of the
priorities of a new German-speaking settler community. For these some financial
support may have been forthcoming from missionary societies in Germany, but
on the whole the settlers were willing to bear the expenses themselves, in spite
of the often enormous struggle to establish themselves in the new country.
It was of considerable significance for language-maintenance efforts that the
‘German’ schools were allowed to retain something of their own identity when
finally taken over by the Natal Education Department in 1925 and funded by
state resources. While in part due to the number of well-functioning schools
in existence, it is also a reflection of the economic and social power of the
German community in KwaZulu-Natal.2 Clearly, state resources available to
such initiatives are likely to dwindle in the future: the maintenance of German
then becomes a matter of the resources its speakers can muster, either from
inside the community or from abroad.
The German-speaking communities have from the start been willing to con-
tribute substantially to the maintenance of churches and schools, and the com-
munities appear to be aware that state funding can no longer be relied on.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the three primary schools which at present receive little
or no state funding survive on the basis of trust funds and extensive fund-
raising. (It is unclear to what extent German firms in South Africa contribute.)
In Vryheid, private fund-raising recently enabled the building of a boarding
establishment solely for German-speaking children at Vryheid’s primary and
secondary schools: this is intended to cater for the whole of northern KwaZulu-
Natal and Gauteng. In northern KwaZulu-Natal in particular, German speakers
seem aware of the financial implications of maintaining schools, and they seem
willing to make substantial sacrifices to achieve this aim.
German cultural foreign policy has over the last decade stressed the necessity
of promoting the German language abroad, in view of the world-wide decrease
of interest in the language. In this context South Africa receives substantial
financial aid which is directed primarily at the four main German schools in
the country: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Hermannsburg; indeed,
these four schools have a top rating among the German schools supported
world-wide. The aid given takes the form of funding forty-one teachers sent out
 German speakers in South Africa 155

from Germany, and a subsidy for each pupil, which, in 1990 with 2,465 pupils,
amounted to a total of approximately R4 million. Some contributions are also
made for essential building projects, textbooks and so on. A co-ordinating
subject adviser oversees the whole aid programme. There are also an exchange
programme and scholarships for pupils and teachers, which in 1990 amounted
to close to R300,000. The four schools concerned would clearly be hard put to
continue, were this aid from Germany withdrawn.

4 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH AFRICAN GERMAN

The German-speaking communities have maintained German – but as with any

language, the new geographical location, implying the cutting of links with
the source language and a new proximity to other languages, has led to South
African German (SAG) (Springbo(c)kdeutsch) developing its own character-
istics. It is of interest that present-day pronunciation tends to approximate to
colloquial High German, although most of the immigrants originally spoke Low
German dialects, and it is unlikely that as peasants and labourers they would
have had command of Standard High German (HG) as well. Stielau speaks
of a ‘conscious attempt to introduce the High German language of writing as
opposed to Low German dialect’ (1980: 237), largely through the influence of
the church ministers and the schools, and this has had a marked effect on pro-
nunciation. Many of Stielau’s informants were no longer aware of the specific
area from which their ancestors had emigrated (1980: 10). One Low German
feature that has been retained is the frequent pronunciation of the High German
[ʃt] and [ʃp] as [st] and [sp] (as in stehen, ‘to stand’, and spielen, ‘to play’),
which is clearly supported by the pronunciation of these consonant combina-
tions in English and Afrikaans. It is, however, the lexicon that most noticeably
characterises SAG, although morphology, especially case structure, and syntax
also contribute. Some of the individual characteristics may be unique to South
Africa, because of the Afrikaans and (minimal) Zulu influence. The general
trends, especially in those communities that are particularly under threat, are
typical of any obsolescing language and can be reduplicated from German-
speaking communities in the United States and Canada. A considerable amount
of data has been collected by Stielau (1980) and von Delft (1984); Grüner (1979)
has undertaken a study of customs and school-teaching with reference to lan-
guage in the Kroondal community; but there has been little attempt to examine
actual patterns of (multilingual) usage. SAG has been investigated primarily as
deviating from the norm of mainland German.3
The following examples (drawn from Stielau 1980) will indicate typical
changes. As to be expected, the influence of English and Afrikaans on the lex-
icon has been immense. Of the enormous number of nouns that have been
adopted into SAG, very many are used in an unassimilated form: ‘cool drink’,
156 E. de Kadt

‘jam’, ‘lift’, etc. A considerable number, however, have been integrated: ‘fence’
as Fenz; ‘krans’ as Kranz; ‘hooter’ as Huter, etc. New words have been formed
according to English and Afrikaans patterns: Armstuhl, ‘armchair’; Dornbaum,
‘thorn tree’; Fruchtkuchen, ‘fruit cake’; Grosskinder, ‘grandchildren’; Kohl-
mine, ‘coal mine’; Seekuh, ‘hippopotamus’ (from Afrikaans seekoei); Werkwort,
‘verb’ (from Afrikaans werkwoord ).
More subtly, the meanings of a number of already existing German words
have changed: for example, Hochschule from ‘university’ to ‘high school’.
Garage has come to include the English ‘garage’ which sells petrol and repairs
cars (HG Autowerkstatt). Erbe, HG ‘inheritance’, has gained the meaning of
Afrikaans erf, ‘plot of land’.
The few borrowed nouns of Zulu origin are, on the whole, words that have
also been adopted into South African English, such as donga, ‘dry, eroded
water-course’; masi, ‘thick soured milk’; muti, ‘(African) medicine’. Borrowed
adjectives are, as to be expected, fewer in number: busy (as in Ich bin busy, ‘I am
busy’); mal, ‘crazy’; pap, ‘exhausted, soft, deflated’; and sorry, ‘sorry’ (very
frequent). Borrowed verbs have generally been integrated: abswitchen, ‘switch
off’; booken, ‘book’; huten, ‘hoot’; kloppen, ‘do better than, beat’ (e.g. Karl hat
mich (im Test) gekloppt, ‘Karl has beaten me in the test’); posten, ‘post’; swotten,
‘swot’. There have been some substantial changes in meaning: (ver)missen, HG
‘miss a person’, now also used in the sense of ‘miss a bus’; ringen, HG ‘wrestle’,
now ‘to ring a doorbell’.
Morphology and syntax show changes in a number of central features of
German grammar: the marking for gender of non-personal nouns; the obligatory
link between preposition and specific case; the governing of cases by verbs.
Indeed, there seems to be a considerable amount of uncertainty as to the need
for case in the language, which might well reflect the influence of English and
Afrikaans, neither of which is structured by case to the same extent. In the
following, some of the more frequent changes are listed. Personal pronouns
(third person) are frequently used in the dative case, in the place of direct
objects (examples 1–3 below), or with prepositions that standardly govern the
accusative (examples 4 and 5 below).
(1) Ich hoffe, sie wird ihm heiraten. (HG ihn) ‘I hope she will marry him.’
(2) Die Katze beisst ihr. (HG sie) ‘The cat bites her.’
(3) Frag ihr doch! (HG sie) ‘Do ask her!’
(4) . . . meinen Dank an Ihnen richten (HG Sie) ‘to express my gratitude to you’
(5) Er hat es für ihr getan. (HG sie) ‘He did it for her.’
This contradicts the increasing spread of the accusative in High German, at the
cost of the dative and the genitive. Stielau (1980: 218–19; see also Russ 1990:
17, 47) notes the lack of differentiation between dative and accusative of these
pronouns both in certain North German dialects and in English and Afrikaans.
 German speakers in South Africa 157

In the latter two languages the form of the third-person pronoun in the object
position – hom, ‘him’ and haar, ‘her’ – is closer to the German dative ihm and
ihr than to the accusative ihn and sie.
On the other hand, there is frequent use of the accusative instead of the dative
with prepositions that govern the dative or dative/accusative (examples 6–8
below), and with many verbs that govern the dative (examples 9–12 below).
This change seems to be particularly common with feminine nouns requiring
the article die, which may suggest Afrikaans influence.
(6) bei die Kirche (HG der) ‘at the church’
(7) mit viele Firmen (HG vielen) ‘with a lot of firms’
(8) Er war auf die Stelle tot. (HG der) ‘He was dead immediately.’
(9) Ich werde es Sie erklären. (HG Ihnen) ‘I will explain it to you.’
(10) Ich gratuliere dich! (HG dir) ‘I congratulate you!’
(11) Sie hilft die Studenten. (HG den) ‘She helps the students.’
(12) Ich werde dich nicht sagen. (HG dir) ‘I will not say (it) to you’
Similarly, these intransitive verbs are used to form a non-standard personal
passive, as opposed to the HG impersonal passive:
(13) Wir werden nie gesagt, wann . . . (HG Uns wird nie gesagt . . . ) ‘We are
never told when . . .’
(14) Sie werden geholfen . . . (HG Ihnen wird geholfen) ‘They are helped . . .’
(15) Er wurde erzählt . . . (HG Ihm wurde erzählt) ‘He was told . . .’
Also very frequent is a structure replacing the genitive case which has a close
parallel in Afrikaans – but also in some Low German dialects (Russ 1990: 13
for Frisian, 1990: 43 for North Saxon):
(16) in Kaiser seinem Drama (HG in Kaisers Drama) ‘in Kaiser’s play’; com-
pare Afr., in Kaiser se drama.
(17) Die Mutter ihre zweite schwere Sünde (HG Die zweite schwere Sünde der
Mutter) ‘The mother’s second great sin’; compare Afr., Die moeder se
tweede groot skuld.
It will have become clear that the Low German dialects originally spoken by
the settlers continue to exercise a perhaps somewhat unperceived influence,
in spite of the shift in articulation to High German. This influence has been
facilitated and doubtless reinforced by the new linguistic context, dominated as
it is by two other closely related Germanic languages. A detailed investigation
and comparison with Low German dialects would be of great interest. However,
the impression created by SAG is rather one of attrition and uncertainty than
of an emerging new linguistic system, and this can surely be ascribed in the
main to the often overwhelming influence of English and Afrikaans. In this
regard much research remains to be done, especially into the phonology and
158 E. de Kadt

morphology of SAG – research that is gaining in urgency, as these communities

increasingly appear under threat.

5 FUTURE PROSPECTS

What are the prospects for the future of German in KwaZulu-Natal (see also
de Kadt 1998a)? In the urban areas, assimilation seems likely fairly soon. Here
the community backing essential to the maintenance of the language is largely
lacking. Links with the church tend to be more tenuous, and intermarriage
with the wider community is very frequent. There are substantial numbers of
post-Second World War immigrants, who, in the aftermath of Nazism, have
been less eager to cling to their German identity, and who similarly have found
it difficult to identify with the earlier settlers who have had no direct experi-
ence of developments in Germany in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The present generation of young German-speaking adults is therefore challeng-
ing the rigid value system and conservative upbringing associated with local
German to a far greater extent than before, and seems to be more accepting
of the prospect of language shift. Within the rural communities too it seems
likely that, in spite of determined resistance, assimilation will take place in
the not-too-distant future. The previous success in language maintenance has
been largely a function of the economic isolation of these communities. First,
isolation forced the settlements to be economically self-sufficient, and placed
no limits on economic growth, which meant that they could expand to include
the following generations. Second, the only challenge to the German culture
was that of Zulu culture, which was not in a dominant position. Third, this fur-
ther underpinned the dominance of the church: the pastor, as the only educated
person in the community, was regarded as the source not only of learning (and
correct German) but also of moral principles.
Although the present rural German speakers still take considerable pride in
being ‘different’, economic necessity is forcing changes on these communi-
ties. Economic self-sufficiency and further expansion are no longer possible,
with the result that the traditional way of life is increasingly being challenged:
although many of the sons stay on the land and ‘uphold the tradition of their
fathers’, increasingly the daughters are training for professions, marrying out of
the community and moving to the towns. Such contact with the urban areas
and their dominant culture(s) inevitably poses a challenge to rural German
culture. This, in turn, cannot fail to affect the position of the church, which,
although still powerful, is perhaps beginning to adopt something more of a
social role than a purely religious one. Such changes are clearly reflected in the
Vryheid community, for example, where the (traditionalist) decision to build a
German hostel was by no means a unanimous one. Some community members
argued that German speakers should not be shutting themselves off from other
 German speakers in South Africa 159

South Africans in this way, lest the children find it difficult to adjust to their
larger community in adult life. One cannot escape the conclusion that even the
most determined proponents of German maintenance are swimming against the
tide and it is doubtful whether they will be able to hold out in the face of the
wide-ranging structural changes now facing our country. In short: the further
maintenance of German is directly linked to the degree of closure in the com-
munity; and it is the more progressive groupings that are most likely to lose
German first.

notes
I would like to thank representatives of the German-speaking communities who have
provided me with information, the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Pretoria, and especially Prof. J. Fedderke of the department of economics, University
of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, and Mrs. G. Strauss of Durban.
1 Figures in brackets denote the number of parish members in these communities.
2 The perceived significance of these settlers is indicated by a recent publication, a
special issue of Lantern, a journal under the patronage of the Directorate of Cultural
Affairs of the Department of National Education. In the context of the German Festival
Year 1992, commemorating the German settlers, the issue is devoted to the ‘German
contribution to the development of South Africa’, and includes a message from the
state president. Details as to many of the individual settlers and communities can be
found in this volume.
3 There has also been considerable research undertaken on German in Namibia: while
Schlengemann (1928–9), Nöckler (1963) and Gretschel (1984) concentrate on vocab-
ulary, Kleinz (1981) investigates the various functions of the three Germanic languages
in what was then South West Africa.

bibliography
de Kadt, E. 1998a. ‘Die deutsche Muttersprache in Südafrika – gegenwärtiger Bestand
und Zukunftsperspektiven’. Muttersprache, 108, 1: 1–14.
2000. ‘“In with heart and soul”: the German-speakers of Wartburg’. International
Journal of the Sociology of Language, 144: 69–93.
Forsythe, D. 1989. ‘German identity and the problems of history’. In E. Tonkin,
M. McDonald and M. Chapman (eds.), History and Ethnicity. London and
New York: Routledge, pp. 137–56.
Gretschel, H.-V. 1984. ‘Südwester Deutsch – eine kritische Bilanz’. Logos, 4, 2: 38–44.
Grüner, R. 1979. ‘Brauchtum und Schulunterricht in deutschen Siedlungen mit
besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verhältnisse in Kroondal bei Rustenburg’. In
L. Auburger and H. Kloss (eds.), Deutsche Sprachkontakte im Übersee. Tübingen:
Günter Narr, pp. 15–40.
Kleinz, N. 1981. Die drei germanischen Sprachen Südwestafrikas – Politische und sozi-
ologische Gesichtspunkte ihrer Lage und Entwicklung. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
Lantern 1992. Special issue: The German Contribution to the Development of
South Africa. February 1992. Pretoria: Foundation for Education, Science and
Technology.
160 E. de Kadt

Nöckler, H. C. 1963. Sprachmischung in Südwestafrika. Munich: Hueber.

Pakendorf, G. 1997. ‘ “For there is no power but of God ”: The Berlin mission and the
challenges of colonial South Africa’. Missionalia, 25, 3: 255–73.
Russ, C. V. J. 1990. The Dialects of Modern German. London: Routledge.
Schlengemann, E. A. 1928–9. ‘Voorlopige aantekeninge oor taalvermenging in
Suid-wes-Afrika’. Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für
Südwestafrika, 4: 57–64.
Steyn, J. C. 1980. Tuiste in eie Taal. Cape Town: Tafelberg.
Stielau, H. 1980. Nataler Deutsch. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner.
von Delft, K. 1984. ‘Springbo(c)kdeutsch. Methodisch-didaktische Überlegungen zur
Afrikaans-Deutschen Interferenz’. Deutschunterricht in Südafrika, 15, 2: 1–22.
8 Language change, survival, decline: Indian
languages in South Africa

R. Mesthrie

1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Indian languages have existed in large numbers in South Africa, chiefly in the
province of Natal, since 1860. Their existence in this country is ultimately a con-
sequence of the abolition of slavery in the European colonies. Colonial planters
in many parts of the world looked to migrant labour from Asian countries to
fill the gap caused by the understandable reluctance of slaves to remain on
the plantations once they were legally free. The British-administered Indian
government permitted the recruiting of labourers to a variety of colonial terri-
tories. This resulted in a great movement of hundreds of thousands of Indian
labourers, first to Mauritius (1834), then British Guyana (1838), Jamaica and
Trinidad (1844), and subsequently to various other West Indian islands, Natal,
Suriname and Fiji. Although Natal was a new colony that had not employed
slave labour, the policy of consigning the indigenous, mainly Zulu-speaking
population to ‘reserves’ created a demand for Indian labour on the sugar, tea
and coffee plantations (see further Bhana and Brain 1990: 23–4). Just over
150,000 workers came to Natal on indentured contracts between 1860 and
1911. A large majority chose to stay on in South Africa on expiry of their
five- or ten-year contracts.
The languages spoken by the indentured workers were as follows:

(1) From the south of India chiefly Tamil and Telugu and, in small numbers,
Malayalam and Kannada. The latter two languages did not have sufficiently
large numbers of speakers to survive beyond a generation in South Africa.
(2) From the north of India a variety of Indo-European languages including
Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Magahi, Kanauji, Bengali, Rajasthani, Braj, etc. These
are related in varying degrees to Hindi, the main official language of India
since independence in 1947. These dialects coalesced to form one South
African vernacular, usually termed ‘Hindi’.
(3) A small number of Muslims among the indentured labourers (about 10 per
cent among North Indians and slightly fewer among South Indians) would
have spoken the village language of their area as well as varieties of Urdu.

161
162 R. Mesthrie

Burushaski

KASHMIRI

Do
gr
TO

i
SH

Pa
Majhi
PU

ha
ri
PANJABI
Hi
nd
us Lepcha
Brahui tan E
i Aka ES
BALUCHI ari Bhota Dafia M
Naw A

WE
R

Awadhi Nepali SS
A
A

H r a j Naga

STE

E AS
J A

Maithili

(BHO
i Garo Khasi

BIH PURI)
ar

RN
SINDHI

TE R
arw H I N D I
S

ARI
M

J
Meithei

HIN
T H

ra

NH
pa
BENGALI Ti
DI

IN
A N

Ku Mundari

DI
ru
ki
GUJARATI
I

Korku
Santali
ili
Bh

ORIYA
Kolami Parji Kui
Gondi
MARATHI

Ko
ya

TELUGU
KO

KANNADA
NK
AN
I

Tu
lu

Kodagu
MA

TAMIL
LAY
ALA

The languages and dialects of India

M

1. Language Families and Branches

SINHALA

Indo-European Family

Tibeto-Burmese Family

Dravidian Family

Munda Family

2. Languages
Languages are shown thus: H I N D I

3. Dialects
Dialect groups are shown thus: WESTERN HINDI (at a slant)
Literary dialects are shown thus: A w a d h i

(Based on Kachru: 1983)

8.1 The languages and dialects of India

From 1875 onwards smaller numbers of Indians of trading background arrived in

Natal, establishing languages such as Gujarati, Konkani (originally a variety of
Marathi) and Meman (a variety of Sindhi), which are still spoken today in South
Africa. In addition to these spoken languages people of Hindu background used
Sanskrit as their prestige religious language, while Muslims looked to Arabic
for this purpose.
 Indian languages in South Africa 163

The sociolinguistic milieu in which Indians found themselves was a partic-

ularly complex one. Not only did they lack a knowledge of English and Zulu,
they would even not always have been able to converse among themselves. In
particular people from the north, speaking Indo-European languages, would not
have been able to understand people from the south who spoke Dravidian lan-
guages. Gujarati-speaking merchants would have been able to speak to North
Indians using a simplified of Hindi known as ‘Bombay Bazaar Hindustani’,
but they would not have been able to converse with speakers of Dravidian
languages. The linguistic and social alienation among first-generation migrants
is well illustrated by Prabhakaran (1991: 74), who cites the case of a Telugu
woman assigned to an estate where ‘the lady is continuously crying and speaks
a language [Telugu] and neither she can understand the rest of the labourers in
the mills nor they her. The other coolies won’t have anything to do with her.
She cannot or won’t work and she does not earn her ration’ (letter to Protector
of Indian Immigrants, 9 November 1903).
In such a situation we would expect a pidgin language (i.e. a rudimentary
contact language) to thrive. Indeed Cole (1953) suggested that Fanakalo (see
Adendorff, chap. 9, this volume) must have originated among indentured work-
ers trying to converse with Zulus and English people. Although this is an
attractive and plausible theory it appears that the first use of Fanakalo predates
1860 (Mesthrie 1989). If Indians were not the initiators of the pidgin, they
nevertheless found it an important means of communication, and were prob-
ably responsible for its stabilisation. A letter written on behalf of an inden-
tured worker to the Protector of Indian Immigrants in 1903, complaining about
being whipped by his employer, gives a clear indication of the varied uses of
Fanakalo:

The Calcutta man told me 1/- would be deducted from my wages for the sheet being
torn – and I said ‘Sooga wina manga’ [=‘Get away, you’re lying’] and went away to my
work – this was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
I did not use the words ‘Sooga wina manga’ to the mistress, but she mistook me, and
she gave me ten cuts with a riding whip.

Two uses of the pidgin can be inferred from this. First, the plaintiff (a South
Indian) claimed to have used Fanakalo in communicating with a man from
Calcutta (i.e. a North Indian); second, the English mistress must have been
accustomed to being addressed in Fanakalo since she took the sentence to be
aimed directly at her.
However, Fanakalo was not the only lingua franca in use. In the plantation
barracks some bilingualism developed between Hindi/Bhojpuri and Tamil
speakers. We would expect this to have been more common among second-
generation Indian South Africans. Mahatma Gandhi (who played a central role
in South African Indian politics between 1893 and 1913) argued that ‘almost all
164 R. Mesthrie

Tamils and Telugus in South Africa can carry on an intelligent conversation in

Hindi’ (Young India, 16 June 1920). Some plantation bosses and missionaries
had a knowledge of Indian languages (usually Hindi, less commonly Tamil) if
they had lived in India or Mauritius. Very few of the immigrants had a knowledge
of English prior to arrival in Natal, but it was used as a lingua franca among the
small number of educated males in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Evidence for this comes, inter alia, from Mahatma Gandhi. In his newspaper
Indian Opinion, he warned: ‘We observe that some Indian youth having acquired
a smattering of English, use it even when it is not necessary to do so . . . When
talking among themselves, they use broken English rather than pure Gujarati,
Hindi or Urdu’ (30 January 1909).
The first fifty years of Indian education in South Africa were characterised
by a lack of system (Kannemeyer 1943). In the early years European mission-
aries ran a few schools which admitted Indian pupils; subsequent progress in
education was instigated by the Indians themselves, with some teachers being
recruited from Mauritius and India. The medium of instruction in these schools
was English, with no Indian languages featuring at all. Vernacular education
was at the beginning largely oral, with traditional wisdom and knowledge being
passed on by elders. Religious and epic poetry was often learnt off by heart,
and vernacular plays (especially in Tamil) were frequently staged. Vernacular
classes were eventually instituted by various religious bodies, each concerned
with fostering the values and literature of a particular linguistic group. The
first Tamil school, for example, was established in Durban in 1899 (Kuppusami
1946: 70). Kichlu (1928: 31) records fifty private (vernacular) schools in Natal,
run by the Indian community on a part- or full-time basis. The majority of these
(about forty according to Kichlu) were attached to mosques, using Gujarati as
medium of instruction, and in some cases Urdu. Many such full-time schools
were closed down on the recommendation of Indian educationists (not without
lively debates), and many vernacular classes have since the 1930s been offered
on a part-time basis in those areas where numbers warranted it. Some full-time
Gujarati-medium schools offered a variety of subjects at a level comparable to
that of India up to the 1960s when emphasis shifted to language and cultural
subjects only (Desai 1992: 183). It is interesting to note that for a long time
Gujarati was used as medium of instruction for arithmetic, the traders believing
it to be superior to English in mastering methods of calculation.
From the outset Indian languages faced numerous difficulties, which makes
their maintenance for over 130 years an achievement of note. Indian languages
received no official support from the colonial and Union governments. The com-
pulsory introduction of Afrikaans in Indian schools from 1961, culminating in
its being made a compulsory subject from Standard 1 to matriculation by 1972,
did little to help language maintenance of Indian languages. It made the study
of Afrikaans – an alien language to twentieth-century Natal – economically
 Indian languages in South Africa 165

more viable than Tamil or Hindi for careers in teaching, the civil service and so
on. Almost overnight in the 1960s Indian teachers of subjects such as history
and geography were pulled out to be retrained as teachers of a language they
did not understand. My informal interviews with hundreds of Indian pupils and
parents leave little doubt that Afrikaans has been the least popular and most
inaccessible subject in Natal Indian schools in the last three decades.
Another difficulty was that no one Indian language could serve as a language
of integration within the evolving community. The dominance of Hindi, the chief
official language of post-independence India, would not have been acceptable
to the large South Indian community, any more than Tamil would have been
to the North Indians, or Urdu to the Hindus and Christians. That is to say,
although there was a fair amount of multilingualism in Indian languages it
was at a functional level. No one language could come to symbolise unity or
integration in the way that Hindi has among Indian Fijians. English was in the
end able to fulfil this role of ‘horizontal’ communication as well as of ‘vertical’
communication with the ruling class of colonial Natal. Even today pride in
one’s ancestral language can very easily be mistaken for overzealous allegiance
to one sub-group within the larger Indian community.
Despite these difficulties Indian languages were well maintained up to the
1960s. The census figures for 1960 for these languages record the highest ever
returns in South Africa:1

1951 1960 1970 1980 1991

Tamil 120,181 141,977 153,645 24,720 4,103
Hindi 89,145 126,067 116,485 25,900 4,969
Gujarati 39,495 53,910 46,039 25,120 7,456
Urdu 13,842 35,789 – 13,280 3,760
Telugu 25,077 34,483 30,690 4,000 638
Other 26,090 2,053 71,070 – –

The suggestion of a dramatic decline between 1970 and 1980 is not quite
accurate: the process was much more gradual than the figures suggest, with the
real turning point being the (early) 1960s, rather than the 1970s. The question
posed by the census – ‘What is your home language’ – is not a clear (or useful)
one in a community whose linguistic norms are changing. The figures for 1970
are probably too high for L1 usage, or the figures for 1980 onwards should be
at least doubled if we wish to include those who still have an Indian language
as second language. The picture in the 1990s is also not entirely as hopeless as
the figures suggest, since we must again include people with second-language
competence or the ability to understand an Indian language at least. Symbolic
attachments to the Indian languages as well as passive interaction in terms of
watching films, listening to songs, performing prayers and so on are aspects
that the census figures do not reflect. Another positive consideration is the
166 R. Mesthrie

inclusion of Indian languages as subjects in many schools since 1984 (and

earlier on a trial basis, in the 1970s) as well as in the curricula at the M. L. Sultan
Technikon and University of Durban-Westville. (However, see section 5 below).
Vernacular schools on a part-time basis still exist in many parts of the country.
Furthermore, with the resumption of diplomatic contacts with India (severed
by India in 1947) and some ‘new’ Indian immigration in the 1990s (forbidden
by South African laws since 1913) some opportunities for linguistic renewal
still exist.

2 SOUTH AFRICAN BHOJPURI AS A KOINE

The rest of this chapter will survey some salient characteristics of one of the lan-
guages, Bhojpuri, stressing South African sociolinguistic developments. Infor-
mation on Gujarati, Telugu and Urdu may be found in Desai (1998), Prabhakaran
(1991) and Aziz (1988) respectively. Konkani and Meman have yet to be
studied. In order to appreciate the development of a distinctly South African
variety of this language we must picture shiploads of people coming from a
vast geographical territory, stretching from the Bengal coast on the east to well
into north-central and even north-west India. In this area a number of languages
exist, the best-known being Bengali, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Braj, Hindi, Panjabi,
Rajasthani and Kashmiri; many other languages and dialects of these languages
can also be added to the list. We are in the fortunate position of having reasonably
detailed records of all indentured workers, concerning their castes and places
of origin. We are also fortunate that at the period of indentured immigration
Sir George Grierson was undertaking his eleven-volume Linguistic Survey of
India, with notes, skeleton grammars and detailed speech samples of village
speech throughout North India. One consistent failing of commentators on
South African Hindi (Bhojpuri) was to compare it with standard Hindi of Delhi
and other prestige centres. The historical records show that a more accurate
procedure would be to compare South African Bhojpuri with its antecedents
in village speech in north-east India, the crucial districts being Basti, Gonda,
Azamgarh, Gazipur, Sultanpur, Fyzabad, Patna, Gaya, Allahabad and Rae Bareli
and Lucknow. These districts are part of today’s provinces of Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar, and have Awadhi and Bhojpuri as their main vernacular languages,
together with Hindi as supra-regional language. Map 8.2, with its display of
the languages involved and the percentages of immigrants per district, clearly
indicates the diffuseness (heterogeneity) of the linguistic situation as people
mingled together at the port depots, on board ship and in the plantations of Natal.
It is not surprising that a ‘common denominator’ speech form arose in Natal
among North Indian immigrants. This process might be termed ‘koineisation’ –
the development of a new dialect from existing dialects of a language and/or
other closely related languages. Some features of present-day South African
 Indian languages in South Africa 167

PAHARI PERCENTAGE
TEHRI More than 5 BASTI, GONDA, AZAMGARH
GARHWAL
4−5 GAZIPUR, SULTANPUR, FYZABAD
KHARIBOLI GARHWAL
SHARANPUR 3−4 PATNA, GAYA, ALLAHABAH, RAI BARELI, LUCKNOW

MUZAFFARNAGAR BIJNOR 2−3 GORAKHPUR, JAUNPUR, PARTABGARH, RAIPUR, BANARAS

NAINITAL
ARRAH, BARA BANKI, MONGHYR, BAHRAICH, SHAHABAD,
MEERUT
D
1−2 JAIPUR, UNAO, KANPUR, FATEHPUR, MIRZAPUR, SARAN,
BA

UR
DA

MP BALLIA, HARDOI
T
LY HI
A

RA

Less than 1
MOR

ALL OTHER DISTRICTS

IL

IB
BULAND-
RE

PIL
SHAHR
AWADHI
BA

UR
NP KHERI UP − Bihar border
BRAJ HA

BA
JA
M AH

HR
A FA SH

AIC
TH

R
BHOJPURI
UR

N
RA

H
HARDOI
A

KH

AGRA MAINPURI LU GONDA CH

AB

BARA-
AD

CK

ET BASTI

AM
AW BANKI
NO

PA
A FYZ GORAKHPUR
W

AB

R
UNAO
H

AD

AN
SU
LTA
KANAUJI KANPUR RAE NP
UR
G
A

N
BARELI

HA
SARAN
JALAUN FA AZAMGARH B MAITHILI

RB
TE ALL
HP PARTABGARH IA

DA
HAMIRPUR UR
AL JAUNPUR GHAZIPUR
JHANSI LA MONGHYR
BANDA H D PATNA
BUNDELI
BANARAS BA
AB

A
AH
AD

MIRZAPUR SH GAYA
0 100 200
Kilometres
BAGHELI HAZARIBAGH
PALAMAU
NOT INDICATED RAIPUR, ARRAH, JAIPUR
MAGAHI
Based on SIEGEL 1987: Pg. 144 CHATISGARHI

8.2 Areas of origin of North Indian immigrants to Natal, and principal dialects

Bhojpuri which are from originally different source languages are outlined
below.
(i) Features from Bihari dialects alone
(a) The past tense endings in -l, e.g. ham laut.ailī, ‘I returned’ (see further
2.1 below).
(b) (Optional) plural marker -jā, as in ham log dekhli-jā, ‘we saw’.
(c) Obligation construction with dative particle ke after the subject, the
main verb in stem + -e (i.e. infinitive form) followed by ke again, plus
an auxiliary verb expressing obligation:
(1) chokrı̄ ke cāı̄ banāwe ke par.ı̄.
girl dat tea make-caus-inf dat fall.3sg.fut
‘The girl will have to make tea.’
(d) Emphatic construction with verbal noun in -be, plus verb kar: This
use of the oblique form of the verbal noun, coupled with the verb kar,
‘to do’, places emphasis on the agent’s intentions or actions (in contrast
to the usual indicative form of the verb).
(2) tab ham bollī nei – ham jai-be karab.
then I say.1sg.past no I go-vn do.1sg.fut
‘Then I said, “No, I will go.”’
(ii) Features from eastern Hindi dialects alone
(a) Third person singular past tense ending -is (e.g. dekhis ‘she saw’).
(b) Third person plural past tense ending -in (e.g. dekhin, ‘they saw’).
168 R. Mesthrie

In South African Bhojpuri (henceforth SABh) these are characteristic of the

Uplands dialect spoken in northern Natal.

(iii) Features of western Hindi alone

(a) Future imperative ending -na.
(3) bol delas tū jā . . . kam khoj lenā.
say give.3sg.past you go-pres imp work(n.) find take-fut imp
‘He said, “You must go and look for work.”’
Sentence (3) has a present imperative, -ja, ‘go (now)’, as against the future
imperative, khoj lena, ‘look for work (when you get there)’.
(iv) Features of Bihari and eastern Hindi dialects
(a) The singular first person pronoun, hamār, ‘my’.
(b) The past form of the copula rah-.
(4) u nokar rah-al
he worker be-3sg.past
‘He was a worker.’
(c) The classifier .tho (e.g. dū .tho, ‘two, two units of’)
(v) Features of eastern Hindi and western Hindi
(a) Stem + -e verb forms for the second and third person present (e.g. tū
dekhe (he), ‘you see’). This is generally thought to be a non-Bihari form
(see Gambhir 1981: 227 n.), though Damsteegt (1988: 104) notes its
use in Magahi and some Bhojpuri literature.2

2.1 A koineised verb paradigm in South African Bhojpuri

While we have established the multi-dialectal origin of SABh, we have not
indicated the amount of mixing within paradigms. Generally, it can be said that
the coastal variety of SABh follows Bhojpuri norms, except for minor influ-
ences from the other contributory dialects, and for simplification of gender and
number marking (see Mesthrie 1991, chap. 2). To complicate the koineisation
picture even further we have to recognise morphological differences not only
within each broad language grouping, but within varieties such as Bhojpuri
and Awadhi. The coastal SABh past intransitive paradigm will serve as a brief
illustration:
Sg. 1 ham ai-lī ‘I came’ Pl. (as for sg.)
2 tu ai-le ‘you came’
3 u ai-l ‘he/she/it came’
This paradigm derives largely from Bhojpuri, except that the latter differenti-
ates between third person singular and plural forms. However, the SABh first
person form derives from the more westerly varieties of Indian Bhojpuri
 Indian languages in South Africa 169

(the easterly varieties having -li instead). On the other hand, the third per-
son form seems to derive from the easterly varieties of Bhojpuri, (the westerly
varieties having -lai here). The other Bihari varieties, while sharing -l endings
with Bhojpuri and SABh, have different vowels following the -l.

2.2 Some processes of koineisation

The only necessary process in koineisation is that of the incorporation of fea-
tures from several regional varieties of a language. In the early stages one
can expect a certain amount of heterogeneity in the realisation of individual
phonemes, in morphology and, possibly, syntax. Trudgill (1986) stresses the
role of speech accommodation resulting from the unification of previously
distinct groups (in terms of region and/or social status). The process of accom-
modation between adult speakers will result in the neutralisation of the social
meaning attached to linguistic variants. That is, the variation in the early stages
of koine formation will no longer correlate clearly with non-linguistic factors
such as region, function and social status (Samarin 1971: 133). More salient
variants will be retained, while minority and marked features will be ‘accom-
modated out’ (Trudgill 1986). Forms that are more regular, and therefore more
easily learnable (by adults), stand a better chance of being retained. Where
several alternants occur, frequency of a particular form must assume some im-
portance: the more dialects a form occurs in, the greater its chances of survival
in the koine. In determining who accommodates to whom, and what forms win
out, demographic factors involving proportions of different dialect speakers and
relative prestige of groups will clearly play an important role.
With the rise of a generation of child language learners, focusing takes place.
Essentially this results in a reduction of the possible variants of linguistic forms
and the stabilisation of norms. While accommodation in this particular sociohis-
torical context is a characteristically adult process, selection of accommodated
forms and stabilisation are more likely to be associated with child acquirers of
the koine.
Some of these postulated series of events are clear even from an examination
of present-day SABh. The importance of demography in determining the blend
of regionalisms has been the theme of this chapter, and needs no further dis-
cussion. The other processes are outlined below.

(a) Variation in the early stages of koineisation In addition to the

verb forms characteristic of the three dialects of SABh there are some idiosyn-
cratic forms used by a few older speakers. These forms are relics of the dialect
input into SABh, hinting at the great variety of forms prior to stabilisation of
the SABh koine. Significantly, they occur in the speech of a few rural speakers
who lead particularly isolated lives. In almost all instances these speakers had
170 R. Mesthrie

learnt the form from a parent born in India. Among these idiolectal forms are
present participles in -it, rather than the usual -at; second person future endings
in -bā, rather than the usual -be; third person transitive past endings in -le or -lis,
rather than the usual -las or -lak, and the use of the endings -wā for the third
person singular of past intransitive verbs. All of these forms show the marginal-
isation of non-Bhojpurian features in the coastal SABh dialect.
One pair of variants form a notable exception in that they occur equally
frequently in coastal SABh in apparent free variation. These are the third person
past transitive marker -las (from Bhojpuri) and -lak (its equivalent in Magahi
and Maithili and some Bhojpuri dialects bordering upon them). Speakers are
not sensitive to the difference in the phonological form of these items; that is,
they are not indexical of social meanings.

(b) Simplification The term ‘simplification’ is not an unproblematic

one, as Mühlhäusler (1974: 67–75) shows. I shall use it here to indicate both
reduction in the number of categories and an increase in regularity in certain
paradigms. Generally all varieties of overseas Bhojpuri–Hindi show drastic
reduction in the expression of gender for verbs. Whereas grammars of all the
input varieties specify separate verb paradigms according to gender, there is
no trace of such gender variation in SABh. For further details see Gambhir
(1981: 249–54) and Mesthrie (1985:125–6).
The same is true of the feature ‘respect’, which is manifested systematically
in Indic languages in verbal and pronominal paradigms. It seems this feature
did not survive the koineisation process in Natal, for there is no systematic mor-
phological way of signalling ‘respect’ in SABh. Power relations between inter-
locutors once indexed by pronoun usage must have given way to the expression
of solidarity on the plantations. When present-day SABh speakers attempt
to ‘soften’ their speech in conversations with high-status addressees such as
priests, they do so in non-systematic ways (e.g. by leaving out the second person
pronoun; by use of the reflexive pronoun āpan, ‘self’, instead of tū; by borrow-
ing the standard Hindi form āp, etc.). For an extended discussion of the feature
‘respect’ the reader is again referred to Gambhir (1981: 260–9) and Mesthrie
(1985: 130–5).

(c) ‘Accommodating out’ of marked forms Although Bhojpuri fea-

tures are well represented in SABh and all other varieties of Overseas Bhojpuri,
conspicuous by their absence are some irregular Bhojpuri verb forms, which
would count as marked vis à vis equivalent structures in the other input varieties.
These include the special negative form of the copula nahikhı̄, naikhı̄ or naikhe
(which is replaced by the analytic use of a negative particle nahi, plus the ordi-
nary form of the copula, as in many of the input varieties). Likewise, the defec-
tive verb hokh- of Indian Bhojpuri, denoting a subjunctive use of ‘to become’,
 Indian languages in South Africa 171

does not occur in SABh, being replaced by a lesser used (but less irregular)
alternate of Indian Bhojpuri and Awadhi, ho-.

3 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL HISTORY

In this section I will examine borrowings and other neologisms in South African
Bhojpuri, stressing how the linguistic practices of a group of people can serve
as antennae to aspects of their social history. The word for ‘indenture’ still used
among older speakers is girmit., based on the English word agreement, with
an agentive noun girmit.yā, ‘one who signed a girmit., an indentured worker’.
Other loanwords referring to events occurring prior to departure include depo
(from English depot) for the building in which immigrants were housed while
awaiting the next ship to Natal. Terms for ‘recruiters’ speak volumes for the
unethical practices of these Indians in the employ of the British: thagwā and
luterā. These are equivalent to ‘thug’ and ‘looter’ respectively. It is ironic that
these two terms (originally from Hindi), which the British picked up in India,
should be used in connection with the practices of those serving their interests.
Many historians (e.g. Tinker 1974: 122) confirm the unscrupulous practices of
the recruiters, their false tales and occasional kidnapping of reluctant village
folk.
Another neologism of this period is Kalkatyā, which signifies ‘one who
embarked ship at Calcutta’, (not ‘a native of Calcutta’). This term stresses the
importance of the port of Calcutta in re-shaping the lives of the original migrants
and their very identity. They referred to the new form of speech (the koine) as
Kalkatyā bāt (‘Calcutta language’). In the same vein there arose new kinship
terms such as jahajı̄ bhāı̄, ‘ship brother’ and jahājı̄ bahin, ‘ship sister’ denoting
the special bonds that arose between those who travelled on the same ship. I
have oral evidence that this relationship was treated for a while as a true blood
relationship, with marriage between immediate descendants of ship brothers
and/or sisters being discouraged.
Early loanwords from languages of Natal are extremely interesting in that
they capture something of the mental struggle to become familiar with the
new environment, its peoples, languages and customs. Thus āfkaran became
the word for ‘twenty-five pence’ (from half-a-crown); d.amolā the word for
‘sugar mill’ (from Mauritian Bhojpuri spoken by some indentured workers
and plantation owners in Natal, ultimately based on Creole dã mulẽ, from
French dans le moulin). South African place names proved tongue-twisters
to the first generation, who modified them to suit the phonological and some-
times semantic structure of their own language. Thus the Afrikaans suffix -burg,
‘town’, seems to have been identified with the Bhojpuri word for garden, bāg
(which is also a place-name suffix in India). Hence ‘Johannesburg’ became
Jobāg (‘Joe’s garden’?) while ‘Pietermaritzburg’ became Mirichbāg, literally
172 R. Mesthrie

‘garden of chillies’, which one might want to link with the persistent myth
presented to immigrants that Natal was a fabled land in which money grew
on chilli-trees. A few words from Fanakalo have passed into Bhojpuri, notably
bagāsha, ‘to visit’ (ultimately from Zulu ukuvakashela). Loanwords from other
Indian languages encountered for the first time in Natal are not very com-
mon, apart from some food terms from Tamil (e.g. polī, a savoury pie stuffed
with coconut and fried in oil). There are very few loanwords from Gujarati,
perhaps reflecting the class distinction between trading class and indentured
workers.
The language that has influenced South African Bhojpuri the most is English.
From the earliest times English words were incorporated into the language,
often out of necessity as is the case with girmit.. However, they were not nu-
merous, and were adapted to the phonological structure of Bhojpuri: e.g. pilā˜ k,
‘wood, plank’, shows the breaking up of the pl cluster of English, changing the
[æ] vowel (non-existent in Bhojpuri) to a nasalised [ã:] with deletion of the
nasal consonant. Since the 1950s, however, with increasing English–Bhojpuri
bilingualism the prestige of English was the cause of a flood – almost a tor-
rent – of loanwords, often ousting native words and phrases, and considerably
affecting the phonological system of Bhojpuri.
However, one should not be too dismissive of English loans in Bhojpuri or
any other local language. As the article by Branford and Claughton (chap. 10,
this volume) shows, borrowing is an essential ingredient in lexical growth and
adaptation. In addition to being overtly influenced by English, Bhojpuri has
undergone other internal changes. Of particular interest is the linguistic change
contingent upon social change. With the early collapse of the highly stratified
caste system among indentured workers, many words denoting caste occu-
pations have become archaisms or been lost altogether. Thus terms such as
dusadh, ‘corpse bearer’, d.om, ‘a type of out-caste’ and kamangar, ‘bow maker’,
are unknown to South African Bhojpuri speakers. In addition, some terms that
in India still denote a low caste or an out-caste have different semantic import
in Natal, no longer denoting a particular social group but rather stereotypic or
derogatory characteristics associated by some with those who used to belong to
those groups. One example (among five) is the term can.d.āl, which in India still
denotes a particular out-caste group. In South Africa it has become a swear-
word, an epithet for a ‘good-for-nothing’, ‘an upstart’, etc. Even the word for
‘caste’ itself, jāt, seems to me to have undergone subtle change of meaning in
actual usage to denote ‘one’s nature’ (especially in a derogatory sense). The
common phrase Okar jāt oise he, which historically and literally means ‘That’s
characteristic of his/her caste’ in effect usually conveys ‘S/he’s like that, that’s
his/her way.’
As an example of a semantic field that has been particularly susceptible to
vocabulary loss I shall illustrate the sphere of ploughing. In Bihar and Uttar
 Indian languages in South Africa 173

Pradesh the word for ‘to plough’ is har jot, with many dialect variants. There
are different words for the first ploughing (pahil cas), the second ploughing
(dokhar), the third ploughing (tekhar) and so on. The ploughing of millet when
it is a foot high is known as bidah, while the ploughing of a rice field after it has
been flooded is called leo. There are separate phrases for ‘to plough with a new
plough’ (nawthā ke jot) and for ‘to lightly replough in order to clear weeds and
cover the seed’ (unah). There are special terms for ‘cross ploughing’, ‘ploughing
in diminishing circles’, ‘ploughing in progressively larger circles’, ‘ploughing
diagonally’, ‘ploughing breadthwise’, and special terms for concepts such as
‘the centre plot in the middle round which the bullocks have no room to turn’,
‘small pieces of a field which a plough has not touched’, etc. In South Africa,
with the rapid shift away from a village-based agricultural economy such spe-
cialised terms do not seem to have lasted beyond the first generation of immi-
grants. Only the general term for ‘to plough’ was known to informants that I
questioned. The language has, instead, had to adapt to a different technology,
with not a little help from English. Today you hear even home-bound, elderly
persons saying in connection with automobile travel: on kar or swı̄c on kar,
‘start’; of kar, ‘switch off’; pāk kar, ‘park’, mot.ar jek karat he, ‘the car is
jerking’, etc.3

4 THE PROFICIENCY CONTINUUM OF A DECLINING LANGUAGE

The term ‘language shift’ denotes the gradual replacement of one language by
another as the common means of communication within a community. This is
undoubtedly happening within the Tamil, Telugu and Bhojpuri (Hindi) commu-
nities of South Africa. Initially English was used in formal domains (education
and public speaking) but gradually entered into informal domains such as the
neighbourhood and home. The shrinkage of domains in the course of shift
is paralleled by receding generational competence in the outgoing language.
In her pioneering study of shift from Scots Gaelic to English, Dorian (1981)
characterised four levels of competence, ranging from full command of the
outgoing language to zero command. In between these are the competences
of young fluent speakers, semi-speakers and passive bilinguals. In Dorian’s
scheme ‘young fluent speakers’ are those who have native command of the an-
cestral language, but who show subtle deviations from the fluent older speakers’
norms. ‘Passive bilinguals’ have full understanding of the ancestral language,
but are unable to use it in productive speech. ‘Semi-speakers’ are those who
have had insufficient exposure to the ancestral language, but continue using it
in an imperfect way some of the time, out of a high degree of language loyalty.
Dorian characterises the semi-speakers of Gaelic in East Sutherland in Scotland
as having relatively halting delivery, speaking in short bursts and exhibiting
linguistic deviations, of which older speakers are mostly aware. On the other
174 R. Mesthrie

hand, they are able to build sentences and alter them productively, a trait which
distinguishes them from the passive bilinguals.
In my fieldwork on Bhojpuri in Natal in the early-to-mid-1980s, all four
types of speakers were found. There was the difference that semi-speakers of
Bhojpuri did not converse with each other (except in jest); they usually used
the language out of necessity in communicating with those elders who lacked
a command of English. In Mesthrie (1991: 202–39) I characterise the unstable
competence of such semi-speakers. I will confine myself to two lexical examples
here to illustrate the effects of the narrowing of the range of contexts in which the
language is used. The phrasal verb lapet. kar- in older fluent-speaker speech has
the general sense of ‘to wrap, to roll (transitive), to entangle’. The only meaning
I could extract from semi-speakers was ‘to make a sandwich out of roti [round,
flat unleavened bread] and curry’. They did not think that the word could be
used in any other sense, as in ‘to get entangled in a fight’. This restriction of
meaning is clearly due to the domestication of the language. Likewise the word
naksān, which in older fluent speech means ‘wastage’ (of energy, life, food, etc.),
has been restricted in semi-speaker competence to refer solely to the wastage
of food.

5 CONCLUSION

Although the outlook for Indian languages as spoken idioms seems bleak, I
believe that they should continue to be fostered by schools, temples and private
organisations with state funding where possible. Individual spoken competences
might vary, but many people hold the Indian languages in great esteem for
cultural and religious purposes. This was clear not just for Indian but also for
other Asian heritage languages generally (Chinese and Malay) in the report
of the sub-committee on heritage languages to the government (LANGTAG
1996). With the end of the apartheid era there are now new ties with India
(the first country to have imposed sanctions against South Africa – in 1947),
which opened up possibilities of cultural and linguistic renewal in small ways.
Prabhakaran (1998) has undertaken an interesting initial study of the interaction
between people belonging to the South African Telugu community and more
recent Telugu-speaking immigrants from India. In his book Reversing Language
Shift Fishman (1991: 35) puts the case for community languages succinctly:

RLS [reversing language shift] appeals to many because it is part of the process of
re-establishing local options, local control, local hope and local meaning to life. It
basically reveals a humanistic and positive outlook vis-à-vis intragroup life, rather than
a mechanistic and fatalistic one. It espouses the right and ability of small cultures to
live and inform life for their own members as well as to contribute to the enrichment of
humankind as a whole.
 Indian languages in South Africa 175

Regretfully for Indian languages in South Africa, the situation is much more
complex (see Mesthrie 1995). There is an ongoing renegotiation and redefi-
nition of the notion of community from within (i.e. a sense of Indian South
Africanness, rather than a narrow sub-group thereof ) as well as from without
(a sense of growing beyond apartheid as part of the larger society). Further-
more, in the new non-racial education system pupils of Indian origin are spread
more widely – but also more thinly – than before. This makes it increasingly
difficult for individual Indian languages to meet minimum required numbers
in the state schools. At tertiary level there is similar cause for concern: at the
time of going to press the Indian languages department at the University of
Durban-Westville has been shut down and staff redeployed to other tasks or
allowed to offer only basic courses in Indian languages. It is indeed tragic that
Indian languages continue to be neglected in the country.

notes
1 The 1996 census does not give figures for Indian languages.
2 Further details on koineisation can be found in Mesthrie (1991: 55–76).
3 Note that in these examples kar is not the English ‘car’, but the verb ‘to do’ which
converts other parts of speech and loans into verbs.

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1860–1911. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Cole, D. T. 1953. ‘Fanagalo and the Bantu languages of South Africa’. African Studies,
12: 1–9.
Damsteegt, T. 1988. ‘Sarnami: a living language’. In R. K. Barz and J. Siegel (eds.),
Language Transplanted: The Development of Overseas Hindi. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz, pp. 95–120.
Desai, U. K. 1992. ‘The Gujarati Language amongst Gujarati-speaking Hindus in Natal’.
MA thesis, University of Durban-Westville.
1998. ‘Investigation of the Factors Influencing Maintenance and Shift of the Gujarati
Language in South Africa’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Durban-Westville.
Dorian, N. 1981. Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Fishman, J. 1991. Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gambhir, S. K. 1981. ‘The East Indian Speech Community in Guyana: A Sociolinguistic
Study with Special Reference to Koine-formation’. Ph.D. thesis, University of
Pennsylvania.
Gandhi, M. K. 1958–84. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 90 vols. Delhi: Govern-
ment of India.
Grierson, A. G. 1903–28. Linguistic Survey of India, 11 vols. Calcutta: Government of
India; repr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1967.
176 R. Mesthrie

Kannemeyer, H. D. 1943. ‘A Critical Survey of Indian Education in Natal, 1860–1937’.

M.Ed. dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand.
Kichlu, K. P. 1928. Memorandum on Indian Education in Natal. Presented to the
Natal Indian Education Inquiry Commission, Pietermaritzburg, 17 April 1928.
Pietermaritzburg: Natal Witness.
Kuppusami, C. 1946. ‘Indian Education in Natal, 1860–1946’. M.Ed. dissertation,
University of South Africa.
Language Plan Task Group 1996. Towards a National Language Plan for South Africa:
Final Report of the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). Pretoria: Government
Printers.
Mesthrie, R. 1985. ‘A History of the Bhojpuri (or “Hindi”) Language in South Africa’.
Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town.
1989. ‘The origins of Fanagalo’. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 4,
2: 211–40.
1991. Language in Indenture: A Sociolinguistic History of Bhojpuri-Hindi in
South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press; international edition
London: Routledge, 1992.
1995. ‘Reversing language shift: problems and possibilities’. Journal of the
Indological society of South Africa, 2, 3: 1–20.
Mühlhäusler, P. 1974. Pidginization and Simplification of Language. Pacific Linguistics,
Series B, 26. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Prabhakaran, V. 1991. ‘The Telugu Language and its Influence on the Cultural Lives
of the Hindu “Pravasandhras” in South Africa’. Ph.D. thesis, University of
Durban-Westville.
1998. ‘Social stratification in South African Telugu – a sociolinguistic case study’.
Alternation, 4, 2: 136–61.
Samarin, W. J. 1971. ‘Salient and substantive pidginization’. In D. Hymes (ed.),
Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 117–40.
Swan, M. 1985. Gandhi: The South African Experience. Johannesburg: Ravan.
Tinker, H. 1974. A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas
1830–1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trudgill, P. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Part 2

Language contact
Pidginisation, borrowing, switching and intercultural contact
9 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa

Ralph Adendorff

1 INTRODUCTION
Fanakalo (also spelled ‘Fanagalo’) is an intriguing South African pidgin lan-
guage, for at least four reasons. First, its origins are uncertain, even though a
number of explanations have been proposed to account for them. Second, from
a structural point of view, the Fanakalo variety spoken on the mines in South
Africa is atypical: for instance, it exhibits a number of features that pidgins do
not typically possess. A third reason is the assumption by many that it is used
only in the mining industry. Closer examination shows that it is an interactional
resource which is employed for a range of purposes and in a range of settings.
Finally, Fanakalo conveys at least two social meanings, one pejorative, the other
positive in its associations. Because of its pejorative connotations Fanakalo is
being replaced on certain gold mines because of what it connotes, yet it is relied
on in other settings because it enables some people to express solidarity with
one another and reinforce their interpersonal relationships. These features are
sufficient reason to explore Fanakalo in some detail.

2 PIDGINS AND HOW THEY DIFFER

A pidgin arises as an interactional solution to communication between two or

more groups of speakers who do not share a common language. It is more or
less complex, depending on what stage in the ‘pidgin–creole cycle’ it represents
(see Mühlhäusler 1986; Romaine 1988). Its complexity also depends on the
contextual circumstances prevailing at the time of the pidgin’s genesis, and
subsequently. When one considers the formal properties of pidgin data, it is
sensible to ask whether the data occur early in the pidgin–creole cycle, in what
has been called the ‘jargon stage’, or whether at a later stage, by which time it
can be expected to have stabilised and therefore to be linguistically richer.
It is my belief that the circumstances surrounding the first origins of a pidgin
are crucial for determining the reasons for its complexity, notwithstanding sub-
sequent influences. I allude to these circumstances in various places below in
relation to Fanakalo (e.g. sections 4.3. and 4.4) and deal in detail with the
context at the time of its genesis (section 6.3).
179
180 R. Adendorff

3 DOMAINS IN WHICH FANAKALO IS USED

Elsewhere (Adendorff 1993) I have summarised what I see as the salient contex-
tual features, i.e. the domains, role and power relationships, racial identities and
attitudes of mind that characterise the unmarked and marked use of Fanakalo. By
‘unmarked’ I mean the conventional or predictable contexts in which Fanakalo
is used. By ‘marked’ contexts I mean those in which the use of Fanakalo is
unexpected or unconventional. As an unmarked choice we find that:
(a) Fanakalo is usually restricted to work, i.e. to non-affective domains;
(b) it is used in interactions where there is an asymmetric role and power
relationship between the participants, usually that of master–servant;
(c) the less powerful participant is black;
(d) Fanakalo is negatively evaluated by blacks – others who use it in interaction
with them are either positively disposed towards it, or else are indifferent
towards what it symbolises.
The use of Fanakalo in marked settings, by contrast, defines and reflects a rather
different dispensation as regards the balance of rights and obligations between
the interacting parties, because its use often calls into question the existing rights
and obligations. It can be used to play down asymmetry in the relationship;
indeed, rather than signalling disparities in power, it is always instrumental in
signalling solidarity.
An ethnography of Fanakalo is needed if we are to have a more detailed under-
standing of the range of settings and domains in which it is used, the functions it
fulfils and the participants who use it. In the absence of comprehensive accounts
of this kind, I refer readers to Chamber of Mines (1982), Wessels (1986), Brown
(1988) and Radise et al. (1979) for insights into the teaching and learning and
the underlying ideological agenda, as well as the use and evaluation, of Fanakalo
on the mines; Mesthrie (1989) for insights into the functions and possibly di-
minishing role of Fanakalo in the Indian community; and Ribbens and Reagan
(1991) who contextualise the role of Fanakalo in industry more generally.

4 A BRIEF SKETCH OF SOME GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF

MINE FANAKALO

4.1 Introduction
I collected the data on which the following grammatical description is based in
1978 from interviews in Fanakalo between a white training-school supervisor
at a Gauteng gold mine and three black instructors at the training school. The
instructors (mother-tongue speakers of Tsonga, Xhosa and Zulu) had worked
on the mines in various capacities for an average of twenty-five years each and
had first learnt Fanakalo on the mines. I see them therefore as good exponents
of Mine Fanakalo.
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 181

Until richer linguistic descriptions are available, I believe Fanakalo is best un-
derstood as describing a continuum of varieties which, in their typical linguistic
features, range from Zulu at one pole to South African English at the other. The
varieties draw their linguistic resources largely from Zulu and South African
English, and vary in overall lexico-semantic and morpho-syntactic complexity.
The Mine Fanakalo data, I believe, belong nearly as close to the Zulu end
of the continuum as the variety illustrated, for example, by Trapp (1908) and
partly described by Mesthrie (1989: 219). In contrast, the data which I call
Garden Fanakalo, as well as that employed in the poem ‘A Kafir Lament’ (see
section 7.1) are very different, and can be located close to the English end of
the continuum.
The grammatical description that follows is very selective, for reasons of
space. As far as syntactic structure is concerned, I shall be outlining the sim-
plest sentence structures in Fanakalo and so deal with the noun phrase (NP),
functioning as subject and direct (but not indirect) object, and the verb phrase.
I shall ignore construction markers within the NP, such as ka and na and the
genitive/possessive and associative constructions in which they function. I shall
also do no more than refer to one kind of complex sentence, the type that includes
one or more relative clauses in addition to a main clause. As regards morphology
and lexico-semantics, I shall simply list the most prominent types of morpho-
logical processes of inflection and derivation in the data, and briefly summarise
key features of the lexical data.1
In essence, the canonical order of constituents in Mine Fanakalo is subject–
verb–object. The phrase-structure patterns conform to those of English rather
than Zulu, and at the morphological level also Fanakalo is closer to English than
to Zulu. This is because what were affixes in Zulu, a language rich in affixes,
are often free forms in Fanakalo. The lexicon of Mine Fanakalo, in contrast, is
strongly Zulu based, most notably in semantic domains not linked to mining-
industrial activity. Cole (1953) estimated that 70 per cent of the Fanakalo lexicon
derives from Zulu, 24 per cent from English and 6 per cent from Afrikaans. I have
expressed misgivings about these figures (in Adendorff 1993: 24, n.1), and the
statistics provided in section 4.3 of this chapter offer further grounds for caution.

4.2 Syntactic characteristics

4.2.1 Constituent structure of the noun phrase
Noun phrases functioning as subject and direct object take the following forms:
(i) pronoun
(ii) proper N
(iii) lo N
(iv) mod1 (lo) N
(v) (lo) mod2 N
182 R. Adendorff

In addition, NPs in (iii)–(v) may be followed by a relative clause, illustrated in

(6) below and later in section 4.2.3. As in English, the modifying constituent
precedes the head noun. The criterion for distinguishing two categories of mod-
ifiers (mod1 and mod2 ) is placement relative to lo. Those modifiers that precede
lo are categorised as mod1 , and those that follow lo are categorised as mod2 .
Examples of the types of NPs indicated in (i)–(v) are presented here. In each
instance they are italicised:

(1) Mina komba yena.

‘I show him/her/it/them.’
(2) Yena kuluma John.
‘He calls John.’
(3) Lo pomp yena donsa lo manzi.
‘The pump (it) releases the water.’
(4a) Yena fundisa tina zonke lo into.
‘He teaches us all things.’
(4b) Mina lima zonke into.
‘I look after every thing.’
(5a) Mina buka lo munye madoda.
‘I see/watch the other men.’
(5b) Yena khona maningi sapot.
‘There is much support.’
(5c) Lo nkomo yena zalile tu matoli.
‘The cow (it) gave birth to two calves.’

The data indicate that the maximum expansion of the NP is NP → mod1 lo N

Rel. S. Here is an example of a maximally expanded NP:

(6) Yena fundisa tina zonke lo into aikona funeka tina enza
He teaches us all the thing not wanted/desirable we do
lo yena mubi.
which they bad
‘He teaches us all the things which are undesirable that we do which are
bad.’

It is plausible for a mod2 (e.g. munye, ‘other’) to precede the head noun, into,
in (6), but such a structure is not evident in my data.

4.2.2 Constituent structure of the verb phrase

The verb phrase (VP) in Fanakalo consists of a predicative, which may take
five different forms, followed optionally by one or more NPs and an adverbial,
i.e. VP → predicative (NP) (NP) (adv.).
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 183

The VPs in the following sentences demonstrate the five kinds of pred-
icative types: simple verbs (7); serial verbs (8); khona (existence) (9); khona
(attribution) (10); and enza (copula) (11). ‘Predicative’ is chosen as a superor-
dinate term to subsume formally distinct constituents.

(7) Yena jabulisa mina.

‘It/they please(s) me.’
(8) Mina hambile funda.
‘I went (to) learn.’
(9) Yena khona lo munye muntu.
‘There are other men.’
(10) Mina khona siks mapikinin.
‘I have six children.’
(11a) (Lo skat) mina enzile lo pikinin . . .
‘When I was a child . . .’
(11b) Yena enza lo matsotsi.
‘They become tsotsis.’

4.2.3 Relative clauses

Relative-clause constructions in the data are of two kinds, direct and indirect.
Each kind is illustrated below, in (12) and (13):
(12) Mina tola lo lamp lo (yena) azi siza mina.
‘I receive a lamp which (it) will help me.’
(13) Lo kuba yena lo into lo tina lima ka yena lapa kaya ka
‘A hoe (it) is a thing which we cultivate with it at home in
lo masim.
the fields.’

4.3 Lexico-semantic features

4.3.1 Lexical sources and type–token ratio
Tables 9.1 and 9.2 attempt to reflect, in respect of the interviews with each
training-school instructor, (a) the principal sources of Fanakalo lexical items;
(b) the number of separate lexical types (lexemes) that occur and how many
tokens (occurrences of a type) there are; and (c), the relative frequencies of the
highest-occurring lexemes.
Readers should note these points of clarification:
(a) The interviews with informants A and B explored many topics, one of
which was narrowly mining related, while that with informant C was re-
stricted to religion. For half of this interview informant C paraphrased Luke
11: 41–52. In the other half he outlined a sermon, based on the biblical
184 R. Adendorff

Table 9.1 Summary of lexical sources and type–token

information for three training-school informants
(raw scores only)

Informant A Informant B Informant C

Sources of lexical items

Zulu 141 146 104
English 51 22 2
Afrikaans 11 5 0
Portuguese 1 1 1
uncertain 11 5 1
names and dates 17 15 8
other 1 3 8
Type–token information
types 233 197 124
tokens 1,446 1,254 549
type–token ratio 16.11 15.71 22.59
Occurrence of high-frequency morphemes
lo 272 223 93
ka 114 102 51
yena 93 93 90
lapa 67 84 24

Table 9.2 Percentage of total high-frequency morphemes

(lo, ka, yena, lapa) to total tokens

Informant A Informant B Informant C

546 502 258

1,446 1,254 549

= 37.76% = 40.03% = 46.99%

passage mentioned. The resulting thematic consistency probably accounts

for the higher type–token ratio for this data.
(b) I have not treated inflected forms (e.g. hamba, ‘go’; hambile, ‘went’; or
pikinin, ‘child’; mapikinin, ‘children’) as independent lexemes, i.e. as dif-
ferent types, but have treated derived forms where a change of word class
takes place, e.g. job (noun) and joba (verb), as separate types.
(c) The type–token ratio referred to is a measure of overall lexical richness and
is computed as follows: total number of separate lexical types in the data,
divided by the total number of tokens (i.e. instances of the different types),
multiplied by 100.
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 185

The statistics indicate that Mine Fanakalo relies heavily on Zulu for its lexical
stock, which can perhaps be taken to suggest ready access to Zulu at the time of
Fanakalo’s genesis and subsequently. The type–token ratio suggests uncommon
richness for a pidgin, and the frequencies of lo, ka, yena and lapa underscore
their grammatical significance in the language. The percentage figures also
suggest comparative norms in terms of which one might place this and other
Fanakalo data on the Zulu–South African English continuum referred to in
section 4.1.

4.3.2 Lexicalisation processes

The data indicate that Fanakalo is an open rather than a closed system (see
Hancock 1977; Romaine 1988: 33–8), which is uncharacteristic of pidgin lexi-
cal systems. New items are added through borrowing (as indicated in table 9.1),
which is a natural language phenomenon. In addition, there is evidence of exist-
ing and new lexical items undergoing semantic extension, which is a universal
characteristic of pidgins. Examples would be basopa (from Afrikaans pasop,
‘protect’) and mteto (from Zulu meaning ‘way of doing something’) in (14),
and job and joba (from English job) in (15):

(14) Mina basopa lo fo mteto.

‘I am in charge of four instructions.’
(15a) Mina aikona azi lo job ka yena.
‘I do not know how it is done.’
(15b) Mina azi lo job ka lo sonto.
‘I know the workings of the church.’
(15c) Yena joba muhle.
‘They play well.’

Especially significant is the absence of lexical enrichment processes that en-

tail reconstituting lexical roots in order to yield new items. Such a principle
underlies compounding, reduplication (an instance of compounding) and cir-
cumlocution. In the Mine variety, Fanakalo evidently possesses sufficient lexical
primes without having to resort to these means.

4.3.3 Semantic richness

The semantic density of Fanakalo items in all of its varieties is worthy of serious
investigation (something not possible here). My belief is that Mine Fanakalo is
unusually rich, semantically, for a pidgin. In support of this, consider the nouns
in (16a). All are opaque as far as their form is concerned, i.e. their meanings
cannot be guessed at from a knowledge of other (related) words in Fanakalo.
186 R. Adendorff

Moreover, each has a very narrowly defined referent, for example, muzi denotes
not simply a dwelling, but specific additional surrounding features (kraal, huts,
etc.); bazal denotes both mother and father in one word; and slalo an abstract
concept: the office someone holds.
(16a) muzi homestead
bazal parents
slalo office
Verbs are listed in (16b) and, like the nouns in (16a), are also opaque. Those
in (16b) constitute a lexical set having to do with nurturing. Semantic richness
shows itself in the way that different types of nurturance are lexicalised. Thus,
lima relates to crops, and zala and kulusa to animate objects. What distinguishes
zala and kulusa semantically is that zala refers to the initial stage of rearing,
to ‘bringing into the world’, whereas kulusa refers to later stages, to ‘bringing
up’:
(16b) lima cultivate
zala father
kulusa rear
In most pidgins such semantic precision is impossible in a single lexical item.

4.4 Morphological characteristics

Romaine (1988: 29) makes a general observation that will usefully frame my
brief remarks regarding Fanakalo morphology:

A language which is analytic in structure indicates syntactic relations by means of

function words and word order as opposed to synthetic languages, where such formal
relationships are expressed by the combination of elements (e.g. prefixes, suffixes and
infixes) with the base or stem word. The structure of words in an analytical language is
morphologically simple, but complex in a synthetic language.

Pidgins, typically, are analytic and their simplification takes the form, further-
more, of a restriction in the number of function words available to signal syn-
tactic relations and other grammatical information. Zulu, the principal source
of the Mine Fanakalo lexicon, is a clear example of a synthetic language being
rich, for example, in affixes. What is interesting about Fanakalo is that, while
it evinces considerable simplification and avoidance of the types of morpho-
logical processes employed in Zulu (see Cole 1953 for details), the Mine data
nevertheless indicate the use of certain inflectional and derivational processes
(see (a)–(d) below) which are not usually found in pidgins. As I indicate in
section 5, this is another feature that should oblige us to enquire into the origins
and history of Fanakalo if we are to explain the presence of these processes.
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 187

The following items are highly productive inflectional affixes in Fanakalo.

But for the last one, all are suffixal:

(a) -ile: generalized past (dlala, ‘play’; dlalile, ‘have played’)

(b) -isa: causative ( funda, ‘learn’; fundisa, ‘cause to learn’)
(c) -wa: passive (peka, ‘cook’; pekiwa, ‘be cooked’)
(d) ma-: plural marker (ndoda, ‘man’; madoda, ‘men’)

In earlier varieties of Fanakalo the prefix zo- signalled future tense. In Trapp’s
(1908) data, zo is a free form. In my data, zo- is replaced by azi as the only
marker of future tense. It, too, is a free form.
Morphological affixes in the Mine data that are less evident than those listed
so far are the following:
(e) -ini: locative adverbial (mgodini, ‘in the mine’)
(f) -ana: diminutive (nouns) (mtwana, ‘little child’)
ana: reflexive/reciprocal (verbs) (izwana, ‘hear mutually’,’understand’;
fanana, ‘resemble one another’)
(g) -ela: applied suffix (layitela, ‘light up’ in a particular place)

5 A BRIEF COMPARISON WITH GARDEN FANAKALO

The following exchange took place between a white employer, J, and her black
gardener, V, neither of whom can speak the other’s language (English and Zulu
respectively). M and B were bystanders:
J: now V (8 secs) wena funa faga lo . . . rocks . . . lapa . . . okay . . . V wena buga . . .
lapa lo top lapa . . . all these . . . buga (10 secs) lapa . . . round there . . . okay . . .
yah . . . manje noka wen ai faga lo end . . . and lapa . . . alright . . . just get them up
here for me . . . wen’ can you carry them up here . . . hey?
V: (Inaudible response)
J: yah . . . you’re strong (5 secs) okay . . . let me get out the way
M: better be careful these don’t . . . [tip
J:B: [break . . . yah
J: . . . right just put those up there . . . thanks (at this point J addresses B) sand in that
little hole there . . . he could just throw them up . . . ah . . . that’s
V: . . . (whistles)
J: (increased volume) ai no (J is now addressing V) . . . no good aikona . . . wena
hamba lo side . . . tata lo side . . . round
M: what’s no . . . good? (M is speaking to J)
J: well lo’ look already this has broken off (J, here, responds to M, then addresses
V) manje now we must put more daga there . . . okay . . . come down . . . yah . . .
faga bitjane more daga . . . lo no good
M: (M is speaking to J) bit dry
J: (J responds to M) yah it is too dry . . . dad mixed it . . . I dunno who mixed it
188 R. Adendorff

J: (J addresses V). . . yah put some more there . . . you’ll have to go round . . . no
good walking up there . . . put some more in there too (shovelling sound)
key:
... noticeable pause (+0.5 seconds)
( secs) pauses exceeding 0.5 seconds – exact duration specified
[ overlapping speech
(italicised ) contextual information

Fanakalo clearly plays a part in this exchange, but it is obvious that contextual
support, in particular by way of referents (objects, locations) in the setting, is
crucial to V’s decoding of J’s message and to J’s formulation of it in the first
place. Such strong reliance on contextual support is not evident in the Mine
Fanakalo data, where speakers have richer linguistic resources with which to
verbalise their communicative intentions. Lapa (deictic ‘there’) and lo are the
highest frequency forms in the Garden Fanakalo extract, each occurring five
times. Lapa, we note, often occurs with both paralinguistic and additional ver-
bal support: ‘lapa lo top lapa’, ‘lapa . . . round there’, ‘lapa . . . just get them
up here for me’. Lo, throughout, is deictic. Wena, the second person pronoun,
labels J’s addressee (four times) and manje, used to stage instructions, occurs
twice. Okay also has a similar discourse function and is used more often than
manje. For the rest, J uses five verbs: funa, ‘want’; faga, ‘put’; buga, ‘look’;
hamba, ‘go’; and tata, ‘take’; two negators: ai and aikona, an adjective, bitjane,
‘a little’, and noka, ‘if’. Semantic richness is not a feature of the lexical items.
Most content words are superordinate terms or hyperonyms. They are seman-
tically shallow, because, unlike the evidence from Mine Fanakalo in (16), their
meaning is not specified as finely. Syntactic complexity is also not apparent.
J uses phrasal fragments for the most part and she does not inflect or modify
the basic form of the Fanakalo words in any way. Marking of time is restricted
to the present in keeping with the general contextualising of activity at the time
of speaking. It should be clear that the variety of Fanakalo under considera-
tion is very different, linguistically speaking, from that discussed previously,
and the circumstances under which it was acquired by J and in which it is
used by her in her dealings with V are very different from those of the Mine
variety.

6 THE ORIGINS OF FANAKALO

6.1 The contribution of Cole

Research into the origins of Fanakalo is surprisingly limited, with our current
understanding resting almost exclusively on the work of Cole and Mesthrie.
Cole’s major contribution lies in having summarised the hypotheses that had
been advanced by about 1950. In essence, there were three leading arguments:
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 189

(a) Fanakalo originated in the eastern Cape and Natal somewhere between 1820
and 1850 as a result of interaction between English-speaking settlers and
speakers of Nguni languages.
(b) Fanakalo originated in Natal in the 1860s from interaction between
indentured and trader Indians and users of Zulu and English.
(c) Fanakalo arose in Kimberley and the Witwatersrand after 1870 from
interaction between those drawn to the diamond and gold fields.
Cole himself favoured the second hypothesis, though not without misgivings.
In particular, he was concerned that his Fanakalo data showed no perceptible
influence from the Indian languages, a fact which seemed to deny the central
contribution of Indians to the creation of Fanakalo. Notwithstanding this reser-
vation, Cole’s support has been a major reason for the widespread acceptance
of the ‘Indian hypothesis’ as an explanation for the origins of Fanakalo.

6.2 The contribution of Mesthrie

The strength of Mesthrie’s contribution to the debate on origins derives from
the empirical data he has collected, the convincing way in which he has re-
futed the second hypothesis which Cole summarises (Mesthrie 1989: 217–23)
and the new leads he provides for reinvestigating the first hypothesis.2
On the basis of an analysis of two books by G. H. Mason: Life with the Zulus
of Natal, South Africa (1855) and Zululand: A Mission Tour in South Africa
(1862), and a typescript by W. Lister entitled ‘Recollections of a Natal Colonist’
(c. 1905), Mesthrie concludes that Fanakalo in a jargon state was employed as
the language of trade between some English settlers in Natal and Afrikaners
from the Transvaal and Orange Free State; and was also used in exchanges
between English colonists and their Zulu servants.
In his study (1989: 231) Mesthrie notes that the origins of Fanakalo re-
flect an ‘alternative scenario’ (to use Siegel’s 1987 term): an indigenous lan-
guage (Zulu) is the target which the European group tries to learn. This differs
from ‘the classical pattern’ (Mesthrie 1989: 231) of pidginisation in which
the Europeans’ language is the target of the subordinate groups’ use. More
particularly, ‘broken’ Zulu, according to Mesthrie, was used by Europeans,
while the subjugated population (Zulu) used a simplified foreigner-talk ‘to assist
them’. Mesthrie cites the Anglican missionary Dr Henry Callaway (1868: 1) in
support.
My problem with Mesthrie’s interpretation is, essentially, that he does not
explain why Fanakalo is targeted on Zulu. Nor can he adequately explain the
syntactic richness of Fanakalo in, for example, the data (of sixty sentences)
provided by Trapp (1908) or described in section 4 of this chapter, other than
to attribute it to forces subsequent to the circumstances of its origins, such
190 R. Adendorff

as the institutionalisation of Fanakalo on the mines. In this regard, I have an

alternative hypothesis (first expressed in Adendorff 1987), which requires a
reinterpretation of Callaway.
It is my contention that in mid-nineteenth-century Natal, two different sets
of interactional contexts characterised European–Zulu contact. One of these is
strongly reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the genesis of simple
pidgins (such as Garden Fanakalo), but this form of Fanakalo is not my partic-
ular concern in this chapter. The other interactional context involved European
(mostly English) missionaries. Because this context accounts for the fact that
Fanakalo is targeted on Zulu and not on English and that it draws so many of
its grammatical resources from Zulu, I suggest that it offers a more plausible
account of the origins of Fanakalo. The weakness of my hypothesis is that I
lack linguistic data from the mid-nineteenth century that support it explicitly
and unambiguously.

6.3 The central role of missionaries in the origin of Fanakalo

In the introduction to Izinganekwane, Nensumansumane, Nezindaba Zabantu,
subtitled Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (published in
1868, but commenced twelve years previously) the Reverend Henry Callaway
writes:
At a very early period I began to write at the dictation of Zulu natives, as one means
of gaining an accurate knowledge of words and idioms. In common conversation the
native naturally condescends to the ignorance of the foreigner, whom, judging from
what he generally hears from colonists, he thinks unable to speak the language of the
Zulu: he is also pleased to parade his own little knowledge of broken English and Dutch;
and thus there is a danger of picking up a miserable gibberish, composed of anglicized
Kafir, and Kafirized English and Dutch words, thrown together without any rule but the
caprice and ignorance of the speaker. But whilst such a compound might answer for the
common relations between white men and natives, yet it must be wholly insufficient to
admit of any close communication of mind with mind, and quite inadequate to meet the
requirements of scientific investigation. [my emphasis] (Callaway 1868: i)
Of his elicitation procedure Callaway writes:
A native is requested to tell a tale; and to tell it exactly as he would tell it to a child or
a friend; and what he says is faithfully written down . . . what has thus been written can
be read to the native who dictated it; corrections be made; explanations be obtained;
doubtful points be submitted to other natives (Callaway 1868: i)
Later in the introduction he notes that ‘very many different natives have taken
part in the work’.
What to me is important about the above is that Callaway was a missionary
and that he cast few value judgements on the Zulus as a people. His intention
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 191

was to meet the Zulu mind to mind. He was not willing to accept the ‘miserable
gibberish’ that he was offered (and which others, such as traders, accepted). As
a means to understanding Zulu culture and eliciting, recording and interpreting
Zulu nursery tales, Callaway took very active steps to learn Zulu. Such commit-
ment was not characteristic of the colonists in general. He spent a considerable
amount of time with his informants or teachers, and required that they provide
him with Zulu as they would use it among themselves.
Complementing the information Callaway provides is Alone Among the
Zulus (especially chapter 6), an account of life in Natal in the early 1850s,
written by Mrs Charles Barter, a missionary’s wife, under the nom de plume
‘A Plain Woman’. Its value lies in the fact that it offers a richer picture than
Callaway provides of social life at that time, and of the distinctive role of the
missionaries.
The writer again emphasises the missionaries’ fluency in Zulu. She herself
‘can speak Zulu correctly’ (Barter 1855: 70) and it is in Zulu that a Norwegian
missionary in the area conducted a service. What is also interesting about her
account of the service (1855: 66–7) is the composition of the congregation –
‘some of the natives from the neighbouring kraals’ as well as English traders –
and the information that the European missionaries in the area had had to
negotiate with the Zulu king the right to preach to his people. Thus, she writes:
‘On first settling in the country, the chief pastor of the mission had requested
leave from the King to teach the Truth to his subjects. He had graciously issued
a mandate to all the great men in the neighbourhood of the several stations,
ordering the people to assemble when called by the missionary.’ I quote this
by way of confirmation of the negotiated, rather than imposed, presence of
missionaries in the area, and of their facility in Zulu.
Like Callaway, Mrs Barter contrasts the linguistic abilities of the missionaries
with those of the traders and, more generally, ‘the uneducated persons, who form
the majority of colonists’ (1855: 71). She notes, for example, with regard to
the church service referred to above: ‘Our traders, being incapable from their
ignorance of the language of being themselves edified by the service, thought
it desirable to command the attendance of their native servants, which they did
in these words: “Zonke umuntu oza.”’ A further anecdote is revealing:

There are many stories current which exemplify this ignorance; but I think the best that
I have heard is that of a colonist, who meeting with a newly arrived emigrant, offered
to be his interpreter with his native workmen. They were building or fencing, and the
stranger begged his friend to desire one of the men to hand him a small axe.
‘With the greatest pleasure in life,’ said the professor: ‘Here, you! shaya me lo piccanini
bill!’ It is difficult to construe this sentence literally; but I think he meant, ‘Shy me that
infant bill-hook’ which was done immediately. The demonstrative particle lo was the
only word at all resembling anything in the language he intended to speak.
192 R. Adendorff

For Mrs Barter, as for Callaway, pidgin symbolises condescension. She differs
from him, though, on the matter of the direction of that condescension. It is the
whites, according to her, who are condescending.
Lastly, Mrs Barter makes the following comments on the Zulus’ abilities and
interest in English (1855: 70):
There is at this moment among civilized natives of Natal a great desire to obtain English
teaching for their children, and I have seen several who could read well in the Bible. I
have myself had pupils who could read and write an English diction in words of two
and three syllables with very few mistakes, and one of them writes a tolerable English
letter, and is able to read what is written in answer.

In order to reinforce my argument that the missionaries’ role is crucial to our

understanding of the form that Fanakalo takes (at least in one variety of it, from
which Mine Fanakalo is descended), we need to reflect on the linguistic evidence
of their ‘mastery’ of Zulu. From the information I have provided, it is clear that
Callaway’s command of the language was good enough to enable him to write
a book in it. Beyond this, however, we have little concrete evidence, other than
their own word, of the missionaries’ competence. What cannot be disputed is
that they were sensitive to Zulu; their interactions with Zulus were sustained, and
not narrowly confined to restricted domains and sub-domains (e.g. instructing
someone to clean up something); and their chief motive in entering the Natal
region in the first place was to persuade by means of language. Furthermore,
many of them found themselves involved in a language-learning and language-
teaching endeavour, which, if we accept the account of Mrs Barter, would have
entailed reciprocal language learning and language teaching. Hence, knowledge
about and access to Zulu (and English) were readily available. On grounds such
as these, it is hard to deny that, whatever they did speak, the missionaries’ ‘Zulu’
would have been qualitatively unlike that of those whose motives, attitudes
and commitment to Zulu as a language-learning endeavour was so different
from theirs. It is unlikely that many of the missionaries emerged from their
experience with the Zulu language as competent bilinguals. Research on second-
language acquisition, particularly that of adults, cautions one very strongly
against assuming this. Competence, for many missionaries, is likely rather to
have fossilised at a point where it was clear to them that they commanded the
respect of their interlocutors and were getting sufficient of their message across.
Another way of putting this is that the missionaries’ Zulu would have fossilised
at the point where they felt that the language-learning effort exceeded its utility.
Linguistic evidence of Fanakalo available at later stages in its development
(some of which was mentioned in section 4) reveals a number of features:
(a) The lexicon is derived predominantly from Zulu, particularly in domains
that are not work-specific. The vocabulary consists of an unusually large
number of lexical primes for a pidgin, with little compounding on those
primes, and little circumlocution, except in reference to specialised or
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 193

technical domains. Moreover, many of the items are notable for their
semantic richness.
(b) Fanakalo employs more productive inflectional devices (all but one are
suffixal) than appears to be usual in Eurocentric pidgins.
(c) Lo as a nominal marker (deriving its form from Zulu, but its function from
English and Afrikaans) appears both in early data and, more consistently,
in later data, e.g. (3) illustrated in section 4.2.1. In one of its functions,
illustrated in (17) below, lo marks relative clauses:
(17) Lo kuba yena lo into lo tina azi lima ka yena.
‘A hoe it is a thing rel.marker we will cultivate with it.’
(d) A frequent construction within the NP is the genitive/possessive, marked
by the free-form ka, which derives from the Zulu prefix -kwa. This is illus-
trated in (18). The same form (ka) marks instrumental adverbials. In this
second function, illustrated in (19), it derives from the bound Zulu (prefixal)
morpheme -nga:
(18) lo baba ka mina
the father of me
‘my father’
(19) Mina washa ka lo manzi
‘I wash by means of the water.’
(e) In addition, yena often marks the boundary between subject and predicate
in Fanakalo, as it does in:
(20) Lo pomp yena donsa lo manzi.
‘The pump releases the water.’
It is probably premature to argue that the presence in Fanakalo of these five
features is a consequence of missionaries’ involvement with Zulus, in other
words that the missionaries were instrumental in ‘casting the die’ of Fanakalo.
To do so would be to ignore earlier patterns of interaction in Natal (possibly
not even involving Europeans), which might for instance have influenced Zulu
foreigner-talk to the missionaries, or patterns that might have spread from else-
where, e.g. the eastern Cape. What is evident is that it is not necessary to identify
the diamond and gold fields as contexts for the initial origins of Fanakalo, since
it was clearly in use well before the diggings began in the 1870s. The hypothesis
favoured by Cole, as we saw, has also been firmly refuted by Mesthrie. That
said, evidence in support of the missionary hypothesis is scanty, but, I believe,
suggestive and worthy of further research.

7 THE SOCIAL MEANING OF FANAKALO

The account that follows is a considerably abbreviated version of the treatment

on this issue, based on ethnographic evidence (which I provide in Adendorff
1993). In this account I will be relying first on words in the opening two stanzas
194 R. Adendorff

of ‘A Kafir Lament’, a poem first published in 1890 and, though dated, heavily
suggestive of a persistent set of social connotations; second, on video-recorded,
spoken data; and third, on self-reported data dealing with when and why a Zulu
student’s elderly father employs Fanakalo in his dealings with his children.
I argue that Fanakalo is a widely used interactional resource, associated with
which are many shades of social meaning which are exploited in multiple ways.
I understand ‘social meaning’ in the sense of Downes (1984: 51), as ‘the set
of values which a language itself encodes or symbolises, and which its use
communicates’.

7.1 ‘A Kafir Lament’

This poem, published in 1890, appears to be the joint effort of C. Wilson-Moore
and A. P. Wilson-Moore, two people who lived and worked on the early
Kimberley diamond fields. What it reveals is the writers’ perceptions of one
kind of social relationship between a white man (a ‘boss’) and his black as-
sistant which, one presumes, was common on the diamond fields at that time.
It is a relationship characterised by the speaker’s distrust of his boss and by
the immensely asymmetrical power relationship in which they stand to one an-
other. Fanakalo is the medium for expressing the speaker’s distrust and, more
generally, is a vehicle of protest. It is a good example of what Gal (1989: 360)
describes as ‘resistance or counter-hegemonic discourse’.

‘A Kafir Lament’
I lofe Umlungu very much,
Him much my fren’ we’ az.
M’ningi promise eb’ry night,
Ikona give kusas’.
It’s always ‘Wacht een beetje, –
Hlan’ ncozana,’ then
‘Footsack, suka, spuk-a-spuk!
Ngi bulala wen.’
M’ningi much sebenza,
Pesula Baas lo mine,
Baas biza mina ‘Gashli!’
‘Gashli!’ eb’ry time.
It’s always ‘Wacht een beetje, –
Hlan’ ncozana,’ then
‘Footsack, suka, spuk-a-spuk!
Ngi bulala wen.’
I love the white man very much,
He’s quite a friend you know.
Each night he promises me a lot,
But next day – not a thing.
It’s always ‘Wait a jiffie,
Sit down young man,’ and then
‘Beat it, buzz off, moron!
Or I’ll murder you.’
We have a lot of work,
This Baas of mine is tops,
He just says ‘Be careful!
Careful!’ every time.
It’s always ‘Wait a jiffie,
Sit down young man,’ and then
‘Beat it, buzz off, moron!
Or I’ll murder you.’
(Butler and Mann 1979: 33–4)

The variety of Fanakalo employed in the poem is, in impressionistic terms,

highly fractured. There is strong reliance in it on English and, as in the case of the
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 195

Garden Fanakalo data, I suggest one would want to locate it close to the English
pole of the English–Zulu continuum. In addition, there is clear evidence that
the Fanakalo used in the poem has been crafted in order to satisfy the demands
of writing. Hence, it is somewhat of an artefact. Nevertheless, it makes use of
common Fanakalo words such as skoff, ‘food’ (and picannin, ‘child’, later in
stanza 6), lo as a nominal marker, reduction of morphological complexity (e.g.
ngi, ‘I’ and bulala, ‘kill’ as two free forms rather than being bound), and so
forth. In terms of the context in which Fanakalo is used, we notice, over and
above the detail provided earlier, that the speaker (the black person) endures
extensive humiliation. We also note the brutality and ruthlessness of the baas
(‘boss’) towards his black assistant. It is Fanakalo, largely, that encodes the
general subjugation which is described in the poem – not English or some
other language. Fanakalo, too, is clearly the language of invective and, from
the speaker’s point of view, of his distrust of the white boss. These are key
components of the social meaning of this variety of Fanakalo in the setting and,
as I show in Adendorff (1993), of its use more generally as an unmarked choice.
Where it is unrepresentative is that it suggests a degree of spitefulness that is
less apparent these days.
I shall contextualise the next piece of evidence by presenting it as a scenario.
Unlike the poem, it is evidence of Fanakalo as a marked choice.

7.2 Scenario: video recording in New Zealand

A white South African immigrant to New Zealand is being video recorded
by his friend, also originally from South Africa, on board their yacht. The man
making the video intends sending the recording to white friends in South Africa
for Christmas. Those friends are not familiar with the person currently being
filmed, though he has been mentioned in letters. The person being filmed is
aware of the reasons for the filming. He is encouraged to say something to the
intended recipients of the tape in South Africa. This is what he says:
Hey wena? Ini wena buka? . . .
(Laughter) . . . Kanjani lapa
kaya? . . . (Pause, after which
camera focuses elsewhere).
‘Hey you? What are you looking
at? . . . (Laughter) . . . How’s it at
home?’

This scenario shows Fanakalo being used by status-equal whites, for which rea-
son it is a marked choice. The significance of its use lies in the fact that Fanakalo
is quintessentially a South African phenomenon. By using it, therefore, the
speaker is signalling his common South African background and identity and, in
196 R. Adendorff

drawing attention to what they share, is conveying solidarity with his audience.
The interrogative mode of Hey wena? Ini wena buka? recalls the stereotypi-
cal asymmetry often associated with the use of Fanakalo in unmarked settings.
However, in the context in which it is uttered, such choices and connotations are
obviously inappropriate, because they presume an asymmetry unlikely to exist
between the immigrant South African in New Zealand and his white viewers
in South Africa. It is this very inappropriateness of Fanakalo, in fact, that is
the source of amusement. At face value, the sender’s questions are insults and
yet, as Labov (1972) has shown, some insults function as markers of solidar-
ity in male culture. Inasmuch as the utterances in the New Zealand scenario
constitute a form of teasing and banter, they again qualify as solidarity-seeking
behaviour.

7.3 Self-reported data

Finally, a Zulu-speaking student drew my attention to the fact that his father
(an elderly mother-tongue speaker of Zulu) often chides and chivies his own
children, including his twenty-one-year-old son, the informant, in Fanakalo,
when irritated by them at home. By so doing, he evokes and capitalises on
the exploitative motives (command and direction) that, as we saw in section
7.1, are often associated with Fanakalo as an unmarked choice. In section 7.2
we saw Fanakalo jokingly exploited as a means of showing solidarity between
whites. Here we have an example of Fanakalo being used to somewhat the
same end by blacks. The father knows that his children will rightly interpret
his very marked use of Fanakalo as a solidarity marker rather than a power
marker.
In summary, therefore, we see that the use of Fanakalo in unmarked settings
is usually a means of entrenching asymmetrical power relations and of limiting
the rights of blacks. The video-recorded and self-reported data of marked use, by
contrast, provide a glimpse into a rather different dispensation, often calling into
question the existing rights and obligations and being instrumental in signalling
solidarity.

8 CONCLUSION

Fanakalo is a code that linguists have long neglected. This is possibly because
pidgins, generally, were disregarded as topics worthy of serious consideration
until fairly recently. The unfavourable connotations of Fanakalo (as an un-
marked choice) probably also deflected academic attention from it. Nevertheless,
it holds a wealth of research opportunities for students both of South African
sociolinguistics and of linguistic theory in general.
 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa 197

notes
I acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Marina Savini-Beck and Jane
Boustred, who read and critically commented on drafts of this chapter; Rodrik Wade,
who provided critical comments and gave me permission to use the Garden Fanakalo
data; Professor L. W. Lanham, who first guided my understanding of Fanakalo some
years back; and Raj Mesthrie, for his support and editorial suggestions.
1 A fuller account particularly of the syntactic characteristics of Mine Fanakalo is
provided in Adendorff (1995).
2 Recent evidence is Mesthrie (1998) which explores the sociohistorical context in
which language contact and learning took place in the eastern Cape in the first half
of the nineteenth century. In this account Mesthrie includes ‘the earliest sentence of
Fanakalo recorded in the English sources’, dated 1816, and uses it to test the hypothesis
advanced in section 6.3.

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Indiana University.
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1995. ‘A description of selected grammatical characteristics of Mine Fanakalo’. South
African Journal of Linguistics, Supplement 27: 3–18.
Barter, Mrs Charles 1855. Alone Among the Zulus. The Narrative of a Journey Through
the Zulu Country. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
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Butler, F. G. and C. Mann 1979 (eds.). A New Book of South African Verse in English.
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Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus. London: Trübner.
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10 Mutual lexical borrowings among some
languages of southern Africa: Xhosa,
Afrikaans and English

William Branford and J. S. Claughton

1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is an exploratory piece, which will focus where possible on the
motives for lexical borrowing and on the lexical fields in which borrowings take
place. It will not discuss the effects of borrowing on linguistic form. Xhosa,
English and Afrikaans have been chosen because the authors, between them,
have some working acquaintance with all three, and because they are major
languages of southern Africa with contrasting social histories.
Our point of departure will be the classical paper of Haugen (1972 [1950]) on
borrowing. Although Haugen is pleasantly clear on what borrowing is, we shall
take the liberty of offering a definition based on his, but somewhat different
in wording: ‘the adoption into one language of items, patterns and meanings
from another’. Here the term ‘adoption’, which we owe to Desmond Cole, is
important to distinguish between nonce-words, borrowed ad hoc, as in ‘ons moet
daardie fridge nou laai’ (we must now load that fridge), and words established
in a language, as commandeer (from French via Afrikaans) is now established
in English. Whether a word is really established or not can be decided only on
the basis of a respectable body of evidence of use, as in the collections of actual
contexts that form the data base for every entry in the Oxford English Dictionary
or the Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles (DSAE
Hist). Most of us, however, make this judgement impressionistically and without
data, other than those of daily experience. But the point is basic: adoption
implies adoption into the ‘public’ language system, as opposed to an individual’s
perhaps momentary extension of a personal repertoire in code-switching.
A borrowed item typically undergoes some change of form. Bus, reconsti-
tuted as Xhosa ibhasi, has taken on a Xhosa phonetic form and acquired a
noun-class marker. However, a signification may be borrowed on its own and
‘attached’ to a word in the ‘borrowing’ language. Thus Dutch snoeck, originally
meaning ‘fresh-water pike’, acquired at the Cape an additional signification,
that of a marine fish of different species but equally impressive teeth, our own
South African snoek. And in South Africa the original Dutch signification has

199
200 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

fallen away. Haugen offers a useful three-way distinction, which again we have
ventured to adjust:
(1) Loanwords, borrowed with sound changes only, though their grammatical
markers are likely to be those of the borrowing language. An example is
Afrikaans gogga (insect), from Khoe xoxon, with obvious sound-changes
and a normal Afrikaans plural form.
(2) Loanblends, of native origin with borrowed lexical morphemes, as in South
African English (SAE) muti-man (‘herbalist’, ‘doctor’) in which an Angli-
cised Zulu umuthi (medicine) combines with English ‘man’.
(3) Loan translations, also called ‘calques’, e.g. Afrikaans swarthout from
English blackwood, where only a meaning is borrowed but ‘the forms rep-
resenting that meaning are native’ (Appel and Muysken 1987: 15).
It might be convenient to group loanwords and loanblends together as ‘adop-
tives’ (Cole’s term), since both involve new or altered forms, as opposed to loan
translations which involve new meanings only. A question of some interest is
what determines the choice between borrowing meanings only and borrowing
forms as well.
There seems at present to be no comprehensive theory for the social pro-
cesses involved in lexical borrowing. Borrowing typically involves bilingual-
ism (Haugen 1972 [1950]: 79), but the bilingualism may be of a very slight and
feeble kind. For the processes by which a borrowed item becomes established,
some pointers may be found in Labov’s detailed hypothesis for the ‘social moti-
vation of a sound-change’ (Labov 1963; Wardhaugh 1986: 202 n.) We shall not
linger on these. Some languages appear to borrow more readily than do others.
Among speakers of the same language, some will borrow more frequently than
others and be more tolerant of borrowings.
Accounts of the motives for borrowing will probably vary according to the
writer’s general theory of language functions. Common motives for borrowing
include:
(a) extension of range of reference (Appel and Muysken 1987: 171): Xhosa
ialfabet (‘alphabet’), naming an addition to the Xhosa cultural repertoire;
(b) structural convenience, as with English numerals borrowed into Southern
Bantu languages;
(c) directive capability as in Voetsek! and hamba in SAE contexts, and in the
former Anglo-Indian repertoire of curt ‘vernacular’ commands;
(d) expressive force as in borrowed swearwords, e.g. Afrikaans donnerse (‘con-
founded’) in SAE: expressive language presents ‘its originator’s feelings
and attitudes’ (Leech 1974: 47);
(e) social solidarity, as in the SAE repertoire of greetings and other phatic items
from African languages, e.g. molweni, ‘greetings’, itself originating in an
Nguni borrowing from Dutch, and hamba kahle, ‘go well’;
 Mutual lexical borrowings 201

(f) stylistic effect, e.g. the ‘local colour’ created by the scraps of Afrikaans and
other African languages in SAE fiction or the sketches of Casey Motsisi
and his successors.
The same borrowing may, of course, serve more functions than one, and it may
be difficult at times to distinguish clearly between motives. But some tentative
framework of classification is preferable to none. Many borrowings in language-
contact situations may function at least in part as signals of social solidarity, as
in Giles’ accommodation theory as mentioned by Trudgill (1986: 2), which for
our purposes can be restated thus: ‘A sender who wishes to gain a receiver’s
approval may choose vocabulary items thought acceptable to that person.’
A related remark by Trudgill (1986: 61) is also relevant: ‘Whole new lan-
guage varieties, many of them eventually spoken by millions of people, grow
and develop out of small-scale contacts between individual human beings’ –
although there must be convergences in these if parole is to become langue.

2 XHOSA

Xhosa history and social experience are clearly reflected in the various strata
of established loanwords in the Xhosa vocabulary. Most of the indigenous
languages of southern Africa, including Xhosa, have borrowed extensively from
Afrikaans and English. Xhosa, together with Zulu to a somewhat lesser extent, is
unusual in its extensive borrowings at an early stage from Khoesan languages,
principally Khoe. This reflects an early Xhosa–Khoesan symbiosis of which
tantalisingly little is at present known. There is evidence, however, from the
late eighteenth century of Xhosa marrying Khoekhoe women and of Xhosa
communities incorporating tribal units of Khoekhoe (Harinck 1969). Walker
(1928: 102) remarks upon ‘the Gunukwebes, half Xhosa half Hottentot’.
Xhosa in its earliest forms was without clicks. Most Khoe words contain
clicks, and when Xhosa borrowed words from Khoe, it took over the clicks in
them, thereby extending not only its vocabulary but its phonemic inventory too
(Lanham 1964). We can thus assume that most words containing clicks have
been borrowed from Khoe (the counter-examples are very few – see chap. 15,
this volume). Furthermore, except in obvious loanwords from Afrikaans, the
voiceless velar fricative [x], spelled rh in the current orthography as in irhamba,
‘puffadder’, also indicates a borrowing from Khoe.
Words of Khoesan origin constitute a remarkably large proportion of the
Xhosa vocabulary. In a present-day dictionary of Xhosa, approximately
one-sixth of the words begin with a click, so that it appears that at least
one-sixth of the Xhosa vocabulary is derived from Khoe. In Zulu the corre-
sponding proportion is about one-seventh (Bourquin 1935). Swati and Southern
Sotho, on the other hand, contain far fewer click words. Nearly all the click
202 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

words in Southern Sotho were apparently borrowed from Nguni refugees at

the time of the Mfecane (early nineteenth century) rather than direct from
Khoesan.
If we examine the Xhosa vocabulary in the light of our main assumption, we
shall see that borrowings from Khoe occur in all open-ended word classes: noun,
verb, relative and even the adjective (ncinane, ‘small’), which is a restricted class
of about fifteen items. But it is noteworthy that sounds indicative of Khoe origin
do not occur in grammatical morphemes such as subject concords and suffixes.
The only exception is the conjunction xa or nxa, ‘when’. There is also one
derivational affix -rha, roughly equivalent to the English -ish, as in -bomvurha,
‘reddish’ from bomvu, ‘red’.
Probable borrowings include fairly basic words such as cela, ‘ask’, qala,
‘begin’ and nceda, ‘help’. This would seem to imply that the motive of extension
of field of reference played a role in a limited number of borrowings, and that
some borrowings may have been in the interests of social solidarity.
One field in which many words are of Khoe origin is that of words relating to
cattle. Though it does not contain a click, inkomo, the word for ‘head of cattle’
in Xhosa (and in Zulu), appears to be of Khoe origin. So do ubisi, ‘milk’, ingca,
‘grass’ and igusha, ‘sheep’. On the other hand, the verb senga, ‘milk’, is of
proto-Bantu origin. This may imply that in some communities the Khoekhoe oc-
cupied a subservient role in Xhosa society, e.g. as herders, but that the important
functions such as milking were carried out by the Xhosa themselves (Harinck
1969: 150, 153). Another interpretation may be that a common vocabulary in
an area of high economic and ritual concern indicates simply the closeness
(in some instances) of the Xhosa–Khoekhoe symbiosis, which may paral-
lel that of Danes and English in the Danelaw (about 880–1100 ad): ‘the
Scandinavian elements that entered the English language are such as would
make their way into it through the give and take of everyday life’ (Baugh 1959:
117).
There are certain fields where the borrowing of clicks seems especially
significant. For instance, Xhosa place names are almost exclusively of Khoe
(or Afrikaans) origin while in Zulu most are of Southern Bantu origin. Again,
most of the names of Xhosa chiefs appear to be of Khoe origin, such as Xhosa,
Ngqika, Rharhabe. A substantial number of words relating to religion are of
Khoe origin: uQamata, the traditional name for God, as well as uThixo, ‘God’,
the term that missionaries tended to favour; igqirha, ‘diviner’; camagu, ‘be ap-
peased’. This would seem to indicate that Khoekhoe played an important role
as diviners, rainmakers etc. (Harinck 1969: 151–3).
Xhosa contact with the South African Dutch must reach back to well before
the placaat of 1737 forbidding settlers to trade with them (Walker 1928: 102).
Later they were to feel the full effects of the eastward penetration of freebooters,
 Mutual lexical borrowings 203

colonists and missionaries, and fought long and hard for their lands and inde-
pendence (Peires 1981). Another facet of this contact was the establishment of
missionary institutions, including schools, in Xhosa territory from the 1820s
onwards (Walker 1928: 185).
Thus when we turn to borrowings from Afrikaans and English we turn to a
process that began in the eighteenth century and continues to the present day.
Most of these borrowings reflect the need for words to express new concepts.
A few do not, as is shown by Afrikaans tog, borrowed as torho, ‘yet’.
Owen Lloyd (1955: 12), in a short study of 300 Afrikaans-derived words
he had collected from printed Xhosa sources, showed that ‘it is in the spheres
of church life, the law, the army, labour, trade, dress, building, farming, do-
mestic service and fight conversation that Afrikaans has influenced the Xhosa
language’. In the following examples the original Afrikaans terms occur in
brackets:

Religion: bhedesha, ‘pray’ (gebed); irhamente, ‘congregation’ (gemeente); ipasika,

‘Easter’ (Pasga)
Law: mantyi, ‘magistrate’ (magistraat); inkantolo, ‘office’ (kantoor)
Army: isoldati, ‘soldier’ (soldaat)
Dress: ihempe, ‘shirt’ (hemp); ibhulukhwe, ‘trousers’ (broek); ilokhwe, ‘dress’ (rok)

It is interesting that many of the words that Owen Lloyd cites, although widely
current in early times, are rare in the present-day language. In many cases
they have been replaced by words of native Xhosa origin, and sometimes by
English words. Thus umaneli, ‘minister’, from meneer, ‘sir’, has been replaced
by umfundisi (literally ‘teacher’; possibly a loan translation from Afrikaans
leraar). Bedesha, ‘pray’, although surviving in the Methodist Prayer Book, has
generally been replaced by thandaza. For noyisha, ‘invite’, from Afrikaans nooi,
a present-day speaker would use mema or possibly even invayita. Isoldati has
been replaced by ijoni, ‘soldier’ (pl. amajoni). English soldiers in the nineteenth
century are reported to have addressed any Xhosa men as ‘Johnny’. The Xhosa
reportedly returned the compliment by using amajoni to mean English soldiers
(R. Mesthrie, personal communication).
Some borrowings from English are definitely early, such as ititshala,
‘teacher’. The absence of aspiration suggests that this was borrowed either
via Afrikaans or via dialectal and especially Scottish missionary pronuncia-
tion. Early borrowings show the /l/ replacing post-vocalic /r/, as Xhosa orig-
inally did not have an /r/ phoneme. Compare Zulu uthishela and utisha, both
‘teacher.’
In many cases the word used in the spoken Xhosa depends on the dominant
‘Western’ language in the area. Professor Peter Mtuze tells us that when, having
grown up in Middelburg, an Afrikaans-speaking area, he visited Cradock, which
204 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

used to be largely English speaking, he found a large number of differences in

the words used by Xhosa speakers.

Middelburg Xhosa Afrikaans Cradock Xhosa English

iplasi plaas ifama farm
ipotloti potlood ipensile pencil
ipiringi piering isosara saucer
deka itafile dek die tafel leyisha itafile lay the table
irum room ikhrim cream
ikamire kamer irum room

A number of Xhosa borrowings preserve earlier usages which are no longer

current in English or Afrikaans. For example, Amatshetshi, ‘Anglicans’, reflects
the now obsolete usage where members of the Church of England went to
a ‘church’ but Nonconformists went to a ‘chapel’. AmaWesile is still used
for ‘Methodists’, alongside amaMethodisti, while ‘Wesleyans’ is archaic in
present-day English. Again ijoni, ‘soldier’, reflects an English colloquial usage
that has long since disappeared.
Modernisation of the language can be briefly illustrated from the field of
writing. Here we find both loanwords and loan translations. ‘Write’ is Xhosa
bhala, which probably meant originally ‘to make a sign or mark’; ‘read’ is
most commonly expressed by funda, which also means ‘learn’. Ipensile is used
for ‘pencil’ but ‘pen’ is usiba, literally ‘feather’, presumably going back to the
time of quills. ‘Ink’ is i-inki, a loanword from English or Afrikaans but iphepha,
‘paper’, is probably an indigenous word that means ‘something light like a leaf of
tobacco’ (Kropf 1915: 330). The word incwadi, which originally meant ‘a type
of bulb’ (Kropf 1915: 252), because its numerous thin silky leaves resembled
leaves of paper, has come to be used both for ‘book’ and ‘letter’, though ileta
is sometimes used for ‘letter’. In Zulu on the other hand incwadi also means
‘letter’ and ‘book’, but ibhuku is more commonly used for ‘book’.
The above illustrates a general point that when existing words are used for
new concepts very often the same word is used for a wider semantic field: thus
‘letter’ is not distinguished from ‘book’. This is further illustrated by the word
ucingo, which basically means ‘wire’, but can also be used for ‘telephone’,
‘telegram’ and ‘telex’.
Counting in Xhosa and related languages is apt to involve complex circum-
locution as in amashumi asixhenxe, ‘sixty’. Thus numerals above five in con-
temporary speech are typically expressed by loanwords: a case, probably, of
borrowing for convenience.
Borrowings in contemporary township Xhosa of course merit fuller investi-
gation.
 Mutual lexical borrowings 205

3 AFRIKAANS
What is now ‘Afrikaans’ was in the 1860s an unstandardised language of hearth
and home, with various designations, e.g. Cape Dutch, Kaaps, the Taal, and
so on. It was the ‘L’ partner in an uncomfortable diglossic relationship with
Nederduitsch, or standard Dutch, the official language of the Reformed Church
and the Afrikaner Republics. By the mid-1920s a recreated Afrikaans had be-
come a fully standardised national language, fulfilling – up to a point – the
promise of the nineteenth-century battlecry ‘de taal is gansch het volk’: roughly,
‘the language and the people are one’ (Zietsman 1992: 196). The social forces
behind this transformation included the political drive for the establishment of
ons eie, ‘our own’. Afrikaans acted both as a symbol of the political hopes of
the Afrikaner people and as one of the instruments for their realisation (van der
Merwe 1966: 24; Zietsman 1992: 197).
Hudson (1980: 34) points out four key processes in the establishment of a
standard language:
r selection of a variety for standardisation;
r codification;
r elaboration of functions;
r acceptance.
These provide a helpful framework for this sketch of the vocabulary of Afrikaans
in its relations with other vocabularies of southern Africa. As point of entry to a
time sequence stretching from 1652 to the present day, it will be convenient to
take 1902, the year of publication of the Patriot-woordeboek, the first Afrikaans–
English bilingual dictionary.

3.1 Selection
The variety selected for standardisation was ‘Afrikaans’, rather than ‘Hollands’,
which had, of course, an already standardised variety. This is somewhat re-
markable since it is estimated that about 90 to 95 per cent of the present-day
Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin (Raidt 1976: 177; Carstens
l989: 144; P. Harteveld, personal communication). Afrikaans, however, did
not originate from contemporary or even from nineteenth-century Dutch, but
‘from the colloquial Dutch of the 17th century’ (van der Merwe 1951: 23),
much affected by its use by people of non-Dutch descent. ‘In the 18th century
there were more non-White speakers of Afrikaans than White’ (Donaldson
1991: 30). These included slaves and political prisoners from Indonesia, subju-
gated Khoekhoe, people of mixed descent and French- and German-speaking
settlers.
206 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

Cape Dutch borrowed on a small scale from the languages of these people and
others. From Malay there came, for instance, amper, ‘almost’ (Malay hampir);
baadjie, ‘jacket’ (Malay badju); baie, ‘much, many’ (Malay banyak); and pier-
ing, ‘saucer’ (Malay piring). From Portuguese came bredie, ‘a stew’ (bredo);
kombers, ‘blanket’ (cobertas); and kraal, ‘cattle enclosure’ (curral). From
Khoesan languages came names of plants (boegoe, dagga), animals (koedoe,
kwagga), artefacts (kaross, kierie), topographical features (Karoo) and numer-
ous place names.
More commonly, however, Dutch had adjusted itself to the ‘new world’ of the
Cape by simply using words and formatives of Dutch for new referents. Thus
a species of large evergreen or semi-evergreen tree was designated essenhout,
‘ash’; the rock hyrax was called a dasje, ‘little badger’ (now dassie), Khoesan
groups living at or near the coast were designated Strandlopers, ‘beach-walkers’
and a large ox-like antelope goes to this day as wildebeest, ‘wild ox’. For other
items see J. Branford (1988).
Vocabulary, however, was a minor differentiating factor between Afrikaans
and Dutch as compared with pronunciation and grammar (du Toit 1897, cit.
Donaldson 1991: 33). President Paul Kruger, speaking in Holland in 1902, had
to warn his audience that they might not be able to understand him because
‘Ik spreek niet Hollandsch, maar Hollandsch-Afrikaansch’ (‘I am speaking not
Dutch, but Dutch-Afrikaans’) (cit. Zietsman 1992: 125).
Afrikaner scholarship at this time defined Afrikaans as a ‘white man’s lan-
guage’: as Langenhoven put it in 1914, ‘die één enigste witmans-taal wat in SA
gemaak is’ (‘the one and only white man’s language that was made in South
Africa’) (cit. Zietsman 1992: 197). Witmanstaal marginalises by implication the
Afrikaans of coloured speakers. Van Rensburg (1993: 146) distinguishes among
modern varieties between Kaapse Afrikaans, ‘Cape Afrikaans’ and Oosgren-
safrikaans, ‘Eastern Border Afrikaans’, claiming that the latter, regarded as
a ‘white’ language, is the principal basis for Standaard-Afrikaans, which is
impoverished as a result.

3.2 Codification
An important step in the codification of Afrikaans was the development of
a simplified spelling system which achieved a better fit between spelling and
pronunciation and a transformation of the appearance ‘on the page’ of thousands
of words of Dutch origin. Thus, for example, paard, ‘horse’, became perd,
schuit, ‘boat’, became skuit and vrouw, ‘woman’, became vrou.
The spelling rules as revised up to 1991 are published by the Suid-Afrikaanse
Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns with an official word list (hereafter SAAWK
1991), of which the first version appeared in 1917. A full-scale Woordeboek
van die Afrikaanse Taal (‘Dictionary of the Afrikaans language’), on which
 Mutual lexical borrowings 207

work was still in progress in 1998, was commenced at Stellenbosch in 1926.

Meanwhile, the Verklarende handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal (HAT),
is regarded as a particularly authoritative source.
SAAWK (1991) has a sprinkling of words of Nguni origin, such as
donga, ‘dry watercourse’ and songololo, ‘centipede’, as well as tsotsi, ‘street
criminal’ (origin uncertain). But others in common use in English speech or
the English press do not appear, for example, sangoma, ‘traditional healer’.
Many such words must be known and used in Afrikaans by Afrikaners, but
they clearly do not count as ingeburger (‘naturalised’), or at any rate not
yet.
Lexical items of obvious English origin do not, on the whole, count as
‘Afrikaans’. Honourable exceptions include enjin (‘engine’), gentleman and
whiskey. But brekvis, ‘breakfast’, juts, ‘judge’ and goewermentskool, ‘govern-
ment school’ (all in the quite scholarly bilingual dictionary of Steyn et al. 1925)
are out. Van der Merwe (1966: 214) writes feelingly of ‘die voortdurende stryd
van die Afrikaner teen Anglisismes’ (‘the enduring struggle of the Afrikaner
against Anglicisms’).
English meanings, however, have crept into the standard language by the back
door, typically in the form of loan translations (Donaldson 1991: 75). Thus HAT
(Odendaal 1983, cit. Donaldson (1991: 116) stigmatizes inhandig, ‘hand in’,
as ‘Anglisisme vir inlewer, ingee, indien’ (‘Anglicisms for hand in, submit’).
Donaldson has a twenty-page listing of what he sees as loan translations and
borderline cases. While he may not always be correct in identifying a given
expression as an ‘Anglicism’, his discussion of the difficulty of doing this is
admirably full and clear (Donaldson 1991: 28–84, 161–8).

3.3 Elaboration of function

Landmarks in the extension of the functions of Afrikaans include its adoption
as a language of instruction in schools (1914), its recognition alongside Dutch
as an official language (1925) and the publication of the first complete Bible in
Afrikaans (1933). A remarkable proliferation of governmental vocabulary, some
of it manufactured in extreme haste, began when virtually all state publications
had to appear both in English and Afrikaans.
Somewhat later came the drive to establish Afrikaans as a language of tech-
nology and of specialised disciplines (for details see Morris 1985). By 1985, at
least 250 technical dictionaries covering a wide range of fields had been pro-
duced (Morris 1985: 77). Language Services SADF (South African Defence
Force) became an imperium in imperio, one of its achievements being the trans-
lation of a French manual on minesweeping at sea into Afrikaans (Paul Keating,
personal communication). How much of the technical vocabulary thus created
came into actual use is unfortunately a matter for speculation.
208 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

An unhappy area of elaboration is that of the vocabulary of the apartheid

regime. Apartheid itself, marked ‘ZA’ (‘Zuid-Afrikaansch’) in Prick van Wely
(1960: 669) is apparently an Afrikaans construct. Bantoe, an ill-fated loanword
of African origin, met with such resistance from African people that it had to
be replaced in governmental usage by Swartes (‘blacks’). A subtle distinction
in what Brink (1988) calls ‘Apartaans’ is that between Asiër and Asiaat. Both
are persons of Asian descent, but the former is a South African citizen and the
latter is not (Combrink and Spies 1986: 16).
Elaboration of functions has strongly stimulated vocabulary growth: from
about 50,000 items early in the century to about 750,000 recorded items at
present (Raidt 1976: 177).

3.4 Acceptance
Evidence for the widespread acceptance of Standaard-Afrikaans as a model,
especially as regards vocabulary, is the success of such handbooks as H. J. J. M.
van der Merwe’s Die korrekte woord (seven impressions, 1966–82) and of
Combrink and Spies’s Sakboek van regte Afrikaans (1986). Anglicisms are
frequently targeted in both of these. The market for such guides may indicate a
measure of linguistic insecurity on the part of some of their buyers.
Such insecurity is not surprising in view of the wide gap between Standaard-
Afrikaans and the language of informal exchanges in shops, offices and homes.
In these – perhaps particularly among less-educated people (Donaldson 1991) –
both established and ad hoc borrowings from English abound. Consider the
following:
(1) Hoe kan ons hulle support as hulle ons nie kan supply nie? (‘How can we
support them if they can’t supply us?’)
(2) Hulle pay mos Vrydae. (‘Friday is their pay-day.’)
(3) Jy’s gechuff met jouself met daardie. (‘You’re chuffed about that.’)
(4) Maar [Dr X] was so boring. (‘But [Dr X] was so boring.’)
In (1), a remark by a bilingual East Cape shop assistant, support and supply
are from the specialised vocabulary of retail trading, used here probably to
extend the speaker’s range of reference and, like gechuff, probably an ad hoc
borrowing. Pay in (2) is a well-established lexical item in informal ‘coloured’
Afrikaans, used possibly for structural convenience. Gechuff was overheard in
Woolworths from a well-dressed white customer, and was chosen possibly for
its expressive force. Expressive force may also explain the choice of boring, the
verdict of a distinguished bilingual journalist in a post-mortem on an upmarket
Cape Town dinner-party. Goosen (1990) captures hundreds of fictional code-
switchings from Parow railway workers in the 1950s, e.g. ‘ons gaan Aunt Mavis
se hare perm’ (‘we’re going to perm Aunt Mavis’s hair’) and ‘hulle is usherettes’
 Mutual lexical borrowings 209

(‘they are usherettes’) in which the borrowings are again ‘specialised’ words,
like support and supply in (1).
Donaldson (1991: 281–4) notes the dependence of Afrikaans on English
for several swear-words, notably blerrie, ‘bloody’, and fokken, ‘fucking’. He
also notes the Afrikaans use of English farewells, among which he seems to
have missed koebaai, ‘goodbye’. Both swear-words and farewells look like
borrowings for expressive force.
Recent proposals for ‘alternative Afrikaans’ (Gerwel 1988), ‘Afrikaans and
liberation’ (Brink 1988) and ‘the democratisation of Afrikaans’ (van Rensburg
1993) are critical, directly or by implication, of Standaard-Afrikaans in its
present form. The focus of Brink and Gerwel, however, is less on linguistic
specifica than on the unhappy associations of Afrikaans with apartheid. Brink,
in particular, is concerned to point out that Afrikaans, now to some a symbol
of the oppressor, has early connotations of ‘freedom fighter’ echoing back to
Hendrik Bibault’s cry of defiance in 1707: ‘Ik ben een Afrikaander.’
In a new South Africa, Standaard-Afrikaans is likely to draw more widely for
its word-stock upon other languages of Africa. There are indicators in Woordelys
1991 (cf. SAAWK 1991), such as amalaita, that this process is already begin-
ning. But some critics of Standaard-Afrikaans seem to miss an important point.
This is that a standard variety, closely associated as it is likely to be with written
texts and formal occasions, is specialised for a particular set of contexts and
functions. Two long-established words in the colloquial ‘coloured’ Afrikaans
of George are klôgoed, ‘kids’, and klimmeid, ‘young girl’. Useful as these two
are, they are hardly items of standard Afrikaans. (Compare juleit, ‘to work’,
as in waar juleit julle? though this is perhaps Flaaitaal rather than Afrikaans
proper.) Hudson (1980: 34) points out that standard varieties are unusual be-
cause they are almost ‘pathological in their lack of diversity’. Hudson seems
to regret this, but greater diversity – such as the adoption, say, of klôgoed and
juleit – would deprive Standaard-Afrikaans of the relative homogeneity that
is the price of its necessarily public role. The key point is that any language
serving as many different communities as does Afrikaans will need not only a
standard variety but others too, some with specialised repertoires of vocabulary
beyond the standard’s domain.

4 ENGLISH

The status of English, from its very beginnings as a language of southern

Africa, differed significantly from those of Dutch-Afrikaans and Xhosa. By
1795, the year of the first British occupation, English was already one of the
most widely spoken languages of the world, with an established standard variety,
codified and elaborated. It already included, if marginally, a number of words
of South African origin from the narratives of travellers and naturalists. Kloof
had made its first appearance in an English text in 1731, agapanthus in 1769
210 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

and springbok (in its ‘animal’ sense) in 1775. Lord Chesterfield had already
referred to Dr Samuel Johnson as ‘a respectable Hottentot’.
Dutch was already well established at the Cape. The British moved into a
long-established colonial society with its own language and its own powerful
traditions and dynamics. Hence early borrowings include not only the expected
words for topographical features, living creatures and artefacts, e.g. drift (1795),
springer (1797), knobkerrie (1832) and veld (1835), all from or via Dutch, but
a substantial vocabulary of social institutions and the people who ran them, e.g.
commando (1790), field-cornet, drostdy (1796) and Volksraad (1836). Nouns
with concrete senses predominate in these early borrowings, and indeed in most
later ones, and loan translations are less common than in Dutch-Afrikaans.
This points to an ‘assimilative’ tendency in English generally despite the
efforts of some English purists, so that Lady Anne Barnard was able to refer
to her husband as Mynheer de Secretarius and sign herself in 1802 – probably
with at least an inner smile – ‘Your ever-faithful Vrouw’.
South African English in the early twenty-first century is not, of course, a
single variety. Though ‘racial’ labels are unfashionable and at times misleading,
the preliminary census data of 1996 indicate that English was spoken as ‘home
language’ by about 1.71m ‘whites’, 0.97m ‘Asians’, 0.58m ‘coloureds’, and
0.11m ‘blacks’. ‘Asian’ refers usually to Indians in census returns. In addition,
English is used as a ‘second first language’ by some thousands of Africans, many
in positions of influence and power. The figures and designations are here given
to underline the point that in a population where the barriers between one social
group and another are still as formidable as they are in present-day South Africa,
a language such as English will encode not one ‘world of experience’ but many,
so that the notion of ‘South African Englishes’ is at least complementary to that
of ‘South African English’.
Thus loanwords of African origin, such as mantshingilane, ‘night watchman’,
maphepha, ‘money’ and mashonisa, ‘money-lender’, are immediately intelligi-
ble to some users of English and opaque to others. An important range of vocab-
ulary, that of Indian English, has recently been opened up for study in Rajend
Mesthrie’s Lexicon of South African Indian English, with entries ranging from
bunny-chow, ‘a take-away meal comprising curry stuffed into the hollowed-
out part of a half or quarter loaf of bread’ (Mesthrie 1992: 8) to satyagraha,
‘non-violent struggle, soul-force, passive resistance as advocated by Gandhi’.
Gandhi coined this now-international word in Durban from Sanskrit.
Until the publication of Mesthrie’s data, it appeared that about half the vo-
cabulary of the ‘South African’ components of ‘South African English’ were of
Dutch-Afrikaans origin. W. Branford (1994) cites two estimates of languages of
origin, one based on 500 items chosen at random from Pettman’s Africanderisms
(1913) and the other on 2,549 drafts in the holdings in 1988 of the DSAE Hist.
at Rhodes University. The second listing, of all items for which the dictionary
unit had at that time drafted entries, is given in table 10.1.
 Mutual lexical borrowings 211

Table 10.1 Origins of SAE neologisms

Languages of origin: per cent

Africanderisms (1913) DSAE Hist (1988)

Dutch-Afrikaans 50 48
English 28 29
Southern Bantu 5 11
Other 17 12

Items of Khoesan origin were unfortunately counted only for the drafts of
1988, among which they numbered 1 per cent. There is a much higher input
from Dutch-Afrikaans than from Southern Bantu languages. This reflects both
the relative social distance of black people from white and the high degree of
Afrikaans–English bilingualism in the white population since the 1930s.
As already suggested, it seems that SAE has borrowed more extensively
from other languages of Africa than has Afrikaans. The apparent motives for
borrowings into SAE are, broadly speaking, those suggested in section 1:

(a) extension of range of reference in the majority of cases, but this often
influenced by (b);
(b) social solidarity (see below);
(c) in a few cases, directive needs as in hamba (Nguni; pleasantly glossed as ‘get
you gone’), voetsak (with similar meaning, a South African Dutch contrac-
tion of voort seg ik, ‘away, I say’) and pas op (‘watch out!’ from Afrikaans);
(d) convenience, as with bakkie, ‘light delivery van’ (Afrikaans) or tollie, ‘cas-
trated bull-calf’ from Xhosa via Afrikaans;
(e) in many cases, stylistic effect.

The clearest signals of social solidarity are, in encounters across languages, the
use of ‘other-language’ greetings, courtesies and farewells, such as the greeting
sakubona, ‘we see you’ (Zulu); enkosi (Xhosa) as a word of thanks; or hamba(ni)
kahle (Nguni) and its loan translation ‘go well’.
The commonest stylistic effect is in the use of ‘localising words’ as in Thomas
Hardy’s Drummer Hodge:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around.

More complex effects abound, as in

Doornfontein
ek sê
is not like it was
(Jiggs, i.e. Colin Smuts, in
Chapman 1981: 358)
212 W. Branford and J. S. Claughton

Here ek sê, ‘I say’, now a common interjection in English contexts, serves both
to ‘Afrikanerise’ the notion of ‘Doornfontein’ and as a phatic signal of solidarity
with the reader, identified as a person able to respond to ek sê.
The newspaper vocabulary of political abuse of the Afrikaner establish-
ment from 1948 onwards includes some key words of Afrikaans origin, such
as baasskap, ‘domination’ (1935); kragdadig, ‘forceful’ (1949); verkramp,
‘bigoted’ (1969); verlig, ‘enlightened’, often ironic (1968); and swart gevaar,
‘black danger’ as in swart gevaar politics (1939). How long these will last into
post-apartheid South Africa remains to be seen. The fate of Bantu/Bantoe was
sketched in section 3, but black liberation movements continue to use it as a
term of abuse, notably in ‘bantu education’, which in ANC usage has forfeited
the capitals that once distinguished it.
A few items of Afrikaans, notably the obscene moer as in a moerova klap, ‘a
helluva blow’, and the moer in, ‘fed up’, have also extended the SAE repertoire
of swear-words.
The popular stereotype of ‘Sow Theffricun Innglissh’ (Malan 1972: 5) is
still in some quarters something of a laughing matter – for details see Branford
(1976: 298). Serious study of the variety dates back at least to Charles Pettman’s
remarkable Africanderisms (1913). South Africa’s place in history and the
achievements of South African writers in English from Olive Schreiner onwards
have put a number of items of South African origin into world currency, among
them apartheid, Boer, commando, trek and veldskoen, all five of them with
immediate origins in Dutch-Afrikaans, though commando goes further back,
to Spanish. Jean Branford’s Dictionary of South African English (Branford and
Branford 1991) and Penny Silva et al.’s Dictionary of South African English
on Historical Principles (1996) have brought home to some of their readers the
semantic range and ‘resourcefulness’ of the English of their country, as well
as its ‘fun’ components, and the availability of these texts has probably had
some effect on the relative frequency of ‘South Africanisms’ in the press since
their first publication.

5 CONCLUSION

Conspicuous in this sketch is the contrast between the assimilative practices of

English and the prescriptive exclusiveness of official Afrikaans – in contrast
with the unofficial linguistic creativeness of so many Afrikaners in informal
speech.
For Xhosa, it remains to be seen whether the kind of investment in termi-
nology undertaken for Afrikaans will be possible or even desirable. Further
modernisation of the vocabulary seems inevitable, particularly since Xhosa is
already an important language of public administration. Traditional vocabulary
has a role suggested in the remark of Ndebele (1987: 2) that ‘indigenous
 Mutual Lexical Borrowings 213

languages’ for their mother-tongue speakers ‘can be a refuge away from the
manipulative impersonality associated with corporate English language acqui-
sition’. The same may hold for Afrikaans in a ‘new’ South Africa.
One aim of this chapter has been to suggest how the diversification of English
vocabularies in South Africa reflects the diversification of English-speaking
subcultures. Ndebele (1987: 2) reminds us that ‘the development of English in
many parts of the world has taken forms that have gone beyond the control of the
native speakers’. Surviving English purists may take heart from the following,
from a recent advertisement in the Eastern Province Herald:

Troubled with ‘unexplained’ events (Tokolosh)?

DON’T WAIT TILL IT’S TOO LATE!
Dr Dabula Manzi and Dr Nomaheza will consult the dolosse and solve your problems
All races welcome

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11 Code-switching, mixing and convergence in
Cape Town

K. McCormick

A child talking to herself . . .

Ek het die colour, nou where’s it? (‘I have this colour, now where’s it?’)
(KM MI1)1
An old man reminiscing . . .
It wasn’t a difference like it is today, (‘. . . no, if you’re white or black, you’re
nei of djy wit is of swart, djy’s one and one and the same.’)
the same. (CTOHP M Ab p. 16)

1 INTRODUCTION

The deft weaving of English and Afrikaans that characterises the above extracts
is a feature of those Cape Town speech communities in which code-switching
(CS) and mixing are common2 . At times it is conscious, and the listener is
aware that the speaker is enjoying playing with the languages, juxtaposing ele-
ments from each to create a particular effect. At other times language switching
appears to be quite unconscious, with none of the participants noticing where
switches occur (as with the child talking to herself). That, of course, can happen
only if frequent switching is part of the normal way of talking in the community.
Where it is, it can become a marker of the community’s sense of identity – it has
done so in District Six. CS takes many forms and serves a variety of purposes.
In this chapter we will focus on its forms and functions in one Cape Town com-
munity, but before doing that we will briefly consider how the phenomenon is
defined, and the kinds of contexts that are conducive to its occurrence.
CS can be used as a superordinate term, broadly defined as the juxtaposition
or alternation of material from two (or more) languages or dialects. (There are
some who argue that ‘style’ is also a code and that style shifting, even within
one dialect, should be regarded as CS.) When it comes to distinguishing among
different kinds of alternation, there is disagreement among scholars as to the
criteria for the definition of sub-categories of CS, particularly with regard to
length of switched elements (see Romaine 1989: 114). For example, some
scholars would use one category for alternation involving elements of any
length, from single words to long chunks of conversational turns, but would

216
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 217

distinguish this category from lexical borrowing. Others would agree that
lexical borrowing should be kept as a separate category but would argue that
a distinction should be made between intraclausal switches and interclausal
(or intersentential) switches because the first of these is likely to be syntactically
more complex.
The main kinds of criteria used for categorising types of language alternation
are formal ones, but other factors may also be considered. Two of these are
discernible stylistic or social function and apparent level of awareness of the
code change. As the words ‘discernible’ and ‘apparent’ suggest, judgements
involving these criteria are often subjective: sometimes in the situation there
are clear signals of function and speaker’s awareness, but often there are not.
I believe that the appropriateness of categories and their criteria cannot be
separated from what one wants to achieve in using the categories. Thus, in
this chapter I shall use different combinations of social, functional and formal
criteria for categorising material involving language alternation, depending on
what I want to illuminate in the related analysis. In the last section I shall
discuss the theoretical and metatheoretical problems that are raised by attempts
to categorise and analyse phenomena involving code alternation.
For the purposes of making some generalisations about social and discourse
patterns in the District Six speech community, I shall work initially with two
categories, CS and code-mixing (CM), and I shall argue that CM as a common
practice in a speech community can result in a fairly stable mixed code. I shall
define CS in formal terms as referring to the alternation of elements longer than
one word from two languages or dialects. In functional terms CS can often be
seen to serve specific purposes or have certain stylistic or social effects. CM, on
the other hand, will be taken to refer to speech in which the alternation is of
shorter elements, often just single words. There is thus intra-phrasal mixing
of vocabulary from two (or more) languages, and there may also be evidence
of distinctive structures from one language being ‘realised’ partly or wholly in
vocabulary from the other language. Clearly learners of a new language often
go through a phase that could be characterised in this way, but there are also
speech communities whose vernacular bears these characteristics, and it is with
that kind of situation that this chapter is concerned. In such cases, code-mixing
is not simply an individual speaker’s strategy, but is a commonly used process
which can result, as it has in District Six, in a fairly stable, widely used mixed
code. Of course, if one goes back far enough in time, almost every language can
be shown to be a mixed code. But in the type of mixed code we are dealing with
here, synchronic comparisons can be made between the mixed code and the
standard (or other regional) dialects of the languages whose elements comprise
the mixed code. The level of density of mixing in mixed vernaculars such as
that of District Six is striking to contemporary speakers of one or other of the
contributing languages. It may, however, be much less apparent to speakers who
218 K. McCormick

do not also speak the standard dialects of the languages involved: they may be
unaware of which language particular words belong to. That is particularly likely
when lexical items have been phonologically and morphologically adapted to
fit the receiving language. In terms of the contrasts I wish to work with initially,
the first extract below is an example of CS, and the second of CM:
(1) My ma het nie gewerk nie, my ouma het (My mother didn’t work, my grandmother
nie gewerk nie – she was a housewife. didn’t work . . . )
(CTOHP G Hend p. 4)

(2) Ou stock is lekkers wat gechip is af. (Old stock is sweets that have been
(CTOHP P Mil p. 27) chipped off.)

The two often occur together – in other words, a speaker will shift between a
dialect of one language and a mixed code, as in the following extract:
(3) Nou daai dae daar was nie carriers (Now in those days there weren’t
gewies nie, soos nou nie. Ons het carriers like [there are] now. We went
gegaan groceries haal en they made a to fetch groceries and . . . )
lovely parcel of brown paper. (CTOHP
G Hend. p. 2)

Switching of this kind, between a mixed code and one of its constituent lan-
guages, poses interesting practical, theoretical and metatheoretical challenges.
They will be touched on in the final section of the chapter.
The extracts given above are examples of one type of CS, commonly called
‘conversational code-switching’. The alternation of languages or dialects hap-
pens within a conversation on one topic, often within one speaker’s turn, and,
as we see above, even within one sentence. In another type, called ‘situational
code-switching’, the choice and changing of codes depend on situation, topic
and interlocutors. Bilingual or bidialectal speakers choose the code that is re-
garded by the community as appropriate for particular situations (e.g. a casual
conversation about children’s behaviour) or they are influenced by their sense
of who the person is whom they are addressing (e.g. a school principal, or a
stranger who is obviously a foreigner). A speaker may, of course, choose a code
that is unexpected in the circumstances, in order to make a point about how he or
she feels about the situation or the person being addressed. For example, he or
she may make a speech at a ceremonial occasion in informal vernacular instead
of in the formal register of the standard dialect in order to indicate disappproval
of the solemnity of the occasion.
Situational CS occurs to some extent in most bilingual and bidialectal speech
communities, but members of such communities do not necessarily engage in
conversational switching. Neither does CM automatically occur as a result of a
community’s bilingualism. The pattern of social relationships that is conducive
to conversational CS is one that involves frequent contact between speakers
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 219

of different languages in a variety of domains, in at least some of which they

have equal status. If this kind of contact situation persists over a long period
of time, and if speakers of the languages involved do not have an emotional
investment in keeping their home language free of influence from other lan-
guages, language mixing may occur which results in a degree of phonological,
morphological and/or syntactic convergence. Evidence of CS, language mix-
ing and convergence has been documented in bilingual and multilingual speech
communities all over the world – see, for example, Gumperz and Wilson (1971)
on Kannada, Urdu and Marathi in an Indian village; and Chana and Romaine
(1984) on Panjabi and English in Britain. Cape Town’s District Six constitutes
another example. What were the social conditions that facilitated the occurrence
of these processes in this part of the city?

2 THE DISTRICT SIX SPEECH COMMUNITY

The earliest map showing habitation of the area that later came to be called
District Six seems to be one dated 1820 (Cape Archives Depot M5/16), but
it was in the 1830s that rapid settlement began (Warren 1985). This was the
period of slave emancipation, and many former slaves made their homes there.
So did traders, merchants, artisans, specialists in various crafts and unskilled
labourers. Street directories show that it was not only a residential area but also
one in which many different economic activities had their base. This meant that
residents would have been able to interact not only as neighbours but also as
fellow workers and as providers and recipients of various goods and services.
A socio-economic framework of this kind provides the opportunity for the de-
velopment of what Lesley Milroy describes as ‘multiplex networks’ (1980: 21).
(These are networks whose members habitually interact in a number of differ-
ent domains.) The nature of such networks is of sociolinguistic significance
because it entails the need for network members to be able to talk to one an-
other on a range of topics – thus necessitating a wide shared vocabulary, and in
different domains – which means that different registers will be used. If two or
more languages are spoken in the community, then community members either
have to be very proficient in one another’s languages, or they all have to develop
the required proficiency in one or more lingua francas. From the evidence that
has come to light so far, it seems that it was the second of these alternatives that
facilitated communication in District Six. The languages that served as lingua
francas were Dutch and, later, English.
By the time people started to settle in the area that was later to be named Dis-
trict Six, a non-standard dialect of Dutch had been in use for some time among
many of the slaves born in the Cape, their descendants and the descendants
of those blacks who had been classed as ‘free blacks’ before emancipation.
Another dialect of Dutch was spoken in the homes of free burghers – whether
220 K. McCormick

or not it approximated closely to standard European Dutch would have de-

pended largely on the speakers’ level of education or the amount of first-hand
contact they had with the speakers of standard Dutch in the Netherlands. There
is evidence in written texts of various kinds that many native speakers of Dutch
in Cape Town (from families for whom it had been a home language for genera-
tions) were not able to produce standard Dutch even when they felt they needed
to do so, for example when they had to write official letters or documents
(see Raidt 1984).
With the British taking control of the Cape in the early nineteenth century,
English became an important language in Cape Town. An Anglicisation pol-
icy was instituted by Lord Charles Somerset, one of the early governors of the
colony. Legislation was passed which made English essential in certain kinds of
state employment, and also prescribed it as sole medium of instruction in schools
that received state funding. There were other factors accounting for the promi-
nence of English, for example, the presence of English-speaking immigrants and
the fact that the dominant commercial concerns were in the hands of English
speakers. Some immigrants from Britain and Ireland settled in District Six,
bringing a variety of English dialects to the area. Which regional dialects they
spoke is not easy to establish, because we do not have records of the places these
settlers came from. Having the right of free movement within the British empire,
they were not required to provide the kind of personal details officially required
of immigrants from other places. Sociolinguistic research is seriously hampered
by this lack of detail: it makes it almost impossible to say whether some non-
standard syntactic features of the English spoken in District Six could be residual
traces of British or Irish dialects spoken in the area in the nineteenth century.
Immigrants from other parts of the world who settled in District Six during
and after the nineteenth century tended to learn English rather than Dutch-
Afrikaans. It had more prestige, as the Cape was a British colony, and it was more
useful in the adjacent central business district. It seems also to have been a viable
lingua franca in the neighbourhood. During the nineteenth century immigrants
arrived from various parts of Europe, the largest group being Yiddish-speaking
Jews from Eastern Europe. District Six often provided new arrivals – especially
the poorer ones – with their first home, in one of its boarding-houses or in
rented accommodation. Some of the new arrivals were not from abroad, but
were migrants originating further north in Africa – in Natal, the Boer Republics,
Swaziland and Mozambique. The area grew very rapidly and landlords were
often guilty of allowing overcrowding and of neglecting their properties, factors
which were influential in the history of the area.
As this brief historical sketch indicates, District Six was a multilingual area in
the nineteenth century. It was less so thereafter. At the turn of the century most of
the black residents were forcibly removed to Ndabeni. By the 1940s most of the
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 221

Jewish community retained only their businesses in the area but lived elsewhere.
But even before they left, Yiddish was on the wane because most of the immi-
grants’ children became English speaking. The history of other immigrant com-
munities in the area has not been as extensively reported as has that of the Jewish
community, but it seems that it was common for children to become English-
dominant even if their parents’ language continued to be used in the home.
Although English was not the home language of the majority of District Six
families, all but six of the twenty schools in the area taught through the medium
of English only. Their classrooms and playgrounds provided the environment
in which many children – including Afrikaans speakers – gained their skills
in English. By the middle of the twentieth century, few languages other than
Afrikaans and English were heard on the streets and in the homes of District Six.
Our sense of what the day-to-day social relationships were like comes mainly
from oral history interviews recorded in and after the 1970s. Old people’s
memories, and their accounts of what their parents had experienced, give us
images of the neighbourhood going back as far as the last two decades of the
nineteenth century. It seems that, in spite of the variety of their origins, reli-
gions, languages and cultures, the area’s inhabitants did constitute a community
(Nasson 1988: 13). It was not without the tensions and divisions characteristic
of most communities, but there were also strong bonds forged by living in close
proximity and sharing facilities and also by some of the strategies devised for
coping with financial difficulties. Living conditions provided fertile ground for
language contact. Were attitudes towards the languages such that they would
facilitate or inhibit linguistic convergence? To answer that question, we need to
see whether people felt that their identity was strongly tied to the distinctiveness
of their home language.
In other parts of South Africa language has been a key factor in constructing
people’s sense of group identity, their own and that of others – take, for example,
constructs such as ‘the Zulu nation’, ‘the Afrikaners’ (meaning white Afrikaans
speakers, often nationalists) and ‘the English’ (meaning English speakers of
British descent). But this kind of strong link between one language and a group’s
sense of their identity did not mark the District Six community. By the 1950s
the vast majority of English and Afrikaans speakers living in District Six did
not fall into the categories usually denoted by the terms ‘the Afrikaners’ and
‘the English’, as they did not share the classification ‘white’. They had been
marginalised, largely through social and legal processes generated by racial pre-
judice. Their racially mixed ancestry was turned into a salient factor in excluding
them from rights and privileges enjoyed by other English and Afrikaans speak-
ers who were, or claimed to be, ‘pure’ white. It is well known that a concern for
racial or ethnic purity is often accompanied by a concern for linguistic purity –
miscegenation and linguistic borrowing both being regarded as unacceptably
222 K. McCormick

contaminating (see Ross 1979). In District Six, a concern for linguistic purity
came to be seen as the province of those whites who had declared them ‘other’
and rejected and often humiliated them. This was particularly the case regard-
ing Afrikaans after the nationalist ideal of racial segregation had led to the
implementation of a series of laws which destroyed the community, forcibly
removing 30,000 people and scattering them in far-flung areas.
In this context, the local dialect of Afrikaans, the lexicon of which contained
many items originally English, grew in symbolic value. It was the language of
neighbourhood solidarity, its form clearly a product of easy contact between
different ethnic groups and thus a reminder of a valued social order that had
prevailed in District Six for more than the first century of its existence. This
order was very different from the one that was the goal of successive apartheid
governments, namely the rigid separation of ethnic or racial groups.
Only one small area of District Six, an island created by arterial roads, was
left intact. Among its factories and warehouses there were 212 homes, 2 schools,
a church, 2 community centres and 3 shops. The rest was demolished.

3 DATA GATHERING

It was this neighbourhood that provided the data on which the following analysis
of CS is based. Access to the community came through a chance meeting with
someone who served on the management committee of the Marion Institute,
one of the local community centres. The Marion Institute became the base
from which I made many other contacts. Data include fifty-two hours of tape-
recordings of interviews, meetings, families at home and pre-school children
playing and talking to one another and to me. (There are recordings of approx-
imately one hundred and forty-three speakers who come from 35 per cent of
the homes in the neighbourhood.) I did some interviewing, but most of it was
done by people who had either been to school or lived in the area and shared
the neighbourhood’s linguistic repertoire. (For a detailed account of the use of
observation and interviews, see McCormick 1989b: 31–57.)
As no sociolinguistic history of the area had been written, I examined other
kinds of historical analyses in order to get an idea of some of the factors that
influence language use: socio-economic conditions, social relationships, reli-
gious affiliations, educational institutions, cultural groups and leisure activities
(see McCormick 1989b: 61–95). I also examined primary sources such as street
rolls, church records and transcripts of oral history interviews. The range of sur-
names on street rolls gave some indication of home languages that might have
been spoken in that street. Some street rolls and church records provided infor-
mation about the employment of people whose names they recorded. Church
records such as marriage registers, which required signatures, gave a sense of
the level of basic literacy among congregants. The two oral history projects on
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 223

which I drew had been designed to give broad coverage of social history. (These
are both based at the University of Cape Town: the Cape Town Oral History
Project in the history department and the Jewish Oral Histroy Project in the
Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research.) Neither had
a strong focus on language, but the transcripts were rich in sociolinguistically
relevant information, particularly about social networks of various kinds.

4 THE LINGUISTIC REPERTOIRE

Before going on to look at CS, let us establish briefly what the codes in the
repertoire are. (Of course not everyone has equal command of all of its codes.)
The names in inverted commas are those most commonly used by members
of the speech community. Contrasting modes of referring to local English and
Afrikaans indicate that the English is not seen as a dialect but as imperfectly
learned English, whereas speakers are quite clear that their Afrikaans is a dialect
in its own right, albeit one with low prestige. The term kombuistaal, as members
of the speech community use it, covers both non-standard Afrikaans (nsA)
and switching between English and Afrikaans strings. They do not distinguish
between mixing and switching, whereas I have found that for certain purposes
I need to be able to do so. The term that I use to cover all non-standard local
usages (of English, Afrikaans, switching and mixing) is ‘the vernacular’.
Kombuistaal should, I think, be regarded as a mixed code in itself – mixing
is not just a speaker strategy. English loanwords form a high proportion of its
speakers’ vocabulary and there seems to be English influence in verb-placement
rules. But for the rest the syntax is clearly Afrikaans. Kombuistaal has been used
for a long time; thus, while the gates of its lexicon are open, its grammatical
structure is fairly stable. The case of local English is almost the reverse: as
the higher prestige language its lexicon has absorbed little from Afrikaans,
but because it is in the process of becoming a first language, its grammatical
structure is not as stable. It is commonly introduced to children by parents whose
first language is the local dialect of Afrikaans. Because of the nature of that
dialect, speakers have quite a large English vocabulary but because they have

STANDARD AFRIKAANS STANDARD ENGLISH

V E R N A C U L A R

non-standard Afrikaans E/A code-switching non-standard English

‘ kombuistaal ’ ‘broken English’

11.1 Schematic representation of the linguistic repertoire

224 K. McCormick

seldom had sufficient formal education to have acquired a mastery of standard

English (sE) syntax and idiomatic usage, they use word-for-word translations
or calques in talking English to their children. Most of the distinctive features of
this L2 variety of English are not being entrenched because the neighbourhood’s
children have far more formal education than their parents did and therefore
have more exposure to and drill in sE syntax. They also have the motivation to
learn to speak and write sE. At present local English does not seem to have any
particular social value, and thus there is no apparent reason for its speakers to
wish to preserve its distinctive features. This is not true of nsA, which is valued
as warm, intimate and a sign of membership of the community.

4.1 Situational code-switching

Information on situational CS comes mainly from interviews, but it was supple-
mented by observation. (It should be remembered that people’s self-reporting
may be inaccurate, as they may be unaware of switching.) The picture derived
from interviews is that the vernacular is the only code acceptable for infor-
mal neighbourhood interaction. The use of the standard dialects of English or
Afrikaans would be seen as an aberration or as unacceptably socially distanc-
ing. In response to the question ‘How would you feel if one of your neighbours
spoke to you in ‘pure English’ or ‘suiwer Afrikaans’?’, the following responses
were typical:
(4) Dan sal ek sê vir hom, ‘Jong, jy moet (Then I would say to him ‘Hey, you
nou reg praat!’ must talk properly now!’)

(5) They going to say Ja? What’s wrong ( . . . Yes?)

with you? Keeping yourself high and
mighty?

However, if people from the area are gathered together for a formal occasion,
such as a meeting, then the code that is felt to be appropriate is sE. An analysis
of tape-recordings of meetings shows that in committee meetings, at points
where heated debate arises, English may well be abandoned in favour of the
vernacular without any official sanctioning of this change of code, and very
possibly without the participants’ being aware that there has been a change. In
the extract below, which is taken from a rugby club’s committee meeting, we
see the chairperson (whose turns are the first and the last) using fairly formal
English. The members, who are heatedly debating the penalties for dagga-
smoking, break with the formality of English discussion and use the vernacular.
In attempting to establish or restore order to the discussion, the chairperson
(A) uses English, which is the accepted language of the discourse of meetings.
(The recording as a whole showed that when debate was not heated, it was
conducted in English.)
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 225

(6) A. I want proposals. I don’t want

suggestions any more.
J. Dis nie ’n suggestion nie! (It’s not a suggestion!)
C. I don’t want any rank imperialism!
J. Wat sê hulle van tien rand, dan bied (What do they say about ten rand, then
ons more or less? we offer more or less?)
A. Mr H– prop-, uh, suggested ten rand
H. Vyf rand (Five rand.)

Approximately 20 per cent of the neighbourhood’s homes are English speaking

and have been for three generations. In the others, the vernacular is the code for
family conversations, but increasingly parents are trying to speak only English
to their children, even when they continue to use the vernacular with each other
and in conversation with older relatives. The reason seems to be that they feel
it gives children an early start in a language that will be important in their edu-
cational, social and economic advancement. This mother’s explanation was
echoed by many others:

(7) Ek praat all the way net Engels met
hulle. Nou ek dink as jy vir hulle in
Engelse klasse sit hulle kry eerste
privilege, man. Because why? Jy
gaan ver deur die lewe nou met
Engels. Jy kry first privilege as jy
nou – Kyk, even as jy nou ’n bruin
meisie is nou but as jy praat Engels,
dan kry jy sommer gou ’n job.
(I talk all the way only English to them.
Now I think that if you put them in
English classes they get first privilege,
man. Because why? You go far in
life now with English. You get first
privilege if you now – Look, even if you
are now a brown girl but if you speak
English then you get a job really easily.)

In such homes, CS would obviously occur very frequently. Among bilinguals

there are a few topics of conversation that seem to be associated with partic-
ular codes. For example, interviewees report that technological topics are dis-
cussed in English whereas intimate relationships are discussed in the vernacular,
English being ‘too cold’ for such matters. However, the code-switch would
mostly be conversational rather than situational.

4.2 Conversational code-switching

Conversational CS is very common and seems to be largely unconscious, though
there are times when a switch achieves a clearly calculated effect, as, for
example, in delivering the punch-line of a joke. The following extract of a
conversation between two women shows several of the features characteris-
tic of code-switching in this community, such as fluent unhesitating transition
from one language to the other, and stylistic effects such as contrast, balance
and emphasis. (Overlapping speech is indicated by placing and by bracketing.)
226 K. McCormick

(8) M: Maar nou sy was sy was ook so (But now she was she was also like
gewees but now she can’t that . . . )
anymore.

Now it makes her feel
depr essed
C: Depress, ja
M: You see
Because

C: ja
M: she like also –
like you, she likes to visit in the
afternoons


C: ja lekk er (Yes, nice
M: as sy nou if she had now
klaar

werk gedoen het in die finished

working in the
ogg ende
mor nings

C: ja man
yes, man
M: dan lyk sy – then she liked . . .)
O: You must
have fresh air. You must have
fresh air.
M: Then she goes
and visit this one and that one.
O: Yes. Even sy – gaat jy nie – as (Even she – if you don’t go – if I don’t
ek nie uitgaan uit my huis uit nie go out of my house then I don’t feel right.)
dan voel ek ook nie reg nie. I
must have fresh air.

Conversational CS has a range of pragmatic and stylistic functions. When a

speaker cannot recall or does not know a word in one language but can re-
call it in the other, he or she may either just insert that word as a loanword
into the sentence, or it may become the first word in a switch to the other
language. That is what happens in the first switch below. The (temporary)
memory lapse is signalled by repetition of the article and voiced hesitation,
‘the, the, uh’.
(9) That is the day – really a day of giving
too because the, the, uh kinders kom en (. . . children come and
hulle wil ook ’n stukkie eet nou uh, the – I they also want a bit to eat . . . )
would have just made the curry. Hoeveel (How much
is sewentig twee rand? But nevertheless is seventy [times] two rand?)
we can still work that out.

A language switch may signal a shift in focus, as in the third and fourth switches
in the example given above. It can also enable the speaker to incorporate useful
set phrases or idioms from the other language:
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 227

(10) Die Slaams sê regtig, straight,seg hy, (The Muslim says straight. . . he says
hy kan nie gaat baklei vir king and he can’t go fight for king and country.
country nie. Hy moet baklei vir sy He must fight for his faith.)
geloof.

The idiomatic phrase ‘king and country’ has no Afrikaans equivalent, and it
has strong emotive associations of particular kinds of loyalties and bonds from
which he wants to dissociate himself, as the rest of the interview makes clear. In
terms of the definition I gave in the opening section of the article, the first English
element in this extract, ‘straight’, would not normally qualify for classification
as a switch because it is too short. But, as is often found in code-switches, it
has a clearly discernable rhetorical function: it is repeating the meaning of the
previous word and therefore seems to have been included for the purpose of
emphasis. It is not filling a lexical gap. I would thus regard it as an example of
the phenomena that challenge the validity of categorical classification on one
criterion alone. Creating emphasis by means of repetition in another language
is a common strategy in this community (and many others). The repeated ele-
ments can vary in length from a word to a whole sentence. Quotations can be
foregrounded by a language switch:
(11) Now when I get home I tell them (Bring now your two rand, the two
‘Bring nou julle twee randjies, julle rand [that] you pay.)
twee randjies julle pay.’

But, as is often the case when a language switch coincides with quotation,
the code chosen for the direct speech should not be assumed to be the one
that was actually used. In this case there is clearly room for uncertainty as to
which code was used in the exchange she reports because, two turns later, when
completing her account of this particular conversation, the speaker says: ‘Now I
tell them, “Don’t bring nothing to eat.”’ The function of the switch in such cases
is often simply to signal that material is being quoted and to foreground it – it
may be doing little more than serving the function that inverted commas do in
writing.
Semantic contrast and balance in syntactic structure can be highlighted by
having the two focal sections in different languages:
(12) Somige van die members praat (Some of the members speak Afrikaans . . . )
Afrikaans but the predominant
language is English.

Although CS in utterances such as these is likely to occur below the level

of consciousness, it has identifiable stylistic effects. In a community where it
is the norm, speakers are able to draw on a bigger linguistic pool than they
would be if they and their interlocutors were monodialectal or monolingual.
As Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez (1972: 98) assert, ‘code switching is also
228 K. McCormick

a communicative skill, which speakers use as a verbal strategy in much the

same way that skillful writers switch styles in a short story’.

5 CONVERGENCE

Given the nature of the social context in which English and Afrikaans have been
in contact in District Six, and given the fact that many Afrikaans-dominant
parents are speaking mainly L2 English to their children, it is not surpris-
ing that local varieties of both languages display signs of linguistic conver-
gence. The influence of English on Afrikaans is clearly present in the lexicon
of local Afrikaans, which has absorbed an enormous number of English words.
It may also have influenced some syntactic forms. The extent of the influence
of Afrikaans on English is not easy to establish. The lexicon has absorbed
relatively little, but the syntax may well have been affected by contact with
Afrikaans. Several non-standard structures parallel those of Afrikaans but, as
they are also found in several regional dialects of British English, it is not clear
what their origin was. Another possibility is that some of the features of local
English arose as an effect of the processes of second-language acquistion. We
know that, in the nineteenth century, there was a variety of home languages in
District Six, while in the twentieth century Afrikaans would have been the most
common first language. Should this lead us to ask when the distinctive features
of local English were crystallised, and thus to try to establish which features
would have come from which of the community’s home languages? Probably
not. The view that transfer of features from the learner’s home language is
what accounts for deviations from the target variety has been challenged as
being only partly true: some features will be directly traceable to the learner’s
first language but others will not. Recent research on the acquisition of both
first language and additional languages provides grounds for believing that
psycholinguistic processes are at work which lead to similarities in learners’
production of the target language, whatever their home language. Williams
(1987) discusses several features of non-native varieties of English that occur
in places with very different linguistic contexts. In South Africa some of these
features can be seen in District Six and in the English spoken in the Natal
Indian community (see Mesthrie 1992). The language backgrounds of the two
communities are very different. Williams also argues that there is a category
of similar features in L2 varieties of English that probably stems from pecu-
liarities of English itself, which learners try to regularise. Thus we see that
it is not a simple matter to account for the characteristic features of a dialect
that has arisen in a language-contact situation. Whatever their origin, however,
syntactic convergence is noticeable in District Six dialects in structures that are
still distinctive in the standard dialects. Let us look in more detail at the signs
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 229

of lexical and syntactic convergence. (The extent of phonological convergence

is a topic yet to be researched.)

5.1 Lexical convergence

The most conspicuous evidence of intensive contact between the two languages
is in the lexicon of local nsA. Analysing the presence of English imports into
the Afrikaans lexicon, we find that nouns predictably constitute the largest
class of loanwords, followed in this order by adjectives, verbs, adverbs and
conjunctions. The only Afrikaans word classes that appear to have remained
entirely intact and uneroded by English are the prepositions and the personal
pronoun system. There are also examples of the extension of function of a few
Afrikaans words, the result of which is that they have the same semantic range
as their English equivalents. An example is the extended function of the word
for ‘that’. The contracted form daai of demonstrative adjective daardie (‘that’)
is frequently used as a pronoun and can be used as a subject or object, just as
that can used be in English, whereas standard Afrikaans (sA) would require
a noun after daai.
(13) Daai’s nou wat sy aim voor. Sy’s hoog (That’s now what she aims for. She’s
tevrede met daai. very satisfied with that.)

As is common in so many other language-contact situations it is mainly

open-class words that are borrowed, but there are instances of loanwords from
a closed class as well. Bynon (1977: 231) interprets such prolific borrowing
as indicative of a particular type of language contact: ‘It would at any rate
seem likely that borrowing from closed classes will only be possible in situa-
tions of intense linguistic exchange since it presupposes the cross-linguistic
equation of syntactic patterns, whereas mere lexical borrowing from open
classes would require only a minimum of bilingual speakers in the transmission
process.’

5.2 Morpho-syntactic convergence

As was indicated in section 2 above, conditions in District Six were conducive to
‘intensive linguistic exchange’. In the following discussion of morpho-syntactic
features I give evidence of some ‘cross-linguistic equation of syntactic patterns’.
Whatever its origin might be, equation is evident. The analysis that follows is,
for reasons of space, not comprehensive. I deal with just a few examples, starting
with a feature of nsA that may have arisen as a result of contact with English.
Thereafter I examine a few features of non-standard English (nsE) that differ
from those of standard English, are similar to those for the equivalent structures
230 K. McCormick

in Afrikaans, but in most cases are also found in other dialects of English and
also in L2 varieties.

5.2.1 Afrikaans
The most striking syntactic feature of nsA distinguishing it from sA is the
violation of verb-placement rules. In sA, when the verb consists of a modal
or a tense/aspect auxiliary plus main verb, these verb components are split in
certain contexts and other elements are placed between them. In such contexts,
the first auxiliary is in second position (or third, if the clause is introduced by
some conjunctions), and the rest of the verb is in clause-final position. What
happens in nsA is that there are various kinds of rightward movement of material
normally found in between auxiliary and main verb in sA, with the consequent
concentration of verb components in second position in nsA. This means that
the word order in nsA is closer to its English counterpart than in the sA word
order. In the examples that follow, the sA version is given first, and the nsA
second. Verb and auxiliary are in bold print to highlight their positions relative
to each other and to other material in the clause or sentence.
(14a) Ons moet altwee bestudeer.
(14b) Ons moet study altwee. (We must study both.)
(15a) toe het hy na die prokureur gegaan
(15b) toe hy het gegaan na die lawyer (then he went to the lawyer)

5.2.2 English
Local English syntax has far more non-standard features than does local
Afrikaans. In the following list of distinctively non-standard morpho-syntactic
features of English, those constructions that have direct parallels in sA are
marked with (+A), those that occur in other first-language dialects of English
are marked with (+OE) and those that are very frequently found in the second-
language varieties spoken in different parts of the world are marked with
(+EL2). This marking serves to remind the reader that convergence is not
always clearly traceable to its source(s).
(a) Verb-related features
(i) Number concord
The verb ‘to be’ as both auxiliary and main verb usually has the same form
for third person singular and plural. It is the standard English third person
singular form. This is more predictable where the subject is not a pronoun
and where the verb is the copula or one of the auxiliaries ‘has’ or ‘have’.
(+A +OE +EL2)
(16) The neighbours is bringing me up to school.
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 231

Standard English rules for number concord are found to apply more often to
other verbs, but where they do not, some speakers reveal an interesting re-
versal that may, perhaps, be based on the extension of the rule for pluralising
nouns: ‘add an -s to indicate plural’. Thus we find that verbs may take a word-
final -s if the subject is plural, and have no word-final -s where the subject
is singular. (In other words they place what is the sE plural form after a singu-
lar subject and vice versa.) But this near reversal is not found in the majority
of speakers in my data: there are more instances of non-standard concord
rules applying in singular subject–verb constructions than in plural ones. (As
the second example below suggests, the plural concord pattern is unstable.)
(17) If somebody chop it then it fall down.
(18) They drink and they makes a lot of noise.
Perhaps what we see here is tension between two tendencies, the one to-
wards simplification (moving towards having one verb form for both singu-
lar and plural subjects), and the other towards regularising ways of indicat-
ing singular and plural in nouns and verbs (word-final -s for plural but not
for singular forms). It will be interesting to examine concord data from this
community twenty to thirty years hence, when today’s pre-schoolers are
raising children, having themselves had twelve years of English-medium
schooling – concord rules receive a great deal of attention in the classroom!
(ii) Tense, aspect and modal marking
Past tense is frequently indicated by using did unemphatically. (+A +OE
+EL2) This is particularly common among children but it is not exclusive
to them.
(19) He did eat his food.
It is possible that the form is created by analogy with Afrikaans, which does
not use a dummy verb in the past tense but which almost always has two
elements to mark the past tense: the participle het and the main verb pre-
fixed by ge-. Mesthrie (1999) argues that Afrikaans influence is but one of
many possible convergent influences here. He attempts to trace the origins
of this unstressed dummy do to the standard English of the late eighteenth
century, but finds only a few cases in early settler English in South Africa
that resemble present-day District Six and Cape Flats usage. He concludes
that the archaic English preaching style of the missionaries is a more likely
influence. Another contribution of Mesthrie is to observe that rather than
functioning as a grammatical marker of the past tense, unstressed do is
today used with pragmatic effect: to mark off a verb phrase as ‘salient’.
(b) Placing of adverbials
The adverbial may immediately precede the object where it cannot do so in sE.
(+A +EL2)
232 K. McCormick

(20) My daddy bring me tonight chips.

Adverbs of time precede those of place instead of the reverse, which is the sE
order. (+A +EL2)
(21) I’ll go now on the bed.

This placing of adverbials has, as far as I know, no equivalent in other first-

language dialects of English.
(c) Calques
Calques (or word-for-word translations) are a very common L2 phenomenon,
whatever languages are involved, before learners are able to use the L2 idiomat-
ically. In my corpus of data there are more examples of calques in the speech of
children than in that of adults, but I would not claim that this proportion is truly
representative of what happens in the community. Presumably those parents
who are Afrikaans speaking but bringing their children up as English speaking
would frequently use calques in talking to the children. Some examples from
nursery-school children:
(22) Pappa did go with Preston, Pappa’s friend, so mamma did scold him out.
(The Afrikaans equivalent is het hom uitgeskel.)
(23) Teacher, I did tell for Warren that if he pick up that dead kakkerlak [cockroach]
then he’s going to get Ages [Aids]. (The Afrikaans from which the calque is
derived is ek het vir Warren gesê.)

6 CHALLENGES POSED BY DISTRICT SIX CODE-SWITCHING

Given that the two codes share lexical items and syntactic structures which
their standard counterparts do not, and given also that there is evidence of some
phonological convergence – a matter not touched on here – it is easy to see that
the boundaries between the local dialects of English and Afrikaans are far less
clear than those separating the standard dialects of the two languages. Where
there is CS between the two local dialects it is often impossible to pinpoint
the site of the switch because a word that may seem English to an outsider
is, to an insider, firmly established as an item in the local Afrikaans lexicon.
The speaker may not even know that it was originally English and that there
is another word for it in Afrikaans. Whose perspective should be used in cate-
gorising these lexical items? Different perspectives would give rise to different
analyses.
If one seeks a theoretical framework in an attempt to find reliable reference
points, one finds that there are no clear answers to the questions ‘When does
a loanword cease to be regarded as a foreign item?’ and ‘On what basis are
converging language structures accepted (by theorists) as rules in the codes that
are being forged through intensive language contact?’ (See Clyne 1987 and
 Code-switching, mixing and convergence 233

McCormick 1989a). Without answers to these and related questions, one cannot
proceed with a linguistic analysis of CS that attempts to discover whether there
are syntactic constraints on intra-sentential CS. Metatheoretical issues about
perspectives on and criteria for classification need to be identified and clarified,
otherwise ad hoc decisions will continue to be made about linguistic aspects of
convergence and CS in situations of prolonged and intensive contact, such as
that in District Six.

notes
1 The initials CTOHP indicate that the tape is in the possession of the Cape Town Oral
History Project, and the accompanying initials and page numbers identify the section
of the relevant transcript. The spelling conversions used in the CTOHP transcripts have
been retained in quotations. The other transcripts, which are all from my data, do not
attempt to capture pronunciation, except in cases where it is sufficiently well known
to have been represented in literary texts dealing with the area. Here and throughout
the chapter, italics are used for Afrikaans words and utterances.
2 The research on which this chapter is based was made possible by the generous
financial grants received from the University of Cape Town and the Human Sciences
Research Council. The research would not have been possible without the friendly
co-operation of members of the speech community and without the skills of the
interviewers. My thanks to all the people and institutions involved.

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switching’. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 5, 6: 447–73.
Clyne, M. 1987. ‘Constraints on code switching: how universal are they?’ Linguistics,
2, 5: 739–64.
Gumperz, J. J. and E. Hernandez-Chavez 1972. ‘Bilingualism, bidialectalism, and class-
room interaction’. In C. Cazden, V. P. John and D. Hymes (eds.), Functions
of Language in the Classroom. New York: Columbia Teachers’ College Press,
pp. 84–108.
Gumperz, J. J. and R. Wilson 1971. ‘Convergence and creolization: a case from the
Indo-Aryan/Dravidian border in India’. In D. Hymes (ed.), Pidginization and
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1989b. ‘English and Afrikaans in District Six: A Sociolinguistic Study’. Ph.D. thesis,
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linguistics of South African Indian English. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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1999. ‘Fifty ways to say I do: tracing the origins of unstressed do in Cape Flats
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Nasson, B. 1988. ‘Oral history and the reconstruction of District Six’. Upstream
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12 Code-switching in South African townships

S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

1 INTRODUCTION
Language contact, including contact within the Bantu language family, is not a
new phenomenon. However, switching languages or linguistic varieties within
the same conversation, or code-switching (CS) as it is termed, is a dynamic
and growing phenomenon as contact between speakers of various languages
throughout the world continues to increase. This chapter offers an introduction
to the relationship between social history and linguistic studies on CS in South
African townships, as well as some contexts within which CS is practised in
South African townships. Thereafter, a sociohistorical overview of a variety of
perspectives on CS research will be given.
The term ‘code-switching’ will be used in this chapter to include full consti-
tuents as well as single lexemes. No distinction will be made between ‘noun
switching’ (Poplack 1981: 171), ‘nonce borrowings’ (Sankoff and Vanniarajan
1990), code-mixing (CM) (Kachru 1978) and code-switching. Myers-Scotton
(1993b: 24) notes in this regard that many CS researchers do not make clear
how they classify single lexemes. In particular they are not willing to label
as borrowed forms all singly occurring forms drawn from another lan-
guage, so ‘code-mixing’ becomes a compromise designation. The distinction
between CS and borrowing is also still unresolved. In this chapter the term
‘code-switching’ will include references to singly occurring forms as well as to
intrasentential and intersentential CS within, as well as across, conversational
turns.

2 LINGUISTIC STUDY AND SOCIAL HISTORY

The cultural and linguistic richness of the multilingual communities within

the townships of South Africa creates a reservoir of continually growing and
changing CS data. The growth of CS has stimulated academic research both
nationally and internationally with the result that CS today is one of the most
topical subjects in sociolinguistics. South African studies in CS run parallel
with those in the rest of Africa, and the work of Myers-Scotton (1993a, 1993b)
in particular has been seminal in this regard.

235
236 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

Brown (1992: 71) refers to the problematic nature of ‘the relationship between
individual and social behaviour on the one hand, and language on the other’. He
argues that it is necessary to consider language, in all its modes and forms, as
a social product (Dittmar 1976). For him a critical analysis of linguistic theory
in South Africa and its practices is needed to reveal the social perspectives
and ideologies that have underpinned it. This remark is apt in the context of
African language research. Initially, interest in the African languages stemmed
from a strictly structural perspective which included phonetics, phonology,
morphology and historical comparative linguistics with a strong emphasis on
what was regarded as ‘the exotic’ and the unusual. More recently, however,
interest has shifted to the social and functional use of the African languages in
South Africa. This shift is indicative of parallel developments in social history.
For example, in the past there was a strict division of communities into
racially divided ethnic groups with a concomitant pressure for language purity.
This ideology spawned studies which frequently focused on the phenomenon of
‘borrowing’ or the ‘adopting’ of speech sounds and lexical items from the colo-
nial languages by the indigenous languages. The emphasis on the interaction
between the colonial languages and the indigenous languages in CS patterns
is furthermore a typical feature of CS studies in Africa and other post-colonial
societies.
To a large extent interest in the social and functional use of the African
languages goes hand in hand with the increase in contact between different
communities. The more intense the interlingual contact between the peoples of
South Africa has become, the more complex the exchange of linguistic items at
all levels has become. Whereas in the past language contact would have resulted
primarily in phonetic and lexical interference, today in the urban areas all
linguistic levels show the effects of contact: phonology, morphology, syntax and
discourse. Extensive CS raises on its part theoretical questions about language
change, shift and convergence, and the pragmatic issues that are associated with
each of them.
The aim of this chapter therefore is to collate, contextualise and discuss,
from a sociohistorical point of view, different perspectives evident in the var-
ious studies of CS in South African townships undertaken during the last ten
years.

3 LANGUAGE USE WITHIN THE URBAN/TOWNSHIP ENVIRONMENT

Harrison et al. (1997: 43) describe ‘townships’ as ‘all those areas previously
reserved for African settlement under apartheid laws, including formal town-
ships, site-and-service areas and informal settlements’. Because of their ethnic
diversity, the townships spawned an increasing and urgent desire for people to
demonstrate both their independence and interdependence. At the same time
 Code-switching in South African townships 237

township dwellers attempted to circumvent the restrictive laws and practices of

apartheid. One of the ways in which this desire became manifest is language use.
CS at all levels became a means by which both individuals and groups expressed
and identified themselves as being capable of breaking down and transcending
the institutionalised ethnic barriers of apartheid. More specifically, patterns of
the urban language play a vitally important role in establishing not only the
urban or township identity of the individual, but also the identity of the many
sub-groups that can be found within these communities.
The question may well be asked as to why there should be CS at all? A
partial answer is that people from the different language groups residing in the
townships have needed to get to know each another and to accommodate each
other in this environment. The strategy of switching codes is most often used as
a form of accommodation rather than alienation. In the absence of a majority
language people have had to learn each other’s languages in the townships.
Within these melting pots no particular language has become dominant. This
is one of the unique linguistic aspects of the townships: no single lingua franca
serving the entire populace has developed, although one does find in certain
townships a regionally predominant language, such as Zulu in Soweto.
All eleven official languages of South Africa may be involved in the practice
of CS in different places: Xhosa, Zulu, Swati and Ndebele (the Nguni lan-
guages), Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho and Tswana (the Sotho languages),
together with Venda and Tsonga, and Afrikaans and English (the colonial lan-
guages). However, the range of languages that are involved in CS itself would
depend on a number of factors such as the geographical area (which deter-
mines which languages are dominant), the patterns of urbanisation and the
migrant-labour system. Not all languages are part of the CS repertoire of
Gauteng. Tsonga and Venda, because of their generally accepted low-status
position in the past, do not generally participate in CS in the townships outside
the Northern Province. With the move away from Afrikaans the status of English
in general has grown. This would account for the relatively large frequency of
English in CS.
Political factors have further exacerbated the complexity of the language
situation in the townships. For example, the growth and decline of the use of
Afrikaans in CS is related to the rise and decline of Afrikaner political power.
The use of Zulu CS in the townships has also had a political dimension. Before
the 1994 general election, foregrounding of Zulu linguistic identity became
associated with being a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party. Thus, as Zulu
linguistic identity became politicised, Zulu speakers became more accommo-
dating and less inclined to foreground their linguistic identity (Finlayson and
Slabbert 1997a: 416).
An important factor concerns the relative functional value of the languages of
the townships, especially in relation to the emerging dichotomy between ‘deep’
238 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

and ‘urban’ varieties. ‘Deep’ refers to the older, rural and relatively ‘pure’
varieties of African languages, in contrast to their urbanised forms which have
greatly departed from those norms. Inter-ethnic communication is enhanced
by the urban varieties and CS, while use of a single ‘deep’ variety can lead
to miscomprehension. A related development in the Gauteng area is the use
of Southern Sotho as a bridge between the Nguni and Sotho language groups.
There is often a switch to Southern Sotho when an interaction between a Nguni
and a Sotho speaker occurs.
All these factors have added a further dimension to the already complex nature
of the language milieu. The following example from a conversation in Soweto,
a township in the Johannesburg area, is typical of the type of switching that
occurs (English, caps; Tswana, italics; Afrikaans, bold caps; Southern Sotho,
bold; Tsotsitaal, italic caps):
it depends gore o na le bomang. for instance, if ke na le mathoka go ya ka gore ba
KRYile re bua eng – if ba fitlha ke bua Sezulu, ba tla joina – if slang sa mothaka ele
ONS SAL ALMAL WITHI. the situation, gore o na le bo mang.
[It depends on whom you are with. For instance, if I am with my friends and they find
us speaking something – if they arrive and I am speaking Zulu, they will join in – if slang
of the friends, then we’ll all join in [the slang]. The situation is dependent upon whom
you are with.] (Joe with shebeen friends, cited in Finlayson and Slabbert 1997a: 399)

4 SHIFTS IN LINGUISTIC THEORY AND PRACTICES WITH REGARD

TO CONTACT PHENOMENA
This section provides a link between social history and linguistic theory and
practices with regard to contact phenomena in the African languages.
The paths of sociopolitical history, linguistic studies and contact phenomena
have moved together from an apartheid-based society with all its limitations to
a more integrated society where an increased level of contact occurs. Within a
racially divided society, a Eurocentric perspective has prevailed, whereas in
a non-divided society an Afrocentric perspective is beginning to assert itself
in contact linguistics. The balance has thus swung from a more prescriptive
position to a more general descriptive stance. Large corpora of data based on
daily interaction are being used in studies that are more functional, analytical
and pragmatic in nature. Assumptions concerning language have moved away
from a certainty that each household must have a common home language, an
expectation that a lingua franca would evolve in these urban/township areas
and a belief that the standard variety of a language is the one associated with
prestige. On the contrary, it is now known that in the urban/township areas,
multiple home languages occur, no specific lingua franca exists, but rather
multiple CS. Furthermore, it is the non-standard varieties that are associated
with affluence and higher socio-economic status.
 Code-switching in South African townships 239

We do not imply a deterministic juxtaposition: rather, the shift in perspective

has been gradual. Moreover, there are no guarantees that past concerns will not
recur as our social history evolves. For example, the current political espousal
of an ‘African renaissance’ could involve a revisiting of the issues of purism and
the ‘corruption’ of the African languages, by English in particular. On the other
hand, any drive towards taking the African languages into the technological
age also requires an acknowledgement of the role of borrowing.

5 PERSPECTIVES ON CODE-SWITCHING

Code-switching in South Africa has been studied from a variety of theoretical

and applied linguistic perspectives:
r linguistic borrowing;
r standard versus non-standard language;
r applied commercial communication;
r sociology of language;
r interactional functions;
r structural constraints;
r educational role.

5.1 Linguistic borrowing

Although borrowing of isolated words from other sources may occur in the
history of a language without larger units such as phrases being incorporated,
and without CS, in situations of intimate contact it is difficult to draw a line be-
tween borrowing and switching. In a situation of colonial bilingualism such as
that of South Africa, four overlapping and interrelated stages can be discerned.
The units involved in transfer from one language to another form a continuum:
(i) speech sounds; (ii) lexical items; (iii) phrases; and (iv) sentences. These
stages tended to occur in sequence, over an extended period of time, when people
of one language group interacted with people of another language group. Early
Bantuist studies focused on what was initially termed ‘borrowing’ or ‘adopting’
from the colonial languages – English and Afrikaans – into the African lan-
guages. Some later studies of contact between African and European languages
still tended to follow a Eurocentric point of view. Koopman’s work, for exam-
ple, focused on what the colonial languages had that the African languages did
not, very much a case of the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Because of this situation,
the African languages were forced to borrow lexical items for which they had
no equivalent. As Koopman (1994: 13) notes:
We must assume that this process of ‘free borrowing’ began as soon as speakers of one
language came into contact with speakers of another, and some of the intra-language
240 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

influences, such as the presence of clicks in Xhosa and Zulu, are old compared to
influences relating to contact between Southern Sintu [= Bantu] languages and the
Germanic languages of the first white settlers.

In this regard, Koopman (1994: 13, 14) quotes Delegorgue in connection with
early records of language contact dating back to 1847. He also refers to a
fascinating extract from Brownlee (1975: 65) of an event recorded some time
in the mid-1880s in which the narrator, telling a story of a soldier and a Xhosa
tracker, indicates a switch in conversation from Xhosa to English. Another
noteworthy reference to early comments on language contact made by Koopman
(1994: 18) concerns van Warmelo’s work of 1927 in which ‘he [van Warmelo]
found the number of loan-words “staggering”. I [Koopman] doubt that a scholar
of the stature of Van Warmelo has used this word naively: I am sure that he really
was surprised at the rate at which foreign words were entering Sotho.’ Koopman
(1994: 19) adds further that Cole (1990) saw ‘language mixing’ in a positive
light and as part of an enrichment and strengthening process. Cole himself
(personal communication) was averse to the term ‘loan’ word and ‘borrowing’
since, as van Warmelo (1927) also noted, it was hardly possible for a lexeme
to be on loan with the prospect of being returned! Cole accordingly preferred
the term ‘adoptive’ (cf. Khumalo 1984 and Madiba 1994). On the other hand,
‘adoptive’ has some irrelevant connotations too.
Further to the early influences of the colonial languages, Finlayson (1993:
178) suggests, in diagrammatic form, a number of contributory factors which
have led to ‘the changing face of Xhosa’. She describes specific changes in the
phonetic, phonological, morphological, semantic and literary categories that
have occurred at different stages in the evolution of spoken and written Xhosa.
She argues that these changes have further enhanced the language rather than
contaminated it.
In tracing ‘foreign’ elements, Koopman (1994) divides African-language
lexical adoptives into various semantic categories such as utensils, government,
persons, food, oxen, industry and the church. These involve semantic processes
such as broadening, narrowing and onomastic shifts. Similar arguments are
found in studies of the ‘adaptation’ of phrases and sentences into the African
languages. Thipa (1992: 88) argues that Xhosa–English CS often arises from the
result of the native speaker’s unfamiliarity with, or ignorance of, an appropriate
word. He continues as follows: ‘That then forces the native speaker, especially
a bilingual one, to resort to the language with which he seems to be most
familiar, namely English in most cases amongst the Xhosa speakers. . . . [C]ode-
switching . . . serves to express ideas with which the vocabulary of Xhosa cannot
cope or ideas which are alien to indigenous Xhosa culture.’
Khati (1992), in his study of CS between English and Southern Sotho, has
also commented on the stigma that was originally attached to the transferring of
 Code-switching in South African townships 241

lexical items. He acknowledges that as the practice of CS increases, it becomes

destigmatised. He adds (1992: 183) that CS ‘occurs at both smaller and higher
order categories, that is, at morphemic/lexical, phrasal and clausal levels’. This
study thus leads away from a focus on the historical necessity for borrowing to
a focus on the continuum between borrowing and switching.
Finally, Kamwangamalu, following Gumperz (1974) to some extent, refers
to the language used in the home between friends as the ‘we-code’ and the
colonial language or the language used for communication with outsiders as
the ‘they-code’. As Kamwangamalu (1989: 42) notes, ‘[a] “they-code” may be
described as a code with which a given community’s members do not wish
to identify, while a “we-code” is just the opposite of this’. Citing Kachru
(1978: 27), Kamwangamalu argues further that a certain sort of language de-
pendency has developed between L1 English countries and ESL countries.
According to Kachru, the term ‘language dependency’ presupposes the exis-
tence of a hierarchy of languages in which each language is assigned a functional
role (or roles) in a multilingual person’s spheres of linguistic interaction. Within
this perspective, the major focus has been on the transfer from a colonial lan-
guage to the Bantu languages, and on the potential for ‘harm’ that this could
bring to the indigenous languages.

5.2 Standard versus non-standard perspective

Linked to the previous approach is a perspective that has drawn a sharp line
between standard and non-standard African languages. The STANON research
project that was launched in 1987 by the Human Sciences Research Council
stated as its objective ‘to describe the differences between the non-standard
colloquial languages and the standard languages spoken in the urban areas of
South Africa, and to investigate the influence which these non-standard vari-
eties have on the use of the standard language in various spheres’ (Calteaux
1992: i).
Non-standard varieties and the phenomenon of CS are viewed as problematic,
as the foreword to a selection of articles from the contributing researchers
indicate:
The STANON research project emanated from research on the language varieties spoken
in the townships around Pretoria. This research indicated that many of the problems
which pupils experience in the mother tongue subjects, could be ascribed to the influences
of non-standard languages on the standard language. Such non-standard languages take
the form of various varieties, among others, a mixed colloquial township language
known as for instance Pretoria Sotho, Colloquial Zulu, etc. Children who grow up in
the townships often learn this colloquial variety before acquiring a standard language,
leading to various problems in the teaching of the standard language in schools. (Calteaux
1992: i)
242 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

Code-switching was included as a feature of these non-standard varieties that

the project aimed to describe. In the majority of contributions to the final report
the focus was on switches between African languages and English within a
framework that involved the prestige of English and the lexical inadequacies
of African languages in certain spheres as a key factor. Thipa (1992: 88), for
example, argues that Xhosa–English CS in urban Xhosa ‘serves to fill gaps in
the vocabulary of Xhosa’ and serves ‘as a means of enhancing status and social
prestige’.
The STANON research project gives very little attention to CS between
the African languages. An exception is the work of Gerhard Schuring (1985),
which seeks to establish that the variety he labels ‘Pretoria Sotho’ is a koine,
which shares similarities with other mixed cosmopolitan varieties in Africa
such as Town Bemba. His description of the features of Pretoria Sotho is a
valuable one, though in some respects it makes the township variety seem
more static than it really is. Insufficient attention is paid to the dynamics
of township language practices as open-ended systems, particularly receptive
to CS.
The assumption underlying many of these studies was that pure/standard
and non-pure/non-standard in the case of the African languages follow the
prestige pattern of European standard languages. However, more recent research
(Slabbert and van den Berg 1994; Calteaux 1994) has found that, whereas the
European standard languages are the high-prestige varieties associated with
affluence, formal education and social status, the standard African languages on
the other hand have become associated with rural varieties and traditionalism. In
contrast with this situation, the non-pure/non-standard varieties of the African
languages are spoken by the more affluent, modernised urban individuals and
thus represent the aspirational values associated with the European standard
varieties.

5.3 A commercial communicative perspective

Another impetus for large-scale macro-studies of the current language situation
of black people came from the commercial sector, especially the media. With
eleven languages to accommodate and only three television channels and a
limited number of commercial radio stations available, and with the cost of
local productions sky-high and advertising revenue linked to audience figures,
the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in the early 1990s faced
the challenge of determining the most effective language configurations for
broadcasting. The advertising industry also exerted pressure on the SABC to
revise its language policy to allow for non-standard forms, since it was realised
that the pure varieties that the SABC required were not in touch with the urban
target market.
 Code-switching in South African townships 243

Two studies were commissioned to address these issues: the study ‘Critical
mass’ undertaken in 1990 and 1993 and the ‘Language study’ (van Vuuren
and Maree 1994). ‘Critical mass’ crudely measured the percentages of adults
who could understand a particular language at three competency levels by
asking respondents a question in each competency level. The ‘Language study’
developed an index of multilingualism for the black population. The forty-two
focus-group discussions that acted as the basis for the subsequent quantitative
study revealed for the first time to the advertising industry the massive extent of
CS in the urban/township communities, the functions of CS in urban/township
communication and the language attitudes of the speakers with regard to this
language use. It confirmed the fundamental differences between the standard
African languages and the urban varieties. Contrary to the STANON report,
the emphasis here was not on the deviations from the standards, but on the fact
that urban values and urban affluence are associated with these varieties. This
observation was not in accordance with the language varieties on which the
SABC had been insisting.
These studies also questioned the relevance of the assumption of a single
home language as well as the concept of a lingua franca in the urban/township
context.

5.4 A ‘sociology of language’ perspective

The findings of the studies mentioned above were dramatically confirmed by
a very important micro-study by Calteaux (1994) of the language situation in
a township in Gauteng Province. She carried out a qualitative study from a
sociological perspective on the language situation in Tembisa, a township be-
tween Pretoria and Johannesburg (see map 20.1). Speakers in this township,
like most of those in Gauteng Province, live in a sociolinguistically complex
milieu. Tembisa residents include speakers of all the Bantu languages of South
Africa. In addition, some residents come from other African countries, espe-
cially neighbouring nations where Bantu languages are also spoken. However,
a near-majority (47.6 per cent) of Tembisa residents come from the Sotho
language group which includes Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho and Tswana.
Speakers of Zulu and Xhosa, two of the languages in the Nguni group, constitute
some 33 per cent of the Tembisa residents.
Calteaux’s data was obtained from audio and video recordings of two ‘focus’
groups, each comprising eight Tembisa residents. They were in the sixteen-to-
twenty-four age range, with the members of one group having had at least
ten years of schooling while the members of the other group had experienced
a lower level of schooling. Of those in the less formally educated group, some
were still in secondary school. Quota sampling techniques ensured that four of
the eight members in each group were male and four female; also, four in each
244 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

group came from the Sotho group of languages and four from the Nguni group.
The different neighbourhoods of Tembisa were also equally represented. The
moderator, who was fluent in both Sotho and Zulu, told subjects that their con-
versations were part of a study about how people communicate in Tembisa. Thus
this micro-study aimed at reflecting the language preference in a restricted area,
but taking into account prevailing sociological factors. Her study is discussed
further in section 5.6 below.
A slightly different angle to the influence of Indo-European languages in
urban/township CS patterns is found in the studies on Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho,
the CS slang varieties of the urban areas/townships (Mfenyana 1977; Schuring
1983; Janson 1984; Msimang 1987; Mfusi 1990; Ngwenya 1992; Slabbert
1994; Makhudu 1995; Ntshangase 1995; Childs 1996). A sociological per-
spective is central to these studies, although they also investigate aspects of
language structure. The conflicting sociopolitical perspectives on the origins
of Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho, and particularly the role of Afrikaans in Tsotsitaal,
illustrate very aptly the ideological and sociohistorical nature of linguistic study.
All studies acknowledge that Tsotsitaal is Afrikaans based; they differ, how-
ever, on its origin, its distribution and its future. According to Ntshangase (1995)
Afrikaans was brought to the freehold townships by Tswana-speaking groups
from the western Transvaal who learnt it from the people who dispossessed
them of their land. In contrast to this strong claim of a single origin, both
Makhudu (1995) and Schuring (1983) make reference to the contribution of
coloured speakers of Afrikaans. Ntshangase (1995) and Ngwenya (1992) say
that the 1976 Soweto uprising led to a decline in the use of Tsotsitaal because of
its association with Afrikaans. Slabbert (1994: 38) found in a national sample
of black adult males that almost 25 per cent claimed to be users of Tsotsitaal.
She states, however, that Tsotsitaal ‘is a language of the townships; which [for
its speakers] has nothing to do with the Afrikaans of the whites’. The uprising
has led to a decline in the knowledge of Afrikaans and as a consequence in the
ability of people to conduct fully-fledged conversations in Tsotsitaal (Slabbert
and Myers-Scotton 1996). However, according to Makhudu (1995: 304), the
use of Tsotsitaal/Flaaitaal is ‘widespread and increasing’.
Both the SABC’s macro-studies and Calteaux’s micro-study provided data
in the form of transcripts of hours of naturally occurring conversations. These
data subsequently formed the basis of more focused and in-depth studies into
CS, the major focus of these studies being structural, functional and pragmatic.

5.5 Interactional perspectives

One of the most important social functions of CS that has become appar-
ent among urban/township residents is that of accommodating the addressee.
From their data, Finlayson and Slabbert (1997a: 400) note a number of CS
sub-functions associated with the process of accommodation:
 Code-switching in South African townships 245

(a) having an awareness of what the addressee prefers and switching accord-
ingly;
(b) establishing common ground, i.e. meeting the addressee halfway with lan-
guage;
(c) a willingness to learn and experiment with other languages in the commu-
nication situation even to the point of moving out of one’s comfort zone;
(d) employing measures to make oneself understood;
(e) making adaptations on the variety continuum of ‘deep’ to urban.
This function of accommodation has been reiterated by Finlayson, Calteaux
and Myers-Scotton (1998: 401) in commenting on their data. They note that
in a multilingual setting, such as Tembisa, speakers are aware that communication prob-
lems will arise and that different accommodation strategies may be necessary. While CS
is the main strategy of accommodation, it may take many forms. The form it takes reflects
the norms as well as the demographics of the community. There are many inter-related
forces which are at play in the use of varieties in the speech event as the participants
consciously, but more often unconsciously, switch from one variety to the other. From
the speaker’s own point of view, CS offers a middle path with regard to the costs and
rewards which accrue from using any one language on its own. In this respect, CS is
a ‘safe choice’ [Myers-Scotton 1993b: 147]. Also, by using more than one variety in
a conversation, a speaker can evoke the multiple identities associated with each code
[Myers-Scotton 1993b: 122]. Thus, CS is both a reactive choice, as accommodation,
and a proactive choice, as a presentation of one’s multiple selves.
The authors propose three strategies in the process of accommodation. First,
one participant may speak his/her first language while the other speaks his/her
first language. A second strategy would be the use of the dominant language
of the community as the structurally dominant language in CS. A third strategy
would be for a speaker to repeat what he/she has just said in the language of
the addressee so as to ensure that the message has been understood. Since the
fundamental concern in such events is communication, any strategy will be
used in order to enhance it.
Central to an interactional perspective on CS is the ‘markedness model’
of Myers-Scotton (1993a). Based on extensive fieldwork data in Kenya, she
proposed a model that involved several dimensions:
(1) Bilingual people may use switching as both a tool and a symbol of social
relationships.
(2) Utterances can be used with intentional meaning (e.g. co-operation or
lack of it), and not just referential meaning. In particular, Myers-Scotton
(1992: 166) proposed that choice of one code rather than another is dri-
ven by a negotiation principle: ‘choose the form of your conversation
contribution such that it symbolises the set of rights and obligations which
you wish to be in force between Speaker and Addressee for the current
exchange’.
246 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

(3) Code choices reflect the fact that speakers are rational actors, whose social
and personal relationships influence code choice.
(4) The social meaning of a talk exchange is accomplished by the exchange
itself.
(5) A feature of the communicative competence of speakers is a ‘markedness
metric’ which provides speakers with the predisposition to perceive all
code choices as more or less unmarked or marked for a specific talk ex-
change.
Particularly important in the markedness model is the idea of the rights and
obligations of interlocutors, based on the norms of their community. When
a speaker engages in CS, it involves some negotiation over the balance of
rights and obligations between speaker and addressee. Arising from the model,
Myers-Scotton (1992: 169) posits four functions served by CS. Rather than
repeat her examples, we illustrate these four functions using South African
examples from Herbert (1997). Herbert found that all four functions indicated
by Myers-Scotton were prominent in his data set from the University of the
Witwatersrand.

(a) Code-switching to present sequential unmarked choices

Essentially this type of switch is from one unmarked choice of code to another
unmarked choice, motivated by a change in the context or topic. Herbert (1997:
401) provides the following example (in his examples italics are used to show a
change in code, capitals denote what Herbert considers to be code-mixing or the
‘synchronic incorporation of lexical material from one language into a second’
(1997: 398), as distinct from borrowing, which reflects a historical process of
incorporation throughout the community).
Scene: Two Sotho-speaking university students (A;B) (+/− 35 years old) are discussing
the behaviour of younger students during a mass meeting held during the previous
weekend.

A: Wa tseba ke eng MY FRIEND? Bana ba don’t know their standpoint.

[You know what, my friend? These children don’t know their standpoint.]
B: O ba bone gore ba rata DI-STRIKES. [Did you see that they like strikes?]
A: Rena re tletše DEGREE feela. [We have come here for our degree.]
B: EXACTLY! Ga ba-WORRY le ga tee. [. . . They don’t worry.]
A: Ba tla-FAIL imofelelwa ngwaga. [They will fail at the end of the year.]

(Another postgraduate student (C) from the same programme joins them. C is Venda
speaking.)

C: How are you ladies?

A & B: Fine and you?
C: I’m fine. (Conversation continues in English.)
 Code-switching in South African townships 247

Herbert interprets the above example as a switch in codes corresponding to a

redefinition of the communicative context, since the Venda speakers do not
(or may be assumed not to) speak Sotho. The conversation thus switches
from Sotho as initial unmarked choice to English as subsequent unmarked
choice.

(b) Code-switching as marked choice

This involves the conscious or strategic switch to a code that is marked
(or unexpected) in the given situation. In this way the speaker is able to su-
perimpose a message on the communicative act. Herbert (1997: 403) provides
the example of a ‘conversation between a teacher (A), who has come to an edu-
cation inspector’s office to lodge a complaint about the delay in her salary, and
the two secretaries (B;C) whom she encounters there. All three participants are
mother-tongue speakers of Xhosa.’ The conversation begins in the unmarked
code for this context, Xhosa.
A: Molweni manenekazi. [Hello ladies.]
B & C: Ewe MISS [Hello Miss.]
B: Singakunceda ngantoni namhlanje? [How can we help you today?]
A: Ndinqwenela ukubona umhloli. [I’d like to see an inspector.]
B: Une-APPOINTMENT Miss? [Do you have an appointment, Miss?]
A: Hayi. [No.]
B: Awunakudibana nabo ngoku Miss, base-MEETING-ini. [You can’t speak to them
now, Miss. They are in a meeting.]
A: He wethu Ntombazana, this is an emergency! Who has time for appointments in
emergencies? [Hey Girl, . . . ]
C: Unfortunately we have regulations to obey. We’re not allowed to call inspectors
when they’re in a meeting. All we can do is to show you the waiting room.
A: Very well, I’ll wait.
Herbert (1997) interprets this as a switch to English following the
motivation familiar from Myers-Scotton’s work in Kenya. The teacher switches
to English as a strategic ploy to redefine existing relationships, from a more
neutral (unmarked) one to one in which the status between teacher and secretary
is emphasised. English is a marked choice, since it contrasts with the ethnic
solidarity symbolised by Xhosa at the beginning of the conversation.

(c) Code-switching as exploratory choice

This applies when the interlocutors are strangers who are uncertain of each
other’s repertoire of languages or when a situation does not clearly demand one
code over another. Speakers may then try out one code, assess the addressee’s
reaction, try another code and then decide which receives a more favourable
response. The following example, from Herbert (1997: 407), is based on an
248 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

interaction between two strangers outside a city library. ‘A’ uses Sotho to iden-
tify himself and to initiate interaction:
A: Tsela e yang CINEMA ke efe? [Where is the street leading to the cinema?]
B: Uthini ndoda? [(Zulu) What are you saying, man?]
A: Ikuphi indela eya le e-CINEMA? [Where is the road to the cinema?]
B: Uhambe STRAIGHT. Uzobona abantu bayimi e-LINE. [You go straight. You will
see people in a queue.]

It is clear from the example that the initial choice did not work, and by his reply
(which switches the conversation to Zulu) B has successfully renegotiated a
common code.

(d) Code-switching as a linguistic variety

In some communities CS is so frequent that it is not the switch to a particular
code that is significant but the act of CS itself. In Myers-Scotton’s words (1992:
170), ‘CS itself is the unmarked choice to index the unmarked RO [= Rights
and Obligations] balance among participants . . . Speakers lead lives for which
they see more dimensions than just those associated with the attributes of a
single code.’ Herbert (1997: 410) illustrates this function with a telephone
conversation between two educated Sotho speakers:
A: Hello, Dudu please.
B: Speaking.
A: O etsang na? [What are you doing?]
B: Oh, I’m busy ka assignment. [Oh, I’m busy with the assignment.]
A: I see. O tlo robola neng? [. . . When are you going to sleep?]
B: Ke tlo robala late. [I will sleep late.]
A: That’s good. Studying keeps you out of trouble.
B: Mmm. . .
A: I don’t want to disturb you. . .
B: No, no, no. I need this. Hakele busy ke fila very lonely. [. . . when I’m busy I feel
very lonely.]
A: Is it?
B: Wa bona jwale. I’m not motivated. Ha kena interest ya ho fetsa. [You see now. . .
I don’t have an interest to complete [the assignment].]
A: Just concentrate o tla fetsa. [. . . you will complete it.]

Herbert (1997: 410) emphasises that there is a positive evaluation of identities

associated with each code.
One additional function noted by Herbert that was not previously cited in
the CS literature was the use of parallelism in turn structure. In this function
speakers frequently begin their turn with a phrase from an African language, but
then switch to English for the main semantic content. In this way the speaker is
able to mark solidarity by initial use of the home-language code, and presumably
 Code-switching in South African townships 249

status by the use of English. For a detailed example and a discussion of reverse
patterning in another setting see Herbert (1997: 412).
Finlayson and Slabbert (1997c) give an alternative interpretation to social
motivations for CS. According to them the markedness model is speaker ori-
ented. It defines markedness according to the speaker’s unwillingness to
conform to societal norms. The fact that Myers-Scotton (1993a: 82) regards
‘marked’ versus ‘unmarked’ as a continuum implies that these norms will not
always be clear to speaker and addressee nor always shared by them in inter-
actions. It implies further that certain interactions will be indeterminate with
regard to markedness. In this case the question can be asked: if speakers con-
sistently foreground the index of linguistic identity, as Zulu speakers are said to
do, are they acting against societal norms or merely affirming their own norms?
It is problematic to categorise this type of CS as either marked or unmarked.
The continuum of ‘unmarked’ to ‘marked’ is furthermore linked to the dy-
namics of the larger social context and to a historical process. What is unex-
pected today can tomorrow start to emerge as expected, due to a change in the
dynamics of the social context. For example, as we have already mentioned
(Finlayson and Slabbert 1997a: 416), it has been said by respondents that Zulu
speakers in Soweto have become more accommodating, since foregrounding
their linguistic identity in certain contexts has become politically sensitive.
As has been pointed out previously (Finlayson and Slabbert 1997a: 416), the
markedness model does not answer the question as to why the speaker would
not conform to the societal norms nor why the speaker would wish to increase or
decrease the social distance with regard to the addressee. Why are Zulu speakers
unwilling to be accommodating? Marked code choices do not take place in a
vacuum. They are the result of salient situational features in as broad a sense
as possible. This view is in line with Bourdieu’s theory of practice, which is
interpreted by Thompson (1991: 16) as follows:

While agents present themselves towards specific interests or goals, their action is only
rarely the outcome of a conscious deliberation or calculation in which the pros and
cons of different strategies are carefully weighed up, their costs and benefits assessed,
etc. . . . Since individuals are the product of particular histories which endure in the
habitus, their actions can never be analysed adequately as the outcome of conscious
calculation.

We would interpret ‘particular histories’ also in as broad a sense as possible,

to include all factors, including the preceding utterances which have led to a
specific speech event.
This raises the question of unexpectedness associated with markedness.
Consider the example of marked CS above, where a teacher switches from
Xhosa to English (Herbert 1997: 403), to emphasise the status difference be-
tween her and the secretary when it is clear that she should have made an
250 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

appointment. The relationship between the participants changes as a result of

the secretary’s rebuke. The teacher’s CS can be regarded as a reaction to a change
in her state of mind, which in turn is a reaction to situational features. One could
ask, what is the expected social distance between two irritated people? Slabbert
and Finlayson interpret the CS in this type of interaction as affirming the change
in social distance between participants, not making the change. Codes are in-
deed used to index an attribute (Myers-Scotton 1993a: 86), and not to create it.
Finlayson and Slabbert (1997c: 133) note that there seems to be confusion
about this relationship. Myers-Scotton (1993a: 114) describes sequential un-
marked CS as follows: ‘If one or more of the situational factors change within
the course of a conversation, the unmarked RO set may change. . . Whenever
the unmarked RO set is altered by such factors, the speaker will switch codes
if he or she wishes to index the new unmarked RO set.’ The marked choice, on
the other hand, ‘is a negotiation against the unmarked RO set . . . the marked
choice is a call for another RO set in its place, that for which the speaker’s
choice is the unmarked index’ (1993a: 131). The definitions of linguistic vari-
eties – as indexical of attributes and consequently of RO sets (Myers-Scotton
1993a: 85–7), on the one hand, and a marked choice as one the speaker makes
when he/she wishes to ‘establish a new RO set’, on the other – are contradictory.
Finlayson and Slabbert (1997c: 133) comment that ‘smoke signals the fire, it
is a result of the fire, it cannot by itself establish the fire. We find it difficult to
accept that the use of a code in itself can call up a RO set, particularly where
there is not a one-to-one relationship between attributes and codes.’
Finlayson and Slabbert (1997c: 133) would therefore interpret the function
of CS as follows:
In a particular interaction a set of salient features of the speech event are realised as
code choices, according to the shared norms of the community. These shared norms
include the relative salience allocated to one feature as compared to another, which
constitutes the RO set in an interaction. This is what we have referred to as ‘maintaining
the balance’. The speaker may foreground any of the salient features according to what
he/she wishes to index, either by a codeswitch or by tipping the balance. The speaker
is, however, always acting according to the dynamics of the context of situation, i.e. a
choice is never unexpected within the context of situation, ‘it all depends’. Marked CS
is not a matter of pulling something out of the bag, it is the result of a change in the
hierarchy matrix of the salient features in an interaction.

According to Myers-Scotton’s markedness model unmarked CS, as such, is

used to index multiple identities. Finlayson and Slabbert (1997a: 415) extended
this insight in the urban/township context: ‘Unmarked CS in this case does
not only signal multiple identities, it also signals an identity as such.’ In a
subsequent article (2000) the authors propose an urban/township hybrid identity
which simultaneously embraces those features that are marked as ‘modern’ and
‘Western’ and those that are marked as ‘traditional’ and ‘African’. Language
 Code-switching in South African townships 251

not only supplies the terms by which this identity is expressed, but a particular
pattern of language use also marks and constitutes this urban/township identity.
Various aspects of language use are singled out, although the authors caution that
they are inextricably entwined. These aspects include the ability, in a delicately
balanced manner, to:
r function in many languages;
r use complex CS patterns;
r adapt within the variety continuum of ‘deep’ versus ‘light’;
r use English and Afrikaans in very specific functions.

5.6 Structural constraints

Calteaux’s study (cited above) was taken further by Finlayson, Calteaux and
Myers-Scotton (1998). In this paper the authors analyse data from a more
structural perspective to investigate the effects on CS of psycho-sociological
differences across the two groups studied. As stated above, the sample groups
reflected the lower (Grade 9 and below) and higher (Grade 10 or above) level of
education of the participants. From a quantitative analysis of a random sample
of eighty-eight lines of conversational turns, a number of observations were
made. For example, the authors noted (1998: 416) that there was a positive cor-
relation between speakers’ intentions and the choices they make in composing
sentences. That is, a recurring message in the responses of Tembisa residents
to questions regarding language use is that they wished to accommodate their
addressees. The variables of educational level and language proficiency also
played a role in the form that CS as accommodation took.
Carol Myers-Scotton’s matrix language frame (MLF) model evolved from
African data and has been applied and tested with reference to South African CS
data, for example, Kamwangamalu (1994, 1996) on Swati–English switching
and Slabbert and Myers-Scotton (1996) on Flaaitaal and Iscamtho data. Briefly
the MLF model makes the following claims:
(1) The relevant unit of analysis in intrasentential CS is the complement phrase
(CP).
(2) In every mixed CP there is a matrix language and an embedded language.
The matrix language is the more basic one and provides the grammatical
frame for mixed constituents, into which items from the embedded language
may be inserted.
(3) System morphemes in mixed constituents come from the matrix language
only; whereas content morphemes may come from either matrix or em-
bedded language. (The definition of ‘system morpheme’ is a complex and
ongoing one: it does not correspond exactly with the notion of ‘grammatical
morpheme’ – see Myers-Scotton 1993b.)
252 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

(4) A CP may contain an embedded language ‘island’: material entirely from

the embedded language that includes system morphemes. The idea is that
if ‘by some chance’ within his or her turn a speaker has used a system
morpheme from the ‘wrong’ language (i.e. the embedded language) then
he or she is ‘obliged’ to continue with that language.
The MLF model makes two further predictions:
r The matrix language does not change within a mixed CP.
r In most cases mixed CPs will typically have the same matrix language in a
speaker’s turn.
It is not possible to tease out all the nuances of this model here, nor to go into
debates over its merits vis-à-vis other structural and generative models of CS.
Finlayson, Calteaux and Myers-Scotton (1998) argue that the predictions of the
MLF model are borne out in South African township switching that involves
English or Afrikaans and African languages. Their study of CS among Tembisa
residents is a valuable one in so far as it takes issue with the popular idea that
township CS is random and structurally irregular. Taking an example such as
the following (1998: 408), the authors show that mixing in Tembisa follows the
rules laid out in the MLF model:

[So i-language [e-khuluny-w-a a-ma-gangs]2

So 9-language 9/REL-speak-PASS-FV PRP-6-gangs
it differs from one gang to another]1 [si-ngeke
it differs from one gang to another 1P-never
si-thi [a-ya-fan-a]4 ]3 [because it depends
1P-say 6-PRES1-like-FV because it depends
[ukuthi le-ya i- INVOLVED ku which activity . . . ]6 ]5
COMP 9-DEM 9-involved LOC/16 which activity
‘[So the language [which is being spoken by gangs]2 differs from one gang to another]1 ,
[we never say [they are alike]4 ]3 [because it depends [as to which one is involved in
which activity . . . ] 6 ]5 ’ [Group I:58]

The above sentence contains six CPs, indicated by square brackets and sub-
scripts. Two of these are monolingual CPs from Zulu. It is the remaining four
CPs that are subject to the constraints suggested by the MLF model. The details
are rather complex for a detailed exposé here, but the following broader points
can be verified from the Finlayson, Calteaux and Myers-Scotton (1998) paper:
(1) The matrix language is Zulu, and the embedded language English.
(2) System morphemes in mixed constituents come from Zulu. Note, for exam-
ple, CP2 in which the system morphemes are from Zulu, resulting in a Zulu
syntactic pattern. (Gangs is clearly a content unit in itself; the plurality is
marked by the system morpheme ama-.)
(3) An example of an embedded language island is the clause it differs from
one gang to another.
 Code-switching in South African townships 253

A possible counter-example to the claims of the MLF model would be to find

syntactically active system morphemes from more than one language in a mixed
constituent in the same CP (e.g. determiners from English in combination with
pre-prefixes and noun-class prefixes from Zulu). But this does not occur in the
Tembisa data base.
However, within other South African contexts the MLF model has proved
problematic, especially in situations where the switching is between African
languages, rather than between a colonial language or languages and an African
language or languages. For example, an analysis of CS data from Botshabelo, a
township near Bloemfontein, indicated that CS between Tswana and Southern
Sotho was so extensive that it was virtually impossible to distinguish a matrix
language based on the norms of the MLF model. Finlayson and Slabbert (1997b:
68) note in this regard that the data is exceptional and certainly more complex
in a number of respects in comparison with CS data normally cited in the
literature:
r Four languages are involved in CS.
r The discourse is characterised by CS on a number of levels.
r The function of the switches is diverse.
r It is difficult to classify the discourse as either CS between dialects, CS
between languages, or as a new inter-language.
There is a growing awareness that the extensive CS taking place in South African
townships is indeed indicative of large-scale language change. Myers-Scotton
herself (1993b) has indicated a possible relationship between CS and language
change. Questions such as the following are more and more frequently being
posed at sociolinguistics conferences:
r Can one begin to distinguish CS varieties?
r Is spontaneous harmonisation (or convergence) of the African languages oc-
curring in the urban areas?
r Is a language shift towards English taking place in certain sections of the
urban township population?

5.7 Pragmatic perspectives in relation to education

As South Africa moves into a democratic era with eleven official languages
and multilingualism at all levels, CS as a facilitator of such multilingual
communication is becoming prominent in discussions of language use in rela-
tion to education.
The additive bilingualism model has become the cornerstone of proposals for
new policies on language in education (e.g. Luckett 1993; Heugh et al. 1995).
According to this model both the learner’s home language and additional
language(s) should be used as languages of learning and teaching. Additive
254 S. Slabbert and R. Finlayson

bilingualism has given recognition to a common two-pronged teaching stra-

tegy in the multilingual classrooms within the urban/township context (see
Adendorff 1993; Meyer 1997). First, teachers code-switch between African
languages to accommodate the linguistic repertoires of their learners. They
simultaneously negotiate English as an official language of instruction by
CS between English and the home languages of the learners to explain concepts.
CS in the educational context is however also viewed from a STANON
perspective where it is seen as undermining the teaching of the standard African
languages (Malimabe 1990; Mashamaite 1992; Kgomoeswana 1993).

6 CONCLUSION
The perspectives described above have developed parallel to the political
democratisation process in South Africa. As interlingual and interracial contact
has grown and polarisations have become blurred, studies increasingly have
recognised that CS in the urban/township context is extensive, complex, irrevo-
cable and as such part of the fibre of South African society. The unique features
of South African urban/township CS generate data whose richness has already
contributed to linguistic theory on CS and language change and will continue
to do so.
The accommodation function of CS that has been described above further-
more symbolises values of democratisation: equality, coming together, mutual
understanding and respect. It follows therefore that CS studies have an important
contribution to make to the challenge of implementing a policy of multilingual-
ism in South Africa at all levels. With eleven official languages, duplication and
translation are impractical and costly options. Code-switching, however, offers
the possibility of creating multilingual programmes, advertisements, brochures,
political speeches, etc., which would enable communicators to accommodate
different sectors of our multilingual society not only in terms of understanding
but also in terms of solidarity in a cost-effective way.

note
The authors acknowledge with appreciation the editorial suggestions and changes made
by Rajend Mesthrie.

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13 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa

J. Keith Chick

1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter I will be reviewing a selection of intercultural and cross-cultural
studies of communication in apartheid South Africa. My purpose in doing so
is, first, to distinguish between cross-cultural and intercultural communication
studies in terms of the theories that inform and the research methods that are
used in them. Second, it is to explore what each type of study has contributed to
an understanding of the sources and consequences of intercultural miscommu-
nication in South Africa and, more generally, of how dominant ideologies and
power relations associated with them affect, and are affected by, the quality of
such communication.
In sociolinguistics, as elsewhere, the terms ‘intercultural’ and ‘cross-cultural’
tend to be used interchangeably. However, following Carbaugh (1990: 292),
I distinguish between them, reserving the term ‘cross-cultural’ for studies
that explore particular features of communication (e.g. compliments, refusals,
apologies, turn-taking) across two or more cultures. I use the term ‘intercultural
communication’ to refer to studies that, by contrast, focus on particular inter-
cultural encounters, and attend to whatever communication features are salient
in them.

2 CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Among the communication features most extensively investigated cross-

culturally are speech acts. Researchers who investigate cross-cultural diversity
in the rules for the performance of speech acts (refusals, promises, accusa-
tions) or speech-act sequences (invitations–acceptances/ rejections) have drawn
eclectically from the philosophic tradition of linguistic pragmatics, from the
anthropological tradition of the ethnography of communication and from the
sociological tradition of conversational analysis. Linguistic pragmatics con-
tributed a number of theoretical understandings. It showed, for example, that
perhaps the most important part of the meaning of a speech act is the speaker’s
pragmatic intention or illocution; for example, perhaps the most important part
of the meaning of the utterance ‘I’m sorry. I woke up late and forgot all about

258
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 259

it’ is that it has the illocutionary force of an apology. It also showed that, though
certain forms and semantic formulas are conventionally used to perform partic-
ular speech acts (e.g. in English, imperative mood conventionally – in unmarked
cases – realises commands), form and function frequently do not coincide. When
that happens interlocutors usually infer the pragmatic force of the utterance by
drawing on relevant contextual information. For example, even though in un-
marked cases imperatives are used to perform directives, a pupil, by noting that
his teacher can see that he is not using a pen, and by recognising that his teacher
has the authority to issue directives, can infer that, when a teacher says ‘Are you
using a pen?’, she may be not asking for information, but directing him to use a
pen. Ethnography of speaking has supplied the understanding that the rules of
speaking for speech acts differ across cultures and languages. Ethnography of
speaking has also shown that interlocutors belonging to different language and
cultural groups often use different linguistic forms and semantic formulas to
realise particular speech acts. Thomas (1983) supplies the example of Russian
konesno, a formula used frequently by Russians in responding to requests. This
word translates literally as ‘of course’, in English. This frequently leads to
miscommunication, because whereas konesno in Russian conveys enthusiastic
affirmative, ‘of course’ in English implies that the speaker has asked something
that is self-evident. Ethnography of speaking has also shown that interlocu-
tors with different cultural backgrounds often ‘assess’ the situational context
of their talk differently, thus often having different views about what forms
and formulas are appropriate. For example, Zulu speakers tend to accord old
people more status than South African English (SAE) speakers do. This means
that they are shocked when SAE speakers, in issuing directives, address elderly
employees by their first names. Zulu speakers would, instead, use a respectful
address form such as baba (‘father’), no matter how humble the employee’s po-
sition. Conversational analysts have supplied the understanding that when form
and function do not coincide the interpretation of such ‘indirect speech acts’ is
accomplished not only inferentially but also interactionally. For example, the
force of the utterance ‘Are you doing anything at the moment?’ is contingent
when uttered and only definite in retrospect (Dore and McDermott 1982: 386).
It is contingent, for example, on the listener’s response. If he/she responds: ‘No,
why? Do you need a hand?’ it retrospectively takes on the force of a directive
(or pre-directive). On the other hand, if he/she replies: ‘Yes, I’m tied up with
my homework’ it retrospectively takes on the force of a request for information.

2.1 Cross-cultural diversity in compliment-response behaviour on

South African and American campuses
As Cohen (1996) and Beebe and Cummings (1996) point out, researchers who
have investigated cross-cultural diversity in rules for the performance of speech
260 J. K. Chick

acts have used a wide range of data-collection procedures from, at the one
extreme, tape-recordings of spontaneous, naturally occurring exchanges to, at
the other extreme, obtaining written responses to discourse completion tasks.
These include contextual descriptions and dialogues in which the utterances that
realise the particular speech acts focused on are left blank so that respondents
can fill in the words they think they would use to complete dialogue. With
very few exceptions (see, however, Clyne 1995) the data is limited to single
utterances or short exchanges.
The researchers also use a wide range of data-analysis procedures, the
choice being determined partly by the nature of the data collected and partly by
the researcher’s purposes. Since it is beyond the scope of this chapter to illus-
trate even a representative sample of the methods employed, I have based my
choice not on the research methods employed, but on whether the researchers
have addressed the second of my objectives, namely how speech-act perfor-
mance relates to dominant ideologies.
The first of these studies is Herbert’s comparative study of patterns of compli-
ment responses among white, middle-class Americans and white, middle-class
South Africans (see Herbert 1985, 1989; Herbert and Straight 1989).
Herbert asked students in his linguistics classes at the State University of
New York at Binghamton (1980–1 and 1982–3) and at the University of the
Witwatersrand (1981–2) to record compliment-giving and responding se-
quences as they occurred spontaneously in public places on campus. He sub-
sequently coded the responses in terms of a typology of twelve response types
devised by Pomerantz (1978), which he subsequently refined. Figure 13.1
lists the twelve response types or strategies, giving examples of each.
Pomerantz (1978) explains that acceptance and rejection of compliments are
both problematic, as they violate one or other of two putative universal conver-
sational principles: agree with the speaker and avoid self-praise. She explains,
further, that many of the response types in her typology (3–12) are strategies
for resolving this conflict by exhibiting features of both acceptance and
rejection.
Finally, Herbert counted and aggregated tokens of each response type and
represented his findings in the form of a comparative table.
Table 13.1 reveals most Americans in the New York corpus tend not to accept
most compliments, while most South Africans in the Witwatersrand corpus tend
to accept them.
Of particular relevance to my second purpose, Herbert and Straight (1989)
attempt to explain the difference between the patterns of response types in
table 13.1 in terms of the dominant ideologies and social relations in the USA
and South Africa. They suggest that Americans reject compliments frequently
in order to avoid the implication that they are superior to their interlocutors, i.e.
by giving priority to the injunction avoid self-praise. This behaviour they
see as consistent with the ideology of egalitarian democracy most Americans
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 261

Accepting

1. Appreciation token C: That's a great cake.

R: Thank you.

2. Comment acceptance C: You have such a nice house.

R: It's given us a lot of pleasure.

Deflating, deflecting, rejecting

3. Reassignment C: You're really a skilled sailor.

R: This boat virtually sails itself.

4. Return C: You sound really good today.

R: I'm just following your lead.

5. Qualification C: Your report came out very well.

(agreeing) R: But I need to redo some figures.

6. Praise downgrade C: Super chip shot.

(disagreeing) R: It's gone rather high of the pin.

7. Disagreement C: Your shirt is smashing.

R: Oh, it's far too loud.

Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting

8. Question C: That's a pretty sweater.

(query or challenge) R: Do you really think so?

9. Praise upgrade C: I really like this soup.

(often sarcastic) R: I'm a great cook.

10. Comment history C: I love that suit.

R: I got it at Boscov's.

11. No acknowledgement C: You're the nicest person.

R: Have you finished that essay yet?

12. Request interpretation C: I like those pants.

R: You can borrow them anytime.

13.1 Compliment-response types

262 J. K. Chick

Table 13.1 Distribution of compliment-responses on New York

and Witwatersrand campuses

New York Witwatersrand

# % # %

Accepting
1. Appreciation token 312 29.4 162 32.9
2. Comment acceptance 70 6.6 213 43.2
36.0 76.1
Deflating, deflecting, rejecting
3. Reassignment 32 3.0 23 4.7
4. Return 77 7.3 12 2.4
5. Qualification (agreeing) 70 6.6 12 2.4
6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 106 4.5 0 6.3
7. Disagreement 106 10.0 0 0.0
31.4 15.8
Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting
8. Question (query or challenge) 53 5.0 9 1.8
9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 4 0.4 2 0.2
10. Comment history 205 19.3 24 4.9
11. No acknowledgement 54 5.1 1 0.2
12. Request interpretation 31 2.9 4 0.8
32.7 7.9
Totals 1,062 100.1 492 99.8

publicly espouse, and with the structure of a society in which social status is
open to negotiation. They suggest that, by contrast, white, middle-class South
Africans frequently accept compliments to keep non-equals at a distance, by
allowing the compliment to imply that they are superior to their interlocutor,
by giving priority to the injunction agree with the speaker. This tendency
they see as consistent with the ideology of ‘institutionalised social inequality
publicly enunciated in South Africa’ (1989: 43), and a social structure in which
social status is to a large extent predetermined.
Herbert and Straight, moreover, argue that there is a reflexive relationship be-
tween micro- and macro-phenomena. Not only do structural macro-phenomena
such as ideologies determine patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour, these pat-
terns are constitutive of structural macro-phenomena. They suggest that
Americans engage in compliment rejecting ‘not because they feel confident
that they and their interlocutors share feelings of mutual worth and equality,
but rather because they are trying to establish this mutual worth and equality’
(1989: 43). Similarly, they suggest that South Africans’ patterns of compliment
responding serve to ‘affirm’ solidarity with white peers and confirm their elite
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 263

status, in this way perpetuating the social stratification characteristic of South

African society.

2.2 Cross-cultural diversity in compliment-response behaviour on the

University of Natal campus
The second cross-cultural study is my own study of compliment-responding
behaviour on another South African campus, the University of Natal, Durban
(see Chick 1996). This study had two objectives. The first was to take the op-
portunity presented by rapid societal change in South Africa to test the claim
that dominant ideologies and the social relations associated with them deter-
mine patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour. In the decade since Herbert col-
lected his Witwatersrand corpus that university and others like it had been
progressively desegregated. Taking on trust that the patterns of compliment
responding of middle-class whites on the Witwatersrand campus could be gen-
eralised to South African society as a whole, I attempted to establish whether
or not the experience of desegregation and disillusionment with apartheid ide-
ology had affected the ways middle-class whites respond to compliments. I did
so by replicating Herbert’s methods of data collection and analysis as far as
possible.
My second objective was to establish the extent and nature of cultural diver-
sity in compliment-response behaviour on the University of Natal campus and,
therefore, the potential for miscommunication. Accordingly, I asked research
assistants, where possible, to record details of the pan-ethnic identity of the
interlocutors. This coincides with the traditional racial labels: whites (people
whose ancestors had emigrated from Europe), blacks (Africans) and Indians
(people whose ancestors had emigrated from the Indian subcontinent). I recog-
nised that such labelling is problematic, particularly in the context of historical
discrimination on the basis of this categorisation. As de Klerk (1996: 9) rightly
points out, ‘no ethnic group is neatly defined, and language boundaries are
notoriously fluid, with groups overlapping rather than dividing neatly’. I never-
theless decided on such labelling for a number of reasons: because it is on the
basis of pan-ethnicity or race that groups in South Africa were segregated; be-
cause it would be relatively easy for research assistants to identify such ethnicity
without having to ask potentially embarrassing questions; because researchers
such as Erickson and Schultz (1981) have found some evidence to show that
sociolinguistic diversity patterns along pan-ethnic lines; and because, however
regrettable, these identity labels still seem to have salience for most South
Africans.
To address my first objective, I separated out the responses of white inter-
locutors. By counting and aggregating tokens of each response type, as Herbert
264 J. K. Chick

Table 13.2 Distribution of compliment-responses of white middle-class

interlocutors on three campuses

New York Witwatersrand Natal

# % # % # %

Accepting
1. Appreciation token 312 29.4 162 32.9 48 33.0
2. Comment acceptance 70 6.6 213 43.2 10 6.9
36.0 76.1 39.9
Deflating, deflecting, rejecting
3. Reassignment 32 3.0 23 4.7 3 2.0
4. Return 77 7.3 12 3.4 0 0.0
5. Qualification (agreeing) 70 6.6 12 2.4 8 5.5
6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 106 10.0 0 0.0 14 9.7
7. Disagreement 106 10.0 0 0.0 6 4.1
31.4 15.8 21.3
Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting
8. Question (query or challenge) 53 5.0 9 1.8 19 13.1
9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 4 0.4 2 0.2 5 3.4
10. Comment history 205 19.3 24 4.9 13 9.0
11. No acknowledgement 54 5.1 1 0.2 17 11.7
12. Request interpretation 31 2.9 4 0.8 2 1.4
32.7 7.9 38.6
Totals 1,062 100.1 492 99.8 145 100.0

did with his New York and Witwatersrand data, I gathered the additional infor-
mation I needed to produce a comparative table.1
Table 13.2 reveals that whereas only 23.7 per cent of the responses in the
Witwatersrand corpus involve saying something that can be interpreted as a
rejection or partial rejection (i.e. 15.8 plus 7.9), as many as 59.9 per cent of
responses in the Natal corpus fall into this category (i.e. 21.3 per cent plus 38.6
per cent).
Since no data are available for the Durban campus in 1981–2 (when Herbert
collected his Witwatersrand corpus) it is not possible to rule out the possibility
that the difference between the patterns of frequencies of compliment-response
types on the two South African campuses shown in table 13.2 reflects regional
variation in the relevant rules of use rather than the effect of historical change.
However, on the assumption that the patterns of response on these two campuses
were similar in the early 1980s, the table suggests that, indeed, the pattern of
responses of white, middle-class South Africans has changed markedly.
In attempting to interpret these findings, I suggested that the presence of
significant numbers of black students in formerly exclusively white institutions
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 265

might of itself have been a spur to white students to question traditional social
relations of power. I also suggested that political instability and the decline in
the economy, which characterised the 1980s, might have served to undermine
the unquestioning assumption of many whites that their high status would be an
enduring feature of South African society. I concluded that it is plausible that
increasing uncertainty about social relations of power led whites increasingly
to avoid the implication associated with acceptance of compliments, namely
that they are superior to their interlocutors.
To address the second of my objectives (establish the extent and nature of
cultural diversity in compliment-response behaviour on this campus), I counted
tokens of each response type in the entire corpus (with the exception of those
produced in intercultural encounters),2 and on the basis of the information
about the ethnic background of the respondents supplied by research assistants
produced a table showing totals and aggregates for each response type for the
three groups: whites, Indians and blacks.
The extent of the differences in the frequency of use of different response
types by the different groups reflected in table 13.3 suggests that on the Durban
campus there is considerable potential for intercultural miscommunication. For
reasons of scope I shall refer to just two differences.
There are marked differences in the frequencies of choice of response cate-
gory 7 (‘disagreement’). Whereas, in my corpus, as many as 10.4 per cent of
the total responses of Indian students fall into this category, only 3.6 per cent
of the total white responses and 3.1 per cent of the total black responses do so.
Moreover, what is distinctive about the Indian disagreements is that many are
very direct, such as in the following example:
A: Your hair looks nice today.
B: It’s a mess.
A: No, it’s not.

By contrast, the disagreements of ‘whites’, in my data, tend to have a ‘hedged’

quality:
A: You look very bright today.
B: Well, I don’t feel very bright.

What this suggests is that, for whites, disagreements are particularly face-
threatening, and that they use devices such as hedges as a means of redress/of
resolving the conflict between the two principles. It follows that this group
would probably interpret the overt disagreements of Indian students as rude,
even where no offence was intended.
There are also noticeable differences in the frequency of choice of the
compliment-response strategy of ‘no acknowledgement’. Whereas as few as
10.7 per cent of ‘white’ and 11.5 per cent of Indian responses fall into this
266 J. K. Chick

Table 13.3 Distribution of compliment-responses across pan-ethnic groups at

the University of Natal, Durban

BLACKS INDIANS WHITES

No. percentage No. percentage No. percentage

Accepting
1. Appreciation token 8 12.5 29 33.3 62 36.9
2. Comment acceptance 9 14.1 7 8.1 10 6.0
26.6 41.4 42.9
Deflating, deflecting, rejecting
3. Reassignment 3 4.7 3 3.5 4 2.4
4. Return 1 1.6 1 1.2 0 0.0
5. Qualification (agreeing) 2 3.1 4 4.6 8 4.8
6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 3 4.7 5 5.8 15 8.9
7. Disagreement 2 3.1 9 10.4 6 3.6
17.2 25.5 19.7
Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting
8. Question (query or challenge) 7 10.9 9 10.4 23 13.7
9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 5 7.8 6 6.9 5 4.2
10. Comment history 2 3.1 2 2.4 13 7.7
11. No acknowledgement 21 32.8 10 11.5 18 10.7
12. Request interpretation 1 1.6 1 1.2 2 1.2
56.2 32.4 37.5
Totals 64 100.0 87 99.3 168 100.1

category, as many as 32.8 per cent of ‘black’ responses in the corpus do so.
Such conspicuous absence might easily be interpreted, by someone expecting a
response, as an unwillingness to engage and, therefore, as face-threatening. A
case in point is the following example from my corpus (followed by translation
in English) which is part of a conversation between two male Zulu students in
B’s university residence room:

A: (Knocks)
B: Come in.
A: Heita Bheki. [Hi Bheki.]
B: Eit kunjani mfowethu? [Hi. How are you brother?]
A: Ei grand man. [I’m fine thanks.] (moves towards the table) Hawis mfowethu, yaze
yayinhle le radio eyakho? [Hey brother I like your radio, it’s so beautiful. Is it your
radio?]
B: Yebo. [Yes.]
A: Yaze yayinhle futhi inkulu. Wayithenga kuphi? Ngamalini? [It is so beautiful and big.
How much did you pay for it? Where did you buy it?]
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 267

B: Edrophini ngo R399. [In town – it was R399.]

A: Ngizofika ngizodlala ama-cassette la kwaklo. . . . [I’ll come and play my cassettes
here one day . . . ]

What is interesting about this example is that it suggests why the choice of ‘no
acknowledgement’ is not interpreted by Zulu interlocutors as unwillingness to
engage, and, therefore, as face-threatening. What the complimenter frequently
does is to make a response to the compliment less conspicuously absent by
adding another speech act immediately after the compliment. Thus, for exam-
ple, A, after recycling and embellishing his compliment (It is so beautiful and
big, line 7), asks two questions (How much did you pay for it? Where did you
buy it?). B is thus able to avoid responding to the compliments, by answering
the questions (In town – it was R399, line 8). It is possible, however, that mem-
bers of other groups who are unfamiliar with this strategy might not see B as
having been released from his obligation to provide a response. (For a study
of cross-cultural directives with specific reference to Zulu see de Kadt 1995.)
De Kadt (1998) deals with the concept of ‘face’ in relation to politeness in
Zulu.

3 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES

As the studies reviewed show, cross-cultural studies usefully identify potential

sources of intercultural miscommunication. However, since their data tend to
be limited to single utterances or short exchanges, they cannot establish what
are the sources of miscommunication in any one encounter. Nor can they show
the cumulative effect of multiple sources of miscommunication over an entire
interactional encounter. Since such insights do emerge from studies of intercul-
tural communication studies, it is to the nature and contribution of such studies
that I now turn.

3.1 Interactional sociolinguistics: theory and practice

Of the scholars who have undertaken intercultural communication studies it
is interactional sociolinguists who have developed the theoretical foundations
of their approach most fully, and articulated their research procedures most
clearly. Accordingly I will begin (as I did in the case of cross-cultural speech-
act studies) by briefly outlining sociolinguistic theory and methods of data
collection and analysis. I will then review some of my own work in this field in
order to illustrate the contribution such studies bring to our understanding of the
sources and consequences of intercultural miscommunication in South Africa.
Finally, I will briefly review the contribution of South African scholars such as
Kaschula and de Kadt. Though these researchers do not employ interactional
268 J. K. Chick

sociolinguistic methods, their research usefully complements my own since,

whereas I examine intercultural communication through one of the ex-colonial
languages, they explore intercultural communication through the indigenous
languages (Xhosa and Zulu).
Interactional sociolinguists argue that not all contextual information rele-
vant to interpretation is available outside the communication process, and that
context is part of what is communicated. In other words, they see context as mu-
tually constituted by the interlocutors through their discourse, and as constantly
changing as the discourse unfolds.
They explain that contextual information is signalled by means of ‘contex-
tualization cues’ (Gumperz 1982). These are constellations of surface features
of the verbal and non-verbal message form (lexical, syntactic, phonological,
prosodic and paralinguistic choices; use of formulaic expressions, code- and
style-switching and changes in postural configurations, gestures and facial ex-
pressions) that interlocutors recognise as ‘marked’ usage (i.e. departing from
the established pattern). Together the cues constitute a meta-message which
enables the interlocutors to signal what ‘speech activity’ they consider them-
selves to be engaged in (chatting about the weather; telling a joke; negotiating
an increase, etc.); establish what their social relations are in that activity; pre-
dict what will come next; fill in information not explicitly conveyed in the
message; infer the illocutionary force of what is uttered; and establish the
relationship between what is being uttered and the developing argument or
theme.
Interactional sociolinguists also explain that interlocutors, in working from
moment to moment to constitute contexts for interpretation, rely on interpreta-
tive frames. They are the product of past experience. Where the life experiences
and, therefore, the interpretative frames are very different, as in intercultural
communication, the interlocutors have to engage in considerable negotiation in
order to bring the frames sufficiently into alignment for them to reach under-
standing.
Interactional sociolinguists (see Erickson 1978; Erickson and Shultz 1981)
have demonstrated that when a contextualisation cue occurs is as vital to
successful interpretation as whether it occurs or not. Erickson shows that
the verbal and non-verbal speaking and listening behaviour of interlocutors
engaged in successful interaction is finely synchronised. The shared rhythm
enables the interlocutors to judge the occurrence in real time of ‘significant
next moments’ such as when new (as opposed to given or shared) information,
or when an answer to a question or a turn-relevant point, is likely to occur. They
have shown, moreover, that, because of mismatches in interpretative frames
and contextualisation conventions, intercultural encounters are frequently
asynchronous, which means that the risk of miscommunication is high.
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 269

Turning to research methods, rather than abstracting particular linguistic fea-

tures from a large number of interactions for subsequent categorisation and/or
counting, interactional sociolinguists analyse a limited number of entire con-
versations, or substantial episodes within them, in fine detail. They attempt to
access the interpretative or inferential processes of the interlocutors by play-
ing the recordings to the interlocutors and to informants, and by eliciting their
interpretations about progressively finer details of the discourse. They attempt
‘to obtain a convergence between researchers’ and participants’ perspectives’
(Mehan 1979: 37) by asking them to identify the linguistic, paralinguistic and
kinesic phenomena that guided their interpretations. (See Chick 1987 for a fuller
account of these methods.)
To illustrate, I turn to the first of the intercultural communication studies I
have chosen to review.

3.2 Zulu-English – South African English encounters

In this study (see Chick 1990) I attempt to trace the sources of asynchrony in
examination review interviews between an SAE-speaking professor and his
ethnically diverse students. I find that whereas some of the students share
the professor’s interpretative frames for the sessions, namely that the activ-
ity they are engaged in is a review of preparation for and performance in the
examination, others do not. In the case of a Zulu-English (ZE)-speaking stu-
dent, whose expectation, according to the informants, was that the activity
they were engaged in was one in which he had to account for his poor perfor-
mance, the mismatch of frames led to serious cross-purposes. The interlocutors
failed to build on one another’s contributions, because they could not see their
relevance.
I also found evidence of systematic differences in the contextualisation cues
the SAE and ZE interlocutors relied on in determining what was meant at
any stage of an interaction. These included differential reliance on signals in
the prosodic channel. Possibly because Zulu is a tone language, ZE speakers
apparently do not rely on prosody to the extent that SAE speakers do in, for
example, marking the status of information units as given or new, indicating
contrast, regulating turn exchange, and so on. For example, at one point in the
interview, the professor asks the ZE student to reconsider his judgement about
which of the questions he chose was more difficult:

Student: |I. . .think one and two are which was equally difficult
Professor: | equally difficult
Student: |yah
Professor: |and
Student: |and not actually difficult but I think er not prepared
270 J. K. Chick

| = latch mark indicating smooth turn change with no gap or overlap

[ = overlapping speech
... = noticeable pause (+0.5 seconds)
underline = accentuation (nucleus or accent placement)

The professor, by treating ‘equally difficult’ as a single tone group with nucleus
placement (a rise-fall pitch movement) on ‘equally’, signalled that this is the
part of the message that he would like the student to build on. However, as is
apparent from the student’s reply, which addresses whether or not the questions
were difficult rather than which of the two questions was the more difficult, the
ZE student did not perceive the accentuation cue on ‘equally’ as salient. There
are also differences in rates of speech and pause lengths, with Zulus, accord-
ing to one informant, valuing behaviour that proceeds at a steady, measured
pace. Ironically, attempts by the interlocutors to repair were frustrated by the
progressively increasing asynchrony. They failed to attend to one another’s re-
pairs, either because they were talking at the same time, or because the repairs
came at the ‘wrong’ times, i.e. when they were not expected.
I found that a further source of interactional synchrony in intra- as well as
intercultural encounters was the mismatch of ‘readings’ by the professor and
some students of their relations, and of how these are affected by the loss of
face experienced by the students who performed poorly in the examination.
Comparing interactions involving students (one a ZE speaker and the other
an SAE speaker) who fared relatively poorly in the examination, I found that
they both did considerable face-repair work but used very different politeness
strategies to do so (see Scollon and Scollon 1981). The ZE student in the
interaction above tended to use deference politeness strategies, i.e. strategies
that offset possible loss of face or redress of face by assuring the hearer that the
speaker respects his/her independence. For example, as the encounter became
more stressful, he used the address term sir, which contrasts with the absence
of any address term earlier in the interaction, and implies that he did not wish
to challenge the professor:

Professor: |you mean you . . . you

didn’t have the reading . . . [or you didn’t know what the reading was
Student: [(starts to speak)
Student: |yes sir

By contrast, the SAE student who perfomed poorly tended to use what Scollon
and Scollon (1981) view as a type of solidarity politeness, namely, ‘bald-on-
record’ without redressive action. The implicit assumption with bald-on-record
strategies is that relations between the interlocutors are so close that redressive
action is unnecessary. In this case, the student resisted the professor’s attempts
to get the floor, and put words in his mouth:
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 271

Student: |now I don’t think I did this in this essay um answered entirely in that frame
of reference
Professor: |ya
Student: |I think that is what
you’re going to say
Professor: |well well I’m I’m wanting to see
Student: |You’re you’re going
to say I didn’t actually um answer the essay in relation
See Chick (1990) for the full transcript.
I also discovered that the interactional consequences of the choices of strate-
gies for repairing face were different. By using ‘bald-on-record’ solidarity strate-
gies the SAE student contested the professor’s assumption that their relations
were friendly, but not his assumption that their relations were symmetrical, and
that, therefore, reciprocal solidarity strategies were appropriate. The ZE student,
by using non-reciprocal deference politeness ‘up’, more severely challenged
the professor’s assumptions about symmetrical power relations and, thus was
more negatively evaluated. The irony, as Carbaugh (1990: 156) points out, is that
the ‘use of one’s best cultural manners’ can lead ‘unknowingly and innocently’
to negative evaluation.
In attempting to sum up what this study contributes to an understanding of
the sources and consequences of intercultural communication, I argued that
racial segregation associated with apartheid ideology kept groups ignorant of
one another’s culturally specific discourse conventions. I argued further that
miscommunication and misevaluation in countless gatekeeping encounters (see
Erickson and Shultz 1981) such as these served to maintain the culture of racism.
It did so partly by ensuring that members of historically disadvantaged groups
were often negatively evaluated by gatekeepers (more often than not members
of dominant groups) and that, therefore, they did not get their fair share of
resources and opportunities. It did so also because repeated miscommunication
generated negative cultural stereotypes. Such stereotypes contributed to further
miscommunication by predisposing gatekeepers to perceive only behaviours
that matched the stereotypes, and apparently provided a justification for the
maintenance of discrimination and segregation that had been the source of
miscommunication in the first place.
Further insights into the sources and consequences of intercultural miscom-
munication in South Africa are provided by Kaschula’s (1989 and 1995) studies
of communication through the medium of Xhosa on farms and in courts in the
Eastern Cape. It is to these studies that I finally turn.

3.3 Studies of intercultural communication in Xhosa

What I did not highlight in my ZE–SAE study is that the ZE students were
doubly handicapped. Not only did they have to interact with a gatekeeper whose
272 J. K. Chick

interactional styles differed from their own along a number of dimensions, but
they had to interact using a language not their own, and in which they often had
limited proficiency.
What makes Kaschula’s studies particularly significant is that he examines
intercultural communication through Xhosa. Most studies of intercultural com-
munication have involved communication through a dominant language, and
have been carried out by researchers who are themselves members of a dominant
group and native speakers of that dominant language (see Singh et al. 1988 for
a critique of these trends).
In the first of these studies Kaschula (1989) examines intercultural com-
munication between white farmers and Xhosa-speaking labourers. He notes
that while Xhosa is used as a medium, the very asymmetrical social relations of
power that conventionally obtain ensure that the farmers control topic choice and
turn-taking, and do most of the talking. He explains that, over time, this has led
to the development of a limited farming register characterised by considerable
code-mixing. Because farmers find it necessary to speak only the farming reg-
ister, and because the labourers’ share of the floor is restricted, opportunities to
resolve communication difficulties arising from the farmers’ lack of proficiency
in Xhosa and mismatch of culturally specific discourse conventions are limited.
In the second of these studies, Kaschula (1995) examines intercultural com-
munication in the law courts of the Eastern Cape. Here, too, Xhosa serves as
a medium, but only through the offices of an interpreter. Accordingly, Xhosa
speakers’ opportunities to resolve communication difficulties are even more re-
stricted than in the farming context. As Kaschula notes, courtroom procedure,
as elsewhere in the country, including choice of language medium, ‘belongs
to the dominant minority culture’ (1995: 9). Witnesses may use indigenous
languages but, significantly, it is the translations into English or Afrikaans, and
not the actual words of the Xhosa speakers, that are recorded, i.e. incorporated
into official courtroom discourse, and used as the basis for assessing character,
honesty, and so on. Kaschula points to many reasons for inaccurate translating
from Xhosa into English and vice versa. These include the absence of equiv-
alent one-to-one terms in the two languages; the often limited proficiency in
English of many translators; translators’ unfamiliarity with the dialect of the
Xhosa speakers; and the fact that pervasive asymmetrical social relations of
power do not encourage lawyers to become sufficiently proficient in Xhosa for
them to be able to check the accuracy of translations.
These studies add to our understanding of the sources and consequences
of miscommunication in South Africa. In other words, they add to our under-
standing of how structural arrangements of institutions constrain what occurs in
interactions, and how the outcomes of interactions serve to maintain structural
inequities in them. The special interest of these studies is that they help us to
understand the plight of some of the most disadvantaged people in the society.
 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa 273

What these studies show is that, because traditional asymmetries entrenched

in institutional procedures remain intact in these contexts, the limited use of
Xhosa does not greatly assist Xhosa people to avoid miscommunication and
resolve communication difficulties or to have their abilities, innocence or guilt
fairly judged. One can, nevertheless, reasonably infer that in situations where
social relations of power become more symmetrical, and where institutional
procedures are owned by all groups, the wider use of indigenous languages
would greatly help resolve communication problems and ensure accurate inter-
pretations and evaluations.

4 CONCLUSION

In this chapter I have surveyed a selection of studies that attempt to trace the
sources of miscommunication in intercultural communication in South Africa,
and to indicate what insights they provide into how the structural circum-
stances of apartheid society affected the quality of communication and how
pervasive miscommunication impacted on that society. The apartheid regime
has fallen and, while some of the structural circumstances that characterised
it have changed radically, others are still very much intact, and intercultural
miscommunication is still pervasive. It follows that sociolinguists have at this
particular period in South Africa’s history a unique opportunity of further ex-
ploring the relationship between macro-structural phenomena and what occurs
in the micro-contexts of conversational interactions. What I suggest is particu-
larly urgent is comparative studies of intercultural communication in domains
in which there has been dramatic structural change and those in which there
has been minimal structural change.

notes
1 One departure I made from the procedures used by Herbert was in the coding of what
he terms compound responses, such as:
A: Nice coat.
B: Thanks. Katherine gave it to me.
Herbert (1985: 80) reports that he coded such responses on the basis of ‘perceived
intention’. Thus, for example, in the above exchange, he would have coded B’s re-
sponses, type 5 (qualification) even though the first part of the response, if it had oc-
curred on its own, would have been coded type 1 (appreciation token). My misgiving
about this way of proceeding is that it increased, to what I considered an unacceptable
degree, the subjectivity involved in coding responses. Accordingly, with compound
responses I adopted the policy of coding all the types involved. For example, I coded
the above response 1 + 5.
2 I chose not to include compliment responses produced in the intercultural encounters
because counting revealed that the patterns of choice differed considerably from those
in intracultural encounters.
274 J. K. Chick

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Chick, J. K. 1987. ‘Linguistics, language and power’. In D. Young (ed.), Festschrift
in Honour of Len Lanham. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, pp. 115–
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1990. ‘The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa’. In
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1996. ‘English in interpersonal interaction in South Africa’. In de Klerk (ed.),
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avoidance: listener-based versus speaker-based pragmatic strategies’. Language
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community’. South African Journal of African Languages, 9, 3: 100–4.
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Part 2

Language contact
Gender, language change and shift
14 Women’s language of respect:
isihlonipho sabafazi

R. Finlayson

1 INTRODUCTION
The 1990s witnessed an ever-quickening pace in southern Africa towards urban-
isation and modernisation at the expense of custom and tradition. The socially
accepted form of behaviour in a community and the customs and beliefs be-
ing handed down from one generation to the next have become blurred as the
many forces being exerted upon the traditional family lifestyle take effect. The
object of this chapter is to trace the development of a specific sociolinguistic
phenomenon which has been particularly affected by modernisation. This con-
cerns a language variety associated with respect practised by certain southern
Bantu-speaking people, more specifically Nguni and Southern Sotho-speaking
women. This chapter considers this phenomenon as related in particular to the
Xhosa-speaking women.
First, it would assist those unfamiliar with this interesting linguistic phe-
nomenon to put it in context by a hypothetical example from English. One could
consider the following situation: Robert and Grace Green have three children –
William, Joan and Margaret. William marries Mary and takes her home to
his family. Here she is taught a new vocabulary by Joan, her sister-in-law and
where necessary advised by Grace, her mother-in-law. This is because from now
on she may never use the syllables occurring in the names of her husband’s
family, i.e. simplistically rob, ert, green, will, may and grace. Thus for the sen-
tence ‘Grace will not eat green yoghurt’, Mary would have to say something
like: ‘The older daughter of Smith refuses to eat grass-coloured yomix.’ This
(in simplified form) demonstrates the linguistic constraints to which one would
be subjected in conforming with this linguistic custom.
This custom, known among the Nguni as ukuhlonipha, (literally ‘to respect’)
and among the Southern Sotho as ho hlonepha, has been defined in a number
of ways. Kropf and Godfrey (1915: 161) describe it as to ‘be bashful, respect,
keep at a distance through reverence and to shun approach’. They go on to add:

This word [-hlonipha] describes a custom between relations-in-law, and is generally

but not exclusively applied to the female sex, who, when married, are not allowed to
pronounce or use words which have for their principle syllable any part or syllable of

279
280 R. Finlayson

the names of their chief’s or their husband’s relations, especially their father-in-law;
they must keep at a distance from the latter. Hence they have the habit of inventing new
names for those persons.

A well-known example of this custom as applied to men concerns Shaka, the

Zulu king who, after travelling some distance without fresh drinking water,
eventually came upon a well-watered place and wanted to name it amanzi
amnandi, ‘fresh or pleasant water’. However, his mother’s name was Nandi and
out of respect for her he had to rename the place in order to avoid the nandi part
of the qualificative. Hence he called the place Amanzimtoti, thereby inventing
the word -toti to replace nandi. However, this syllabic avoidance by men is
not frequent, and research has shown that only in exceptional cases do men
hlonipha.
The term hlonipha in its broad sense can apply to any custom of respect,
such as the manner in which a headscarf is tied or the avoidance of certain areas
of the homestead. However, in this chapter the custom will only be examined
linguistically and as it is applied to women, i.e. isihlonipho sabafazi, ‘the lan-
guage of respect of the women’ (isi- class 7 prefix indicative of ‘language’ +
verb root -hloniph- + nominal deverbative terminative -o). It should be noted
further that the linguistic variety isikhwetha practised by the Xhosa initiates
(abakhwetha) would also be regarded as a variety of respect for the custom of
initiation (cf. Finlayson 1993: 191).
The hlonipha linguistic custom of syllabic avoidance is applied to the names
of the father-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law’s brothers and their wives
and the mother-in-law’s sisters and their husbands. (See Myburgh 1942 for
his description regarding application of hlonipha among the Zulu.) This pro-
cess extends back in time usually as far as the great-grandfather-in-law.
Though still widespread among the Nguni, the custom of hlonipha is on the
decline. The very nature of the designation ho hlonepha in Southern Sotho is
indicative that this custom was in all probability borrowed by the Southern
Sotho from the Nguni, as the regular reflex in Sotho would be *ho hlonefa to
correspond with the Nguni ukuhlonipha.

1.1 From childhood to youth

No written records exist which can lend further insight into this linguistic phe-
nomenon. Herbert (1995: 61) notes that ‘a fundamental problem in any attempt
to gauge the climate and mechanisms of earlier hlonipha is, of course, the com-
plete lack of written records. The linguistic and cultural history of southern
Africa is an enormously complex web of migrations, conquests, assimilations
and diversifications.’ Historically within a classical tradition of a rural situation,
a strict code of ethics existed among the African pastoral communities with a
distinct hierarchy in the social system. However, these traditions are slowly
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 281

being eroded and replaced by other forms of social behaviour. With regard to
the Xhosa, Hoernlé (1946: 67) noted that there was an ‘ordered group-life,
with reciprocal rights and duties, privileges and obligations, of members, and
moulding the feelings, thoughts, and conduct of members according to these
patterns, so that it is only in and through them that the individual can achieve
his personal self-realization and participate in the satisfaction offered by the
life of his community’. To this effect a baby (usana, class 11/10) is accorded
no gender until it is able to play a role in society. This is evidenced by the
prefixation of class 11 u(lu)-sana which is not a personal class (cf. um-, class 1,
personal). In such a patriarchal society, it is the mother who has the task of
bringing up the child, who teaches it to speak and learn the rules according
to which it must live in order to be an accepted member of the community. A
young boy (inkwenkwe, 9/6) at the age of about five or six, among other things,
is taught to herd the calves or lambs. He and his peers (intanga, 9/10) would set
off at an early hour in the day, returning in all probability after the morning’s
meal, thereby having to make do with a cold rather than a freshly prepared
meal. Thereafter he would set out once more to spend hours in the fields taking
note of nature, learning the names of edible plants and birds, setting traps and
hunting small animals and playing games, such as mock fights with his friends.
Meanwhile, the girl (intombazana, 9/6), who is the sole concern of her mother,
is kept at home to do the necessary household chores such as collecting water
and wood and acting as a nurse for a younger brother or sister. Previously her
main recreation would have included playing with clay or mealie-cob dolls.
From the age of approximately ten to twelve, the responsibility of the child
generally changes. The young boy will now begin to herd cattle and traditionally
will be instructed in such things as spear throwing and stick fighting. His father
now becomes involved in the education of his son, but the son’s ultimate loyalty
is to the chief. The young girl, on the other hand, will now learn how to perform
more responsible work in the home and its surroundings, and will be taught by
the women in the home how to cook, make clothes and work in the garden. At
each stage of development, the ultimate code is one of respect for one’s seniors
and a particular naming procedure is adhered to (Finlayson 1986).
The progress of a traditional Xhosa child continues to the initiation schools,
where, as custom prescribes, a girl would become an intonjane (9/10) and
the boy would go through the circumcision rites as an umkhwetha (1/2). Both
of these ceremonies have linguistic rules attached to them. However, as the
intonjane ceremony is rarely practised now, its linguistic connotations have
fallen away (Jonas 1972). Isikhwetha, the language of the Xhosa initiates, is,
however, still practised in certain situations (Finlayson 1998). The value of the
ceremonies has been accentuated as they incorporate an oath of allegiance to the
chief and have an effect on the moral behaviour of the individuals (Hunter 1961).
The initiates are subjected to rituals and come through these rituals into a new
life of responsibility attached to adulthood.
282 R. Finlayson

This period of life is associated with courtship and games related to this
courtship, but strict rules are imposed upon any relationship existing between
young girls and boys. During this time the young girls would begin to learn the
rules of avoiding the syllables occurring in the family names of their boyfriends,
and thus would have the chance to practise complying with these rules in
preparation for married life. There were threats of severe punishment, such
as baldness, barrenness and other possible consequences, for those who did not
adhere to these rules regarding their relationship with the opposite sex.

1.2 Marriage
The process of courtship leads ultimately to the marriage contract and negotia-
tions between the parents-in-law. Stewart (1940) gives the purpose of ukulobola
(‘bridewealth’) as to ‘secure father’s consent to the marriage of his daughter,
translating her from his guardianship to that of her husband and [a transition] by
which the father would lose the benefit of his daughter’s services, the intending
husband was obliged by payment or by services rendered to the guardian to
prove his fitness to undertake the duties of husband and future guardian’.
This was a means of binding families and sub-clans together. It also implied
that the descent and, in turn the inheritance, was patrilineal. The Nguni are
exogamous and therefore marriage between related clans is forbidden. After
the marriage the young woman moves ceremonially from her home to that of
her in-laws. Here she is taught to respect all the senior relatives of her husband,
especially the male relatives and her mother-in-law. She has to avoid certain
areas of the homestead which are frequented by men and also the cattle kraal
(Hunter 1961: 36–47). As the daughter-in-law she is expected to be even more
responsible to her mother-in-law than to her husband and, in turn, the mother-in-
law is expected to protect her. Any misconduct on the part of the mother-in-law
leads to the invocation of the theleka custom, i.e. the daughter-in-law would
return home to her own parents until a fine (uswazi, 11) has been paid for any
misbehaviour towards her.

2 LINGUISTIC CUSTOM OF RESPECT

Associated with the concept of respect is the institution of isihlonipho sabafazi,

abbreviated in this chapter to hlonipha, or the conscious avoidance in the
woman’s everyday speech of the syllables occurring in the family names of
the husband (Finlayson 1978). The custom has been viewed as a mark of dom-
inance by the male members of the family. Dowling (1988: 6) examines how
in different societies dominant groups, in this instance males, ‘tailor’ customs
in order to maintain power. However, this approach involves oversimplification
since, as Dowling comments, women themselves endorse and apply this custom.
Herbert (1990: 455) states the following with regard to male dominance:
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 283

Ethnographic descriptions of the role played by women in traditional southern African

Bantu-speaking societies have detailed the socially inferior status of women and the
numerous prohibitions governing the everyday life of these women, particularly wives
(e.g. Kuper 1982). Marriage is patrilocal within southeastern Bantu societies, and the
code of behavior taught to young wives upon arrival in their husband’s homestead is
indexical of the socially inferior status of the wife, which status is reinforced with the
daily practice of this code.

From the time that the woman enters her in-laws’ home she may not pronounce
words containing any syllable that is part of the names occurring among her
husband’s relatives. Various reasons for this linguistic form of respect may be
postulated, such as the intention that the daughter-in-law should be aware that
she has not been born into this particular family and thus should be distinguished
from the natural daughters. Further, she should also be conscious of her new
state and, by respecting her in-laws, some of whom may be deceased, she may
also be seen to be respecting the ancestors of her new home. In turn, she should
be respected and protected herself. As Herbert (1990: 463) notes in connection
with her dual life:
Such a transfer does not, however, terminate the woman’s membership in her birth group;
rather, marriage confers membership (or potential membership) in a second group. She
maintains links with the birth group, particularly with the ancestral shades of that group,
and she may return to her father’s homestead if she is expelled or seeks to escape from
her husband’s homestead. Members of the latter are acutely aware of the wife’s dual
membership, which is the basis for the view of wives as ‘strangers’ and ‘outsiders’
throughout their lives.

Herbert (1990: 471) also postulates that ‘it may be possible that avoidance prac-
tices such as hlonipha occur only in societies with a high incidence of unique
names and where names are derived from ordinary words of language’. This
is indeed the case among the Xhosa-speaking people. The traditional family
was generally a patrilineal extended family and the young daughter-in-law was
expected not only to respect the senior members linguistically but also to avoid
them physically. In fact, her movements in and around the home, her form of
dress and her eating habits would be severely restricted. Most of her instruction
would come from her mother-in-law, but her sisters-in-law (indodakazi, 9/6),
especially the eldest, would play an active role in instructing her. Once her
children are born the whole cycle begins again. The children are aware of their
mother’s speech in the home and are made conscious of the procedures involved
in the act of respect. The woman is expected to hlonipha throughout her life.
However, Herbert (1990: 461) notes that ‘the hlonipha customs affecting a
Nguni bride do not continue to operate through her life. Most of these prohibi-
tions are gradually relaxed by a special release ritual or by a verbal order from the
mother-in-law.’
Other authors on the subject as quoted by Herbert (1990: 461), however,
support the theory that women should hlonipha throughout their lives (Mzamane
284 R. Finlayson

1962; Mqotsi 1957), but in practice it has been found that recently, once the
woman’s sons are married, she becomes the senior partner in the homestead
and the rules do not apply as strictly. Dowling (1988: 30) has the following to
say in this regard:

Hlonipha is viewed as an important custom in so far as it persists into a woman’s old

age when she will have gained much more status within the community . . . Its particular
symbolic significance to people who do not adhere to its rules is not, however, afforded
sufficient attention. There are people, living in both rural and urban areas, who give
up the custom for a number of reasons, but who will nevertheless endorse it as being
essentially desirable and correct.

The newly married woman is not allowed to treat this custom lightly, and is
subjected to severe public shame should she ignore the rules laid down for
her. The forces exerted by public opinion are a very important deterrent in
upholding these rules, as one may be ostracised from one’s community. In
general the communities were isolated and monolingual and in most cases the
members of the community were illiterate. Should the daughter-in-law disobey
the rules of the community, she might be sent home and have to return with a
gift of some sort in penitence. Herbert (1990: 459) notes in this regard: ‘The
idea of cleansing is central to the rite of repairing hlonipha infractions . . . In all
cases, it is most particularly the ancestors who must be appeased.’

2.1 Exemplification
In order to give some idea of how the women’s speech is affected by the rules of
hlonipha, an example has been extracted from a conversation recorded in a rural
part of the eastern Cape in 1978. Buziwe Diko is in conversation with Nogogose,
her daughter-in-law, who has her own mother, Zondiwe Qebeyi, present and
therefore feels confident, and verges on being rude to her mother-in-law, who,
in turn, responds angrily.

hlonipha Xhosa English

Nogogose: Úyaphósis’
ubhéka nj’úmama, úkhon’
ú-éleshe ékhâya mnı́nz’
úkufá; úyavı́mba qhá.
Buziwe: O, undi-amı́sile
ké, molokázana, ndı́thi
ndâwukhulúma nómam’
‘ákho ukhulúme ngólo
hlobo; háyi undoyı́sile,
molokázan’ am. Háyi ke,
mkhôzi, ndakukuhaléla
lóo shána gabúka,
Úyaxók’ ubóna nj’úmama,
úkhon’ úmbóna ékhâya
mnı́nz’ úkufa; úyakuvı́mba
njé.
O, undincamı́sile ké,
molokázana, ndı́thi
ndâkuthêtha nómam’ ákho
úthethé ngólo hlobo, háyi
undoyı́sile molokázan’ am.
Háyi ke, mkhôzi,
ndakukukhélêla lóo ntwána
ngômso ndı́niké lé
Do you know that she is
lying, mother, there is
plenty of maize, she is
just being stingy.
You really amaze me,
daughter-in-law, would I
speak to your mother
like that, no, you really
overcome me. All right
then. Zondiwe [mother
of Nogogose], I’ll give
you a little and get
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 285

ndinikézelé lé ntwánázana yam kúthiwá my little one

ntı́kázana yam kúthiwá ngúWéndile ı́kuzisél’ apho to take it to you and say
ngúWéndile ı́kuzisél’ lóo mbôna. Wendile is bringing you
ápho lóo tı́ya. some maize.

The italicised words in the conversation show the hlonipha words and their
Xhosa equivalents. While the conversation is heated, the hlonipha rules are
nevertheless adhered to throughout and the syllables occurring in the in-laws’
family are strictly avoided. Nogogose’s in-laws’ names are Mbombo, father-in-
law (utatazala, 1a/2a), and Buziwe, mother-in-law, whose in-laws in turn are:
Ncaphayi, father-in-law; Mthetho, brother-in-law (ubhuti, 1a/2a); Khethiwe,
sister-in-law (indodakazi, 9/6); Xoseka, grandfather-in-law (utatomkhulu, 1a/
2a); Ntobeko, uncle-in-law (umalume, 1a/2a); Msongelwa, uncle-in-law; and
Diko, great-grandfather-in-law (ukhokho, 1a/2a). Figure 14.1 illustrates the
family tree, which has been empirically derived only from those members of
the family whose names were avoided in the above conversation.

Diko

Xoseka

Ncaphayi Ntobeko Msongelwa

Buziwe Mbombo Mthetho Khethiwe

Ngogose Thami

14.1 Family tree illustrating hlonipha rules

286 R. Finlayson

3 EFFECTS OF MODERNISATION
The evolution of hlonipha should be seen within the urbanisation framework
as it exists in the various regions of southern Africa (Dewar et al. 1982). Prior
to the discovery of minerals in South Africa in 1860 the scale and rate of
urbanisation were relatively low, with traditional subsistence farming providing
a more beneficial alternative to wage labour in the cities. Between 1870 and
1913, however, a rapid increase took place in the rate of urbanisation. This
trend continued, and today different regions experience varying degrees of
rapid urbanisation. Much has been written regarding the effects of urbanisation
and modernisation on the Xhosa people (e.g. Hunter 1961; Jonas 1972). Pauw
(1976: 159) notes:
Generally speaking, relations between husband and wife are no doubt closer in the
urban household than they used to be in the traditional Xhosa umzi, where avoidance
customs and ritual emphasized the position of the wife as an outsider in her husband’s
homestead . . . Where marriage takes place in town, a young couple usually choose
each other in the first place, . . . and in married life they tend to be less involved with
their parents and in-laws and more aware of their exclusive responsibility for an own
household from an early stage.
Personal research in Cape Town, Pretoria and Soweto has reaffirmed this with
the general trend being away from the extended family and the hardships in-
volved for the daughter-in-law. In the urban areas hlonipha is not taken as
seriously as it used to be, and in most cases is not adhered to at all. Dowling
(1988) similarly has found in her research conducted in three areas, Tsolo and
Mqanduli in the Transkei and Cape Town, that attitudes towards this custom
have changed. She notes (1988: 3) that ‘the fact that all three communities in-
dicated some doubt as to the continued existence of the custom demonstrates
the likelihood of such a situation developing’. However, Dowling points out
that the most important variables in analysing the different attitudes towards
hlonipha are age, social mobility and education. She also comments (1988: 68)
that poverty and its associated problems retarded economic growth by inhibiting
social development and encouraged a certain linguistic conservatism.

3.1 Core vocabulary

On a research trip undertaken in the 1980s in Cape Town to ascertain the extent
to which women in an urban area still uphold the tradition of respect for their
in-laws through hlonipha, of nineteen informants interviewed, twelve claimed
that they had retained this custom and knew how to hlonipha. On closer in-
vestigation it emerged that random words of hlonipha origin were being used
by these women, but, in fact, the prime aim of hlonipha, that is, the conscious
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 287

avoidance of syllables occurring in the family names of their husbands, was

not being followed. Instead, only a ‘core’ vocabulary (Finlayson 1982) was
being used which consisted of words that were generally known and accepted
as hlonipha words. When questioned further regarding the names of their in-
laws and the fact that these names were occurring in their vocabulary, the
women maintained that nevertheless they were making use of the hlonipha vo-
cabulary – Hayi, noko, siyahlonipha (‘No, nevertheless, we are respecting’),
but the answer to Uhlonipha bani? (‘Whom are you respecting?’) was con-
sidered superfluous. The words used by these women and other informants
interviewed in the urban areas were recorded. Upon analysis it has emerged
that these words stretch across the entire Xhosa-speaking area where hlonipha
has been investigated. Further research undertaken by Dowling (1988) endorses
this point.
This core vocabulary, as it was in the 1980s at the time of a concentrated
phase of my research, contains some fifty-five words covering the everyday life
of a Xhosa-speaking woman.

Core hlonipha Xhosa English

food and eating
ukumunda (15) ukutya (15) food/to eat
isimundelo (7/8) isitya (7/8) dish
inteleko (9/10) imbiza (9/10) pot
ihabathi (9/10) imela (9/10) knife
iwaku (5/6) icephe (5/6) spoon
isiqhusheko (7/8) isonka (7/8) bread
utiya (1a/2a) umbona (1a/2a) mealies
intlumayo (9/10) imbotyi (9/10) bean
izambane (5/6) itapile (9/10) potato
ihlongozo (5/6) iqanda (5/6) egg
imheya (9) inyama (9) meat
iwekete (9) iswekile (9) sugar
amagqabi (6) iti (9) tea
impungo (9) ikofu (9) coffee
imvotho (9) amanzi (6) water
uhlaza (11) ubisi (11) milk
amagoboto (6) amasi (6) sour milk
umolulo (3) utywala (14) beer
animals
inombe (9/10) inkomo (9/10) cow
uhuko (1a/2a) ithole (5/6) calf
ibetha (9/10) inja (9/10) dog
iphala (5/6) ihashe (5/6) horse
ingulube (9/10) ihagu (9/10) pig
288 R. Finlayson

people
ityhagi (5/6) inkwenkwe (9/6) boy
inikazi (9/10) intombi (9/10) girl
incentsa (9/6) indoda (9/6) man
umnyepha (1/2) umlungu (1/2) white man
ityubuka (9/10) usana (11/10) baby
ikhitha (5/6) ixhego (5/6) old man
body parts
iphoba (9/10) intloko (9/10) head
amagabuko (6) amehlo (6) eyes
umnakazo (3/4) ingalo (9/10) arm
isinyamba (7/8) isifuba (7/8) chest
ikruqelo (5/6) idolo (5/6) knee
umnabo (3/4) umlenze (3/4) leg
miscellaneous
inkumba (9/10) indlu (9/10) house
umbaso (3) umlilo (3) fire
isilozelo (7/8) isipili (7/8) mirror
umgaqo (3/4) indlela (9/10) road
inkwezi (9/10) inyanga (9/10) moon
isotha (9/10) ilanga (9/10) sun
ihloma (5/6) izulu (5/6) heaven
isichopho (7/8) isitulo (7/8) chair
ubuyiso (11/10) ucango (11/10) door
amanyiso (6) amabele (6) udder
ethameni (descrip.) phandle (descrip.) outside
-weke (qual.) -mhlophe (qual.) white
ukunyambela (15) ukufaka (15) to put on
ukunoboka (15) ukufa (15) to die
ukunawuka (15) ukuhamba (15) to walk
ukuhuka (15) ukusenga (15) to milk
ukukhuluma (15) ukuthetha (15) to speak
ukumathela (15) ukubaleka (15) to run

3.2 Sample characteristics

It is not possible in this chapter to discuss the core vocabulary at great length.
Most of the processes found in traditional hlonipha can be found in the core
vocabulary, with two significant exceptions. The first is that the process of
randomly replacing one consonant with another does not apply to the core
vocabulary.

Traditional hlonipha Xhosa English


umdyu (1/2) umntu (1/2) person
umju (1/2)
ishwelo (9/10) inqwelo (9/10) wagon
idyekile (9/10) ibhekile (9/10) tin can
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 289

The second is that consonant deletion found in traditional hlonipha does not
apply to the core vocabulary, for example:
Traditional hlonipha Xhosa English
andi-uni (pred.) andifuni (pred.) I do not want
uku-ina (15) ukuqina (15) to tighten
uku-ondela (15) ukusondela (15) to come nearer

The rest of this section describes features of traditional hlonipha that do occur
in the core sample. The core vocabulary contains retentions of Common Bantu
forms as reconstructed by Guthrie (1970):

Traditional and core

hlonipha Xhosa English
inombe (9/10) inkomo (9/10) cow
inkumba (9/10) indlu (9/10) house
ingulube (9/10) ihagu (9/10) pig
(See Guthrie 1970, Comparative Bantu CS Nos 1402, 2168 and 888.)
There is the use of semantic shift as exemplified by:
Traditional and core
hlonipha Xhosa English
uhlaza (11) ubisi (11) milk

Here the hlonipha word has come from the qualificative -luhlaza meaning
‘green’ or ‘fresh’, and thus associated with fresh milk. Hence also such words as:

Traditional and core

hlonipha Xhosa English
iphoba (9/10) intloko (9/10) head
intlumayo (9/10) imbotyi (9/10) bean

In Xhosa iphoba means ‘that part of the head with hair’ and intlumayo ‘a very
small bean’.
Many verbal derivatives occur in the core vocabulary, such as:
Traditional and core
hlonipha Xhosa English verb Meaning
umbaso (3/4) umlilo (3/4) fire ukubasa to kindle
impungo (9) ikofu (9) coffee ukuphunga to sip
amagabuko (6) amehlo (6) eyes ukugabuka to clear up
umnabo (3/4) umlenze (3/4) leg ukunaba to stretch a leg

Interestingly, the Xhosa form isonka (7/8), ‘bread’, has its hlonipha equivalent
isiqhusheko (7/8), which could possibly have come from the verb ukuqhusheka,
‘to put under something’, which probably indicated the way of baking the
bread.
290 R. Finlayson

Borrowings from Zulu also occur, for example:

Traditional and core
hlonipha Xhosa Zulu English
izambane (5/6) itapile (9/10) izambane (5/6) potato
ukukhuluma (15) ukuthetha (15) ukukhuluma (15) to speak

One of the most interesting facets of the lexical core of hlonipha is the coining
of new words and these abound in the core vocabulary, for example:
Core
hlonipha Xhosa English
ukumunda (15) ukutya (15) food/to eat
ukunawuka (15) ukuhamba (15) to walk
umolulo (3) utywala (15) beer
iwaku (5/6) icephe (5/6) spoon

It appears that although this core vocabulary is generally accepted by Xhosa

speakers as belonging exclusively to hlonipha, certain words appear in the
Xhosa language and may possibly become accepted as Xhosa words, for ex-
ample, umtyanti (3/4; cf. Xhosa umzi, 3/4), ‘homestead’ and intshiki (9/10; cf.
Xhosa intombi, 9/10), ‘girl’. A significant aspect which should be considered
is that it is not the name itself that is at issue but rather, as Herbert (1990: 471)
notes, ‘the name as a device which attracts the attention of its bearer and focuses
upon the person uttering the name’. He suggests further (1990: 467):

What seems to be crucial to an understanding of this process [hlonipha] is the ‘attention

calling’ function of personal names, i.e., the fact that the uttering of someone’s personal
name directs their attention to the speaker. Nguni men will not have their attention called
by the ‘outsider’ living within their midst, i.e., they will not be forced to focus upon this
potential threat to the harmony of the homestead. The avoidance of all words containing
any of the syllables of the male names that is enforced upon a wife ensures that a senior
male’s attention, including the attention of the ancestral shades, will not be focused
upon her.

3.3 Further changes in hlonipha

However, the use of the core vocabulary as a form of hlonipha without the
actual avoidance of any specific syllables as such, is an aspect that exemplifies
the changing nature of isihlonipho sabafazi bamaXhosa. It was often found that
people regretted the departure from the hlonipha custom and there is still a cer-
tain resistance to the change. This is exemplified by one woman interviewed,
who had been sent to a rural area in the eastern Cape from Soweto to learn
to hlonipha. She had been unable to bear children and her husband was of the
opinion that ignoring this basic custom had had an ill effect on her. She was well
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 291

educated and had grown up in Soweto, but was prepared to return to her in-laws
and take up the traditional customs. Her father-in-law blamed the influence of
Western culture for the fact that daughters-in-law no longer cared to hlonipha.
He commented: Yile mpucuko le ibangela kumke amasiko. Abantwana
abakhoyo abasihloniphi kuba bayakhumsha (‘It is this civilization which has
caused customs to go. The children here do not hlonipha because they speak a
foreign language’). However, Dowling (1988: 58) states:

As a custom however, hlonipha will persist because of its historical authority and legit-
imacy. Research that has been conducted in both the Ciskei and the Transkei indicates
that for many people its survival is desirable and important. Apart from what people
desire and consider important, however, there are other considerations involving factors
such as political change, imported values and syncretism, the implications and effects
of which being as yet not entirely predictable.

A strange dual life sometimes occurs where the daughter-in-law may be edu-
cated and working as a nurse in an urban area, returning home in the evening
and adopting once more her traditional attire and customs. This is accepted
by the family but proves very difficult for the daughter-in-law who cannot be
understood at work should she hlonipha, but who has to revert to hlonipha once
she is at home. This dual life cannot be expected to persist so will eventually
lead to the falling away of hlonipha – a sad event, one informant’s father-in-law
commented, as he felt that when tradition dies, the nation dies.
In many of the rural areas researched it appears that there are three distinct
categories of hlonipha users – the older group, who still hlonipha and strictly
uphold all the customs; the middle group, who have a partial retention of the
hlonipha vocabulary; and the younger set, who hardly hlonipha at all, and when
they do, include many words of English and Afrikaans origin. It has been found
that in some nuclear families, it is often the husband who will teach his wife
how to hlonipha. So while it appears that there is a distinct movement away
from hlonipha (see also Levin 1946), there is also some pressure to retain this
custom.
Pauw (1976: 198) notes that ‘it is probably a general feature of the urban-
isation of African peoples that customs, values and beliefs relating to certain
principles of social structure change more slowly than the structure itself’.
Those features of an institution demonstrating resistance to change will in-
evitably be seen to be the most resilient. However, although still retained by
many Xhosa women, the hlonipha custom is changing. According to Herbert
(1995: 61) many anecdotal reports exist ‘of situations in which individuals are
forced to violate a taboo’. He cites, for example, Kunene (1958: 165), who
described the frustration and difficulties experienced by post office workers
when they attempted to determine the name of someone whom the individual
was obliged to hlonipha. Herbert states that a further indication of the decrease
292 R. Finlayson

in the use of this custom was initially identified in Kunene’s research where
some of his informants reported that a woman could ‘whisper a taboo word to a
child’ if she fails to use the standard hlonipha form after which the child would
whisper the taboo word out loud. Finlayson in her research also notes that when
women were gathered together and a discussion was taking place, guesswork
would ensue as what a certain woman was trying to convey when there was
any confusion. All the women would participate in the guesswork which would
cause much mirth, sometimes ending up with the interlocutor having to utter
the tabooed key word quickly after which she would spit over her right shoulder
in order to appease the ancestors. Herbert (1995: 61) reports that the practice of
the avoidance of reference to names and food terms continues to exist, whereas
reference to spatial characteristics, articles of clothing and personal property
tends not to be found as frequently.
Many younger Xhosa speakers in rural situations do not practise the custom
of hlonipha at all, and, when they do, they use Afrikaans or English words.
In fact, many present-day students have been quoted as referring to hlonipha
as ‘like reading about a foreign culture’ (Herbert 1995: 62). With the changes
in hlonipha through the use of English and Afrikaans lexical items hlonipha
may become a language variety whose application generates another form of
identity for its users. Implications for research into code-switching can also not
be discounted.
It has been found over a period of some twenty years that more and more
English and Afrikaans words are being used in order to avoid the tabooed
syllables. From the original list of hlonipha terms (Finlayson 1984c), the
numbers of words of Afrikaans and English extraction were thirty-three and
twenty-seven out of sixty, respectively; more recent research has shown that
more words from English are being used. The rural communities have be-
come increasingly exposed to English and Afrikaans through the media, mobile
shops and, most importantly, through education. This influence of English and
Afrikaans on hlonipha is best illustrated in the following conversation which
took place in the Trappes valley area of the Eastern Cape province.
Nominiti Velani and Nomisile Myali are conversing about the problems of
the day.

hlonipha Xhosa English

Nominiti: Hê, ningáthı́nı́
zenı́búthumé ngénombé
énobokiléyo?
Nomisile: Xá
ndihlanzéka útyéna
ndithi ábándywana bám
bábúthumé bénobokı́le!
Hê, ningáthı́ni zenı́lalé
ngénkomó éfı́léyo?
Xá ndı́boleká úmbôna
ndithi ábántwana bám
balelé befı́le!
What! How can you eat
the meat of a dead beast
for supper?
When I borrow maize it is
because my children go
to sleep dying [of
hunger].
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 293

Nominiti: Kalóku, Kalóku, mkhôzi náthi We also are dying of

mkhôzi, náthi sinobokile,
yı́ndlala léyo siyixélayó,
ası́nayé nalóo milisi,
sinjé ngézo mbacu
zı́ngénayé nabâni ápha
kulé plasi yethú.
Abátsı́bana ngâba
kalóku nêzo tshelete
bazapeyayo kwabo
banyepha bábo bazı́tya
ába bhokóxa, akúkho
néshı́ énye ngaphándle
kwába bhokóxa,
bábámúndayó, nêzi
dzotile; ezi shi
zisézidzotı́leni
basebénzela zoná
kalóku boná kúló
mnyepha wethu ába
nyana bam.
sifı́le yı́ndlala léyo hunger as we tell you.
siyixélayó ası́nayé We have not got maize,
nalóo mbôna, sinjé we are like those
ngézo mbacú destitute people
zingenayé nabâni [squatters] with no one to
ápha kulé fama yethú. help us on this farm of ours.
Abáfána ngâba kalóku These young men are
nêzo malı́ those who spend the
bazamkélayó kwâbo money they earn from
belungu bábo bazı́tya the whites on cartons [of
la mákhamba, akúkho beer], there is nothing
néntó énye else they think about
ngaphándle kwalá except the cartons they
mákhamba bawátyayó, eat, and the bottles; our
nêzi bhótile; ézi ntó sons in fact spend the
zisézibhotileni wages they earn from
basebenzela zoná our white man on the
kalóku boná kúló contents of the bottle.
mlungu wethú ába
nyana bam.

The words in italics indicate borrowings from English and Afrikaans. In fact
a total of five words were used in two sentences from one woman in conversa-
tion, i.e.

Loanword Source language Source word Meaning

umilisi (1a) Afrikaans mielies maize
iplasi (9/10) Afrikaans plaas farm
itshelete (9) Afrikaans geld money
ukupeya (15) English pay earn
idzotile (9/10) English bottle bottle

The Xhosa word for ‘bottle’ is ibhotile, so here, in the hlonipha word, consonant
replacement has occurred, i.e. the breathy-voiced bilabial plosive has been
replaced by the breathy-voiced alveolar affricate in initial consonant position.
Until recently the coining of new words has been found to be mostly through
invention. English and Afrikaans now offer the user of hlonipha a rich source
of new words which may be used to avoid the tabooed syllables. Generally the
words borrowed from English and Afrikaans fit into the semantic categories of
clothing, household utensils and food. The majority of the women interviewed
could not speak either English or Afrikaans but must have been exposed to these
languages. Even some of their names are of English or Afrikaans origin, e.g.,
294 R. Finlayson

Name Gloss Xhosa equivalent

Nominiti minute umzuzu (3/4)
Nowanithi want it ukufuna (15)
Nofinishi finish ukugqiba (15)
Nonayisi nice -mnandi (qual.)

4 CONCLUSION
Lifestyles today in the urban areas make it virtually impossible for the women
to retain the custom of ukuhlonipha umzi wabo, ‘the custom of respecting the
homestead’. The custom involves the initial marriage negotiations when the
suitor has his bride negotiated for him while he remains at home. They also
involve the young girl’s avoidance of her suitor’s home during all the marriage
transactions, until the woman begins life in her new home. Such customs have
undergone drastic changes. A young girl used to accompany the bride to enable
the latter to communicate through the girl in her new home, but this no longer
happens as, in most cases, the bride will live in a home away from her in-laws
and will not have to worry about linguistic as well as physical avoidance of
things pertaining to them.
There is no doubt that hlonipha is still practised in many rural communities
today, but there is a change in the nature of this form of hlonipha. Previously
women who did not uphold this tradition were ridiculed and ostracised, but
today this does not generally happen. In the urban areas the converse occurs –
women are ridiculed for upholding the tradition. Such women would be con-
sidered uneducated. Many schoolchildren consider the whole concept a joke.
As Dowling (1988: 145) notes with regard to its survival: ‘This is a language
that will survive only as long as certain other institutions survive. This will
require social stability, a world view that is firmly based in oral culture and
a patriarchal ordering of society uninfluenced by any feminist perspectives or
demands.’
In this modern world of ours, there appears to be no time for the finer details of
customs of respect. People must answer for themselves and answer quickly. No
bureaucrat has time to decipher the intricacies of linguistic avoidance patterns
and thus, as the basis for a tradition changes, so the tradition itself falls away
and in some areas it begins to die. A strong case therefore exists for the accurate
documentation of this unique and changing tradition.

note
The original paper ‘The changing nature of isihlonipho sabafazi’ appeared in African
Studies, 43, 2, 84. This chapter is an updated revised version.
 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi 295

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15 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu

Robert K. Herbert

1 INTRODUCTION: CLICKS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

The click consonants of southern Africa are such pervasive elements within the
indigenous Khoesan languages and so striking to the ear that the earliest ex-
plorers and missionaries to this area frequently commented on the very distinct
acoustic quality of local languages. Such commentary was most often negative:
Among the Hottentot dialects, none is so rough and wild, and differs so much from the
rest, as that of the Bosjesmans, so that it is scarcely understood by any of the other tribes.
It is, in the first place, much poorer in sounds: many sounds, which may be expressed
by our letters . . . are either totally wanting among them, or occur rarely. Pure vowels
are seldom to be heard; but the cluck and the diphthongs are much more frequent. The
cluck, in particular, seems the most completely at home among them: scarcely a word
occurs without it. (H. Lichtenstien, cited in Theal 1910: 19–20)

The peoples and languages of southern Africa soon attracted the attention of
linguistic and cultural evolutionary theorists, who saw southern African hunters
and their languages as representing ‘primitive types’. The view, first expressed
by van Ginneken (1911: 346–7), that clicks were the phonetic material from
which human language first arose was developed and ardently championed by
the Polish linguist Roman Stopa (1935, 1979). Clicks were seen as arising from
‘the condensed expression of the gesticulatory part of speech’ (Stopa 1979:
28). Both van Ginneken (1938) and Stopa proposed comprehensive theories
whereby clicks have evolved into the diversity of human speech sounds. This
approach mirrors Bleek’s much earlier (1869) view that ‘Those languages . . .
in which the sounds are easiest of utterance are the farthest removed from the
primitive phonetic systems [i.e. San languages] of human speech’ (cited in
Theal 1910: 27). Attempts to discover the ‘origin’ of click sounds in Khoesan
and to discern developmental links between click and non-click consonants
have been largely abandoned.
With regard to the Bantu languages of southern Africa, it has long been recog-
nised that the click consonants are not reflexes of inherited elements; rather,
the clicks were ‘borrowed’ from Khoesan contact languages and incorporated
within Bantu phonological systems at some point during the prehistory of

297
298 R. K. Herbert

15.1 Present distribution of Southern Bantu languages

 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 299

southern Africa. Within the Bantu languages, clicks have been most widely in-
corporated within the Nguni subgroup, which includes several major languages.
The relations among the various Southern Bantu languages are represented and
their relative geographic distribution are indicated on map 15.1.
Both Xhosa and Zulu exhibit a three-way opposition: dental [/], (pre)palatal
[!] and lateral [//]. Other Bantu languages display either only the dental and
palatal or only the palatal click. That is, possible Bantu language click inven-
tories include [/, !, //], [/, !] and [!]; such distributional considerations dictate a
relative markedness of clicks within Bantu: lateral → dental → palatal.1 In ad-
dition to place of articulation, various manners of articulation are distinct within
the class of clicks, including the oppositions plain:breathy:aspirated:nasalised.
It is frequently estimated that about 15 per cent of Xhosa and Zulu words ex-
hibit clicks; the vast majority of these are words of demonstrable or presumed
Khoesan origin, but there are examples where a click inexplicably substitutes for
an inherited Bantu consonant. According to Lanham (1964), between twenty-
one and twenty-five of the fifty-five Xhosa consonants are non-inherited and
confined almost exclusively to the borrowed vocabulary.

2 EVALUATING KHOESAN–BANTU INTERACTIONS

2.1 The myth of ‘invading Bantu males’
An initial question here concerns the reasons for such wide-scale phonologi-
cal influence of one language group upon another. The traditional explanation
advanced in this case has to do with extraordinary sociolinguistic interactions
in which ‘invading’ Bantu-speaking males took Khoekhoe or San wives (Theal
1910; Faye 1923–5; Bryant 1929; Bourquin 1951; Lanham 1964). This expla-
nation rests further upon polygamous males being only ‘occasional visitors’
to their families and children’s dominant linguistic influence being that of the
mother, who adopted the father’s Bantu speech. Such intermarriage between
Bantu and Khoesan speakers seemingly had a high incidence, and this pattern
certainly existed over several centuries. Further, oral history among the Xhosa,
for example, relates the wholesale incorporation of several Khoekhoe clans into
the Xhosa tribal group. Westphal (1963) suggested a much wider incorporation
of Khoekhoe-speaking peoples into Bantu-speaking groups. Mzamane (1949:
126, 135) noted that the Phuti, a ‘mixed’ Sotho–Nguni group, claim direct rela-
tionship with the San. It is clear that the extent of Bantu–Khoesan intermarriage
must have been rather high, certainly greater than Faye’s notion that Bantu
languages with clicks ‘got them from the Hottentot [Khoe] – and perhaps a
few Bushman [San] – women captured in war’ (1923–5: 776–7; cf. Theal
(1910: 255)). There is no other way, in this view, to account for the wide phono-
logical influence observed. The major thesis of this chapter, however, is that a
300 R. K. Herbert

sociolinguistic avoidance custom provided the major impetus for click incor-
poration in Bantu languages; this argument is developed in section 3 below.
There is wide agreement now that the myth of the ‘invading Bantu male’
has been seriously overplayed in the literature (e.g. Harinck 1969; Marks 1969;
Ownby 1981, 1985; Wilson and Thompson 1969). Traditional ethnography of
the area has come under attack for a number of reasons. First, there has been a
tendency to treat the Bantu-speaking ‘tribes’ as monolithic units migrating and
displacing other peoples with abandon. Such mass migrations generally occur
less often than ‘the sporadic progressions of a set of segmentary interrelated
parties’ (Nurse et al. 1985: 64). Second, the ‘angry man’ theory (Ownby:1985:
32ff.) of a hostile relationship between the Nguni and Khoesan populations
is simply untenable.2 In place of this view, the Khoesan–Bantu relationship is
seen as a symbiotic one, characterised by frequent and intimate interaction over
several centuries in several domains, such as trade and intermarriage. As has
been noted in several publications, the Khoe and the Xhosa, for example, were
culturally compatible, not only in such areas as social and political organisation
but also in a high value orientation towards pastoralism expressed in an elabo-
rate cattle cult associated with the veneration of ancestors (Harinck 1969: 147).
Additionally, the nature of loanwords in Nguni languages (cf. Louw 1977; also
Werner 1902), in the socio-economic and ritual spheres, is incompatible with
the traditional ethnographic vision of the Khoesan–Bantu relationship. In place
of ‘invading Bantu males’, one needs to consider ‘Khoesan–Bantu composite
groups which existed well into the nineteenth century, if not the twentieth, all
over southern Africa’ (Marks 1969: 134). Though the usual pattern seems to
have been for Khoesan peoples to be assimilated within Bantu-speaking groups,
the reverse pattern also occurs. Harinck (1969: 157–9) discusses the assimi-
lation of leaderless Xhosa refugees into Khoe chiefdoms, where subsequent
generations spoke a ‘mixture of Khoi and Xhosa, with Khoi predominating’. It
seems most likely that the relationship between Khoesan and Bantu speakers
only became hostile some time in the nineteenth century when regular raids on
Nguni cattle began.
Thus, Bryant’s explanation of the incorporation of clicks within Nguni, of-
fered in the context of a discussion of Nguni migrations, is deficient in a number
of respects:

Here a new and difficult problem confronted them – tiny yellow men, more wily than
themselves, more treacherous and aggressive than the beasts, contested their very rights
to cattle, land and life. They must now perforce either fight, be pauperized, or die; and
so this endless warfare with the pygmy foe, while causing a marked recession in all arts
and industries of peace, trained them into a warrior race. Captured Bushwomen became
common in their homes as concubines and slaves, and sometimes, it is plain, as mothers.
And the children, ignorant of the consequences, adopted as their own, but in a Bantuized
form, much of the slave-girl’s speech and grew up with it on their tongues. Hence the
clicks in Nguni speech. (1929: 5)
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 301

In addition to the inaccuracy and racism of the sketched relationship, this lin-
guistic explanation fails to offer any coherent reason why the nature of Khoesan
influence on Bantu is so restricted. It is clear, for example, that modern Zulu
is not a Khoesan language ‘in a Bantuized form’ (cf. section 3 below). Further,
the social asymmetry of the contact relationship would argue against Bantu lan-
guages borrowing heavily from Khoesan since, as noted by Moravcsik (1978:
109), ‘nothing can be borrowed from a language which is not regarded to be
prestigious by speakers of the borrowing language’.
A contributing factor in the incorporation of Khoesan sounds into Bantu
phonological systems must have been the very distinctive acoustic quality of
clicks. Clicks are perceptually sharp and distinct as a class, although to the
untrained ear there is much confusion within the class. The particular brand of
bilingualism present in the contact situation, the distinct quality of the clicks,
and the absence of any inherited Bantu sound types with which they might be
matched are all factors that contributed to their borrowing.3

2.2 The limits of Khoesan–Bantu language contacts

One of the outstanding features of Khoesan–Bantu language contact is the
extraordinary nature of the linguistic result. The phonological inventories of
certain Bantu languages were radically increased by the addition of a large
number of consonant phonemes to the inherited system. The most dramatic
examples are those of Zulu and Xhosa, which added seventeen and twenty-
one (more likely twenty-five) consonants to their native stocks, respectively.
There are a number of surprising aspects to the linguistic results of contact.
First, the vast majority of borrowed sounds are clicks, which are incorporated
as three types in a number of distinct qualities. Despite the outsider’s impres-
sion of acoustic similarity, Xhosa incorporates fifteen distinct click sounds.
The mere receptivity of a language to such unusual sound types requires ex-
planation, especially in view of the highly marked nature of the borrowed
sound type. One might have predicted, rather, that contact languages would
replace clicks with velar stops. Second, the phonological influence of Khoesan
is confined to consonant borrowing. The nasalised vowels and the diphthongs
of Khoesan languages, surely less exotic phenomena than clicks, are not bor-
rowed into any Bantu language. Further, there is no influence of Khoesan on
canonical Bantu phonotactics; for example, sequential vowels, a common fea-
ture in Khoesan, are disallowed in Southern Bantu. Word-final consonants,
another pervasive Khoesan trait, are not incorporated into Bantu; final conso-
nants in borrowed words are deleted or a vowel is added in final position, e.g.
Nama //garab, ‘shoulder blade’, Zulu igxalaba; Nama !keis, Zulu iqhiya, ‘head
cloth’. There is, further, no significant Khoesan influence on the very distinc-
tive Bantu morphological and morphosyntactic systems, although a few Khoe
morphemes are incorporated in Xhosa.4 Louw (1976) attributes, for example,
302 R. K. Herbert

the following derivational morphemes to Khoe sources: -se, -she (< Khoe -s, a
feminine suffix) used for a variety of functions in Xhosa; -sholo (<soro, ‘bad,
ugly, coarse’) used for derogation. Most of these incorporated morphological
formatives are non-productive. Thus, if one assumes some very extensive and
intense brand of bilingualism in order to explain the borrowing of such a large
number of consonants, one is hard pressed to explain why that bilingualism had
so little effect elsewhere in the recipient languages, for example in the vowel
inventory.
A third surprising aspect of the Khoesan–Bantu contact is that the borrowed
consonants occasionally appear in inherited Bantu lexical items. Consider in-
ternal correspondences such as Zulu kh:xh as exhibited in -xhopha, ‘to hurt
the eye’, vs. ukhophe, ‘eyelash’, and ukhopho, ‘a person with deep-set eyes’;
c:th as in -consa, ‘fall, drip, leak’ vs. ilithonsi, ‘a drop of liquid’. Comparative
forms occasionally show the same bizarre correspondences: -cima (Proto-Bantu
*-lima), ‘extinguish’ (cf. Sotho – tima). More commonly, both the inherited
Bantu form and a modified form with click coexist with differentiated mean-
ings, such as -cwazimula/-nyazimula, ‘to shine brightly/to flash, shine’; -chela/-
thela, ‘to sprinkle (ceremonially?)/to pour, pour out’; -qhuma/-duma, ‘to burst,
explode, pop/to thunder, rumble, reverberate’.5
Nguni languages thus exhibit a type of contact borrowing that appears most
unusual in terms of the intensity (yet very restricted nature) of the linguistic
effects. The usual explanation advanced for this extraordinary situation refers
simply to bilingualism and to the type of social contact between the Khoesan
and Bantu-speaking populations. Scholars have pointed to the primary influence
of the mother (Faye 1923–5; Lanham 1964) and suggested that this explains
consonant incorporation. Were this an adequate explanation, we should expect
to find Khoesan influence elsewhere in the phonological system and in the
grammar. Hagège and Haudricourt (1978: 112) suggest that phonetic invento-
ries are increased through language contact whenever a borrowed word fails to
undergo loan phonology: ‘Les phonèmes, étrangers à la langue emprunteuse,
qui peuvent faire partie du signifiant des mots empruntés, s’y introduisent tout
naturellement en même temps que ces mots’ (sounds that are foreign to the
borrowing language but part of the phonetic form of borrowed words are in-
troduced naturally and at the same time as the words themselves (emphasis
added)). Such a view is hard pressed to explain why universally highly marked
sound types are incorporated when less marked phonetic elements are not.
Further, this approach neglects the often cited observations (e.g. Weinreich,
Jakobson) that languages borrow linguistic elements only when these elements
correspond to internal tendencies of development, e.g. filling phonetic gaps, and
that lexical borrowings are neither sufficient nor necessary to produce phono-
logical borrowing.6 It is precisely the peculiar distributional fact of Southern
Bantu borrowing effects that requires explanation.
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 303

I have argued elsewhere that the extent of Khoesan linguistic influence was
greater still and that contact accounts for the Southern Bantu opposition of as-
piration and ejection in the absence of a phonetically unmarked series of plain
voiceless consonants (Herbert 1987; cf. Louw 1986). In this analysis, the effects
of contact included not only the enormous influence on the consonantal inven-
tory and the lexicon, but also the development of a Southern Bantu ‘articulatory
mode’, which involves a predilection for glottalic consonants, clicks, aspirates,
and so forth. The concept of articulatory mode, as it has been developed by
British phoneticians, requires some further elucidation; in the present case, it
is suggested that Southern Bantu languages (apart from Shona) operate with a
phonetic mode in which ejective quality is characteristic of otherwise unmarked
voiceless consonants. Whatever the theoretical status of such a concept, there
is good reason to believe that the Southern Bantu articulatory mode is indeed
a Khoesan influence, especially since the geographic extent of this phonetic
mode corresponds to the range of heavy lexical borrowing from Khoesan. For
example, all of the Southern Bantu languages borrowed from Khoesan (directly
or indirectly) words for ‘cow’, ‘sheep’ and ‘milk’ – except for Shona, which
shows Bantu reflexes for these items and lacks the borrowed articulatory mode
as well (Westphal 1963: 253 ff.; Wilson and Thompson 1969: 104).

2.3 Khoesan gene flow

As mentioned in section 2.1, it is generally believed that the period of Khoesan–
Bantu intermarriage lasted between three and five centuries. Patterns of inter-
marriage were well established during this period; Wilson (1969: 81) notes
that the wives of eighteenth-century Xhosa chiefs were often Khoekhoe. Oral
history also records the wholesale incorporation of some Khoesan groups into
Bantu-speaking units. The relevant literature on biological, genetic and his-
torical relationships between Khoesan peoples and the ancestors of modern
Bantu-speaking groups is reviewed by Tobias (1974).
One must accept that the Nguni, in particular, have been grafted physically
and culturally onto indigenous Khoesan stock. One frequently cited piece of
evidence that points to this considerable ‘gene flow’ is the frequency of the
serum protein allele Gm1,13,17 in Southern Bantu groups. As noted by Nurse
et al., each of the major races possesses a characteristic Gm profile and some
include unique haplotypes. The haplotype with
universally the highest frequency in the San and in the probably racially least mixed of
the Khoe populations is Gm1,13,17 . This, with Gm1,21 is so typical . . . that it can on its own
be used . . . as an indication of San or Khoesan admixture . . . It is a good indicator of the
extent to which Southern African Negroes have been receptive of genetic contribution
from earlier inhabitants of the region. (1985: 131)7
The relative Khoesan admixture is represented in map 15.2.
304 R. K. Herbert

15.2 Map of southern Africa showing the estimated admixture of Khoesan

peoples by frequency of Gm1,13,17 (source: Nurse et al. 1985)
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 305

Several important points require mention in this context. First, there is no

direct relationship between linguistic borrowing effects and admixture. For ex-
ample, the Okavango group of Bantu languages show no admixture, but these
same languages have acquired clicks and some vocabulary from the neighbor-
ing San. Second, more than one contact is responsible for the Southern Bantu
admixture, for example, one can assume separate admixtures for the Tswana
(Bechuana)–Kgalagadi group and the Nguni. The former gene flow is consid-
erably more recent; Khoesan gene flow is an active process in Botswana today
(Nurse et al. 1985: 275). Also, one must recognise several separate admixtures
for the Nguni (e.g. an early Khoesan population merging with the early Nguni
and later admixtures to the differentiated Nguni groups). The principal fu-
sions between Khoe and Xhosa occurred only in the eighteenth century (Nurse
et al. 1985: 144). Third, there is no relationship between language and biology:
genes do not speak languages, and there is no relation between the percent-
age of admixture and the likelihood of greater or lesser linguistic influence.
Kgalagadi and Tswana both show high percentages of Gm1,13,17 , 60 per cent
and 53 per cent respectively, but neither of these languages shows linguistic
influence in the form of borrowed clicks. The Nguni groups (represented on
map 15.2 by Xhosa, Bhaca, Hlubi, Pondo, Zulu, Swazi and Ndebele) vary from
5 per cent to 60 per cent, but all have or had clicks. Ndebele has lost the clicks,
although Ziervogel’s older informants remembered that form of the language
(1959: 33).8
The non-relation between population admixture and the extensiveness of
language influence is also seen in the Okavango group, which, as noted above,
has no admixture and several click types. Thus, the extent of physical contact
and population incorporation cannot be invoked to explain the unusual case of
click incorporation in Southern Bantu. There must be more to the history of
clicks in Southern Bantu than Beach’s view that ‘clicking is to some extent
contagious’ (1938: 289).

3 THE ROLE OF HLONIPHA IN LANGUAGE CHANGE

Hlonipha (discussed more fully in Finlayson: chap. 14, this volume) is the name
given to a range of social avoidance customs practised by Nguni speakers. The
dictionary definition of the term is something like ‘respect through avoidance’,
covering a wide range of behaviours, especially those expected of married and
engaged women. The general use of the term in the sociolinguistic literature
is restricted to a linguistic taboo process whereby women are barred from
pronouncing the names of their fathers-in-law and other senior male affines.9
Among traditional Xhosa and Zulu speakers, it is not only the name itself that
must be avoided, but also any of its composite syllables. Thus, a woman whose
father-in-law is named Bongani must avoid the name itself and the syllables
306 R. K. Herbert

bo and nga – wherever they occur in speech.10 Since it is not only the name
of the father-in-law but those of all senior male affines and the mother-in-law
that must be avoided, the effect on each individual woman’s speech may be
dramatic.
A variety of linguistic mechanisms are used to achieve avoidance, including
consonant deformation (substitution) (e.g. ulunya, ‘cruelty’ → ulucha), ellipsis
(e.g. umkhono, ‘foreleg’ → um’ono), synonymy (e.g. kufa, ‘to die’ → kushona,
‘to set; to die’), derivation (inkhuleko, ‘thing for tethering’ for imbuti, ‘goat’ <
kukhuleka, ‘to tether’), as well as neologism, archaicism and borrowing. What
should be noted is that the majority of practices involve lexical substitution, i.e.
the replacement of one word with another; in some geographic areas, lexical
strategies have entirely replaced non-lexical ones, particularly among younger
speakers. There is good reason to believe, however, that phonetic strategies of
syllable deformation (including consonant substitution and elipsis) represent
original hlonipha practices (Herbert 1990a: 460ff.).
It is reasonable to conclude that the process of hlonipha itself is the essen-
tial part of the explanation for click incorporation in Southern Bantu.11 There
is no way to understand the intensity and restrictedness of Khoesan influence
without recourse to some very peculiar aspect of the social contact situation.
Specifically, it is argued that the native (i.e. Khoesan) phonological invento-
ries provided Khoe, San and Nguni women with a ready-made and ‘natural’
source for consonant substitutions as required by hlonipha. That is, it is in
some sense natural that a woman who enjoys a prohibition against uttering
the syllables bo, nga, ni, di, ke, sa, etc. would look to this alternative phonetic
inventory in order to replace Nguni consonants. Bear in mind here that the pre-
contact Nguni consonant inventory was relatively small. The substitution of a
foreign element such as a click is perceptually salient and deforms the offending
syllable acceptably. Furthermore, the use of non-Bantu consonants for this pur-
pose precludes the possibility of the deformed word being homophonous with
some other pre-existing word in the lexicon. The pre-contact phonologies of the
relevant Bantu languages were quite simple in terms of consonant and vowel
inventories and syllable-structure constraints. The existence of an extraordinary
phonological inventory that could be invoked in hlonipha therefore served an
important sociolinguistic function.
A number of advantages derive from the preceding explanation. First, the
presence of click consonants in inherited Bantu words is explained. The seem-
ingly random substitution of a click for an inherited consonant represents the
‘fixing’ of a hlonipha form. This idea is far from novel. Faye (1923–5) lists a
number of examples of such fixed forms. Faye also notes that the replacement
of an inherited Bantu word with a hlonipha alternative is rare, whereas the co-
existence of both forms – with a semantic differentiation – is more common.
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 307

The role of hlonipha in such developments is well established; the postula-

tion of a primary role for hlonipha in facilitating the historical incorporation
of Khoesan consonants offers an explanation for other, seemingly unrelated,
facts.
One striking fact not mentioned in the literature is that there is a direct
correlation between the existence of hlonipha in a language and the exten-
siveness of consonant incorporation. Hlonipha is most pervasive in the Nguni
languages that exhibit the greatest number of click types, namely Zulu and
Xhosa. The practice of hlonipha is less entrenched in Swati, which exhibits
a single click type.12 It is surely not accidental that the languages in which
syllable avoidance is most widely practised are the same languages that have
incorporated three click types (in addition to a number of other Khoesan con-
sonants). Apart from Nguni, hlonipha is practised only by the Southern Sotho,
but it is less extensive therein both in terms of the range of individuals whose
names must be avoided by a married woman and the actual rules of linguis-
tic practice. The very practice of hlonipha by the Southern Sotho (SeSotho
hlonepha, hlompa) represents clear Nguni influence. Social contact between
the Nguni and Southern Sotho is well established to have been extensive (e.g.
van Warmelo 1974: 73–5), certainly more extensive than between Nguni and
other Sotho–Tswana groups. Wilson (1969: 80) reports that some Nguni groups
that moved into the Transvaal intermarried with the Sotho. She suggests that
where the Sotho woman was a wife (as opposed to ‘concubine’) and the children
visited her family, the children learned Sotho rather than Nguni. It is possible,
however, that the Nguni husband might insist on traditional avoidance of his
senior male relatives’ names, and the process of hlonipha may thus have been
borrowed into Southern Sotho. This notion accords with Jacottet’s remark that
a Sotho woman ‘une fois mariée, elle ne doit également pas prononcer le nom
du père de son mari . . . C’est là une coutume d’origine cafre [Xhosa–Zulu]
qui est, depuis quelques années, entrée dans les moeurs des Ba-Souto’ (‘once
married, [a woman] must not utter the name of her father-in-law . . . This is
a Xhosa custom which was adopted by the Basotho some years ago’) (1896:
114, my translation). Note that a single click type occurs in Southern Sotho and
that the languages most closely related to Southern Sotho, namely Tswana and
Northern Sotho, exhibit neither click incorporation nor hlonipha, though clicks
are used emotionally, for example in interjections. The so-called Okavango
languages, Bantu languages in contact with San languages in Botswana and
Namibia, do exhibit clicks (cf. section 2.3). However, these clicks are not
fully integrated into the phonological systems; they occur infrequently and
only in borrowed words. The status of clicks in these languages is thus quite
different from that observed in the Southern Bantu languages. Hlonipha is
unknown by speakers of the Okavango languages. Similarly, hlonipha is not
308 R. K. Herbert

practised in those Southern Bantu languages that show limited click incorpo-
ration, such as Tsonga, which shows clicks only in Zulu borrowings and in
ideophones.
The connection between hlonipha and consonant incorporation in Bantu lan-
guages is further supported by the non-click consonants that act as favoured
substitutes in hlonipha. For example, Finlayson (1982: 49) notes that two of
the most common consonant substitutes in Xhosa are ty [c’] and dy [j], neither
of which is a reflex of Proto-Bantu consonants. Thus, their preferred status in
hlonipha is like the status of clicks – that is, they became established as preferred
substitutes precisely because they did not occur in native Bantu words. Also,
in earliest times (i.e. before they were incorporated into the Bantu languages),
these foreign consonants did not themselves require avoidance: they did not
occur in Bantu names. Lanham (1964: 389) noted that some borrowed words
with palatals correspond to the Khoesan dental click. Such correspondence may
reflect something about the shared extraordinary status of these borrowed sound
types. Lanham vacillates between listing twenty-one or twenty-five Xhosa con-
sonants as Khoe borrowings; it is the status of the palatals that is in doubt.
Two obvious questions that require asking in the context of the above propo-
sals have to do with the ‘fixing’ or standardisation of hlonipha terms. Given that
the names to be avoided varied from one woman to another, how does an inher-
ited Bantu form come to be displaced by a hlonipha form? Residence among
the Nguni is patrilocal, and wives in the affinal homestead would therefore
share a significant number of male in-laws whose names required avoidance.
How though would a hlonipha term become established enough on a wide scale
to acquire a separate semantic identity and diverge from its original role as a
simple avoidance form? There are no good answers to either of the above ques-
tions. The simplest case to understand would be that in which a particular name
was taboo for an entire large community, but such cases are relatively few in
number. For example, among Zulu groups the name of the great chief Shaka
was universally taboo; thus, Zulu speakers would not utter the word -shaya,
‘to hit’, or -shanela, ‘to sweep’ (J. de N.R. 1899/1900: 446).13 Similarly, Soga
cites the example of one Xhosa clan, the AmaBamba, for whom the name of
a distinguished ancestor named Tangana, ‘Little Pumpkin’, is taboo: ‘Hence
every Bamba woman, whether she be by blood of the clan or has married into
it from some other clan, observes the hlonipa custom in connection with the
name “tanga”– “pumpkin”. So that no woman of the clan ever speaks of the
pumpkin vegetable as “itanga” but as igabade’ (1932: 209).
Mzamane (1962: 256) noted that hlonipha words are often standardised
within a large area and there are numerous reports of young wives being in-
structed in the appropriate hlonipha of the homestead. In a discussion of the
general question of standardisation, Kunene (1958: 163) observes that ‘in actual
fact, however, there is so often a sameness or similarity of family names’. He
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 309

also notes that Southern Sotho informants will argue about the ‘correctness’ of
a hlonipha substitute; this too points to an unconscious effort to regularise the
alternate vocabulary.14

4 THE MODERN SETTING OF HLONIPHA

A fundamental problem in any attempt to gauge the climate and mechanisms
of earlier hlonipha is, of course, the complete lack of written records. The
linguistic and cultural history of southern Africa is an enormously complex
web of migrations, conquests, assimilations and diversifications. One can say
more about the current status of hlonipha, and there is good reason to believe
that its strength is waning throughout the Nguni area. In part, modernisation and
Westernisation necessarily weaken the force of hlonipha. As this is the subject
of chapter 14, I shall not pursue this further here.15

5 CONCLUSION
This chapter has considered the very unusual language contact influence of Khoe
and San languages on a subset of the Southern Bantu languages, with particular
attention to the issue of click incorporation. What makes the Southern Bantu
case unique in the historical sociophonology literature is the essential role of
a sociolinguistic taboo in an extensive restructuring of the sound system of a
language.
There are several remaining points that deserve mention in this context.
First, I do not claim that all of the Khoesan words appearing in any Southern
Bantu language are hlonipha forms for taboo Bantu words. Rather, the claim
is that the practice of hlonipha ‘primed’ the language to be receptive to click
incorporation. That is, young children – even in earliest contact times – were
exposed to varieties of language in which clicks were regularly employed. All
scholars agree that the young child’s primary linguistic influence would be
the mother, and children would therefore acquire from their mothers words
that included clicks, though these words varied somewhat from one area to
another. Consider, too, the various reports of young girls ‘practising’ syllable
avoidance so that they could comply with the custom after marriage, especially
in the light of the real or imagined consequences of hlonipha violation, such
as insanity (Mncube 1949: 47), baldness (Soga 1932: 209), stillborn children
(Raum 1973: 12) and infertility (Finlayson 1984: 143), as well as the more
general ‘risk of death, madness, maladjustment to life or some kind of tragedy
or malady’ (Mzamane 1962: 231). Clicks may originally have been restricted
to a supplementary vocabulary – a vocabulary recognised as being set outside
‘normal language’. However, over the course of time, the special phonological
status of Khoesan consonants disappeared or was blurred, and these consonants
310 R. K. Herbert

were absorbed into the native inventory, leading the way for borrowings from
Khoesan to be taken over with these consonants intact, although other aspects of
the lexical shape, such as vowel sequencing, vowel nasality, syllable structure,
etc. were subject to loan phonology.
A puzzle for comparative Southern Bantu linguistics has been posed by the
fact that there is so little overlap in the actual click words appearing in the
various individual languages. Bourquin (1951) examined 2,395 click words
in Xhosa, but only 376 (16 per cent) were shared with Zulu and/or Southern
Sotho. Apart from click words, approximately 80 per cent of the vocabular-
ies of Xhosa and Zulu is cognate. Whether the 376 common words represent
words borrowed in very early contact times (e.g. by speakers of Proto-Nguni) or
whether they represent borrowing from one Bantu language to another or par-
allel borrowings from Khoesan is an open question. Most probably, the terms
common to Xhosa and Zulu reflect early Nguni–Khoesan contact, whereas
those shared with Southern Sotho represent inter-Bantu borrowing or parallel
borrowing. This problem cannot be addressed in the present context, but it is
interesting to note that many of the terms common to Zulu and Xhosa are rather
unexpected borrowings, for instance, words for ‘to urinate’, ‘man’, ‘to stab’,
‘egg’, ‘full’, ‘bark’, ‘knee’, ‘navel’, ‘lake’, ‘name’, ‘swell’, ‘sing’, and so on
(cf. Ownby 1981). Such borrowings also point to the rather unusual nature of
Khoesan–Bantu contact.
A final question concerns the actual distribution of languages during the
earlier periods of Khoesan–Bantu contact. Wide-scale bilingualism is generally
assumed, and Wilson (1969: 80) suggests that the acquisition of the Nguni-
speaking father’s language points to the status of mothers as concubines rather
than wives. There is no compelling reason to believe that this was the case.
It is impossible to assert anything about the contact situation with complete
certainty. Reconstructing sociolinguistic history for southern African groups
will continue to pose a challenge to linguists and anthropologists in the region.

notes
Following established usage, the term ‘Bantu’ is used as a shorthand reference for
‘Bantu languages’ and, occasionally, ‘Bantu-speaking people(s)’; within South Africa,
the term is strongly offensive, but it is so established in the scientific literature that no
readily acceptable and recognised substitute is available. Similarly, the older terms
‘Bushman’ and ‘Hottentot’ are occasionally used here alongside the alternate terms
‘San’ and ‘Khoe’; the former terms are of non-African origin and have strongly
derogatory connotations. Unfortunately, the term ‘San’, itself a Khoe word, is also
derogatory and not readily accepted by the people named, who often prefer, pace
linguists and anthropologists, to call themselves Bushmen. Further terminological
problems arise from the use of all these terms to refer to cultural groups, physical
types and language units, the distribution of these three variables not necessarily
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 311

coinciding. Some of the problems of distinguishing (and relating) Khoe and San
populations are discussed in Wilson (1986). Compare also Nurse et al. (1985: 79),
who note that a ‘good case can be made out for supposing the Khoi and the San to be
simply economically differentiated segments of the same people . . . There is evidence
that Khoi who lost their cattle reverted to a hunting way of life, while some San who
became pastoralists would merge into the Khoi population.’ The differentiation of
Khoe and San populations does not bear crucially on the arguments to be advanced
in this chapter.
The transcriptions used in published sources have generally not been modified
here. The usual symbols used for writing clicks in Khoesan languages include /, =| ,
!, // for the dental, alveolar, palatal and lateral types, respectively; the IPA has voted
to adopt the ‘Africanist’ set of symbols above. Bantu-language orthographies most
frequently employ c, q and x for the dental, palatal and lateral varieties.
1 Such considerations of relative markedness within the class of click consonants are
discussed in Herbert (1990b).
2 According to this view, the name ‘Xhosa’ is itself derived from a Khoi verb meaning
‘to destroy’. Harinck (1969: 152) cites Maingard’s tracing of the word to Kora //kosa,
‘angry men, the men who do damage’. There are alternate etymologies in the literature;
see, for example, Louw (1977: 139, 1979: 9, 18).
3 The argument is often made in the literature, but open to serious question, that non-
‘click incorporating’ languages in the area have occasionally managed to nativise
clicks, usually by substituting velars. Such a substitution would not be surprising,
given the essential role of the velum in the production of clicks. This pattern is also
observed in children’s acquisition of clicks (cf. Herbert 1990b), in the substitutions
made by students in introductory phonetics courses, and in historical change (Traill
1986; Herbert 1990b).
4 The stability of the Bantu noun classes and, especially, the system of concordial agree-
ment in language contact situations and in Bantu languages used as lingue franche,
is remarkable. These features seem largely resistant to pressures of ‘simplification’.
Reduction in class numbers and ‘semanticisation’ of concordial agreement are seen
in some cases (Herbert 1985).
5 As noted above, the most common lexical context for clicks is in borrowed vocab-
ulary, e.g. Zulu -qiqinga, ‘tie in a bundle’ < Korana !ai, ‘bind’; Z. -qhosha, ‘button,
fasten’ < K. !goi-is, ‘button’; Z. iqhubu < K. !hubu-b, ‘swelling on the body’; Z.
incuke < K. /hu-khã-b, ‘hyena’. Bourquin (1951: 75) also relates Zulu and Xhosa
-nci, ‘small’, to Korana /a, ‘small’, although he notes the existence of a Bantu stem
-nı̂, -nyı̂. Meinhof (1932: 103) derives -nci from the Bantu form and attributes the
click to hlonipha influence. The latter seems a more plausible line of development
and is the one more commonly cited in the literature.
6 Hagège and Haudricourt (1978) do cite these considerations elsewhere. Their ex-
amples (pp. 112–13) of phonological borrowing, however, involve the incorporation
of marginal elements, e.g. the velar nasal in French words such as smoking, living,
parking, rather than the full integration of a phonetic element within a sound system.
7 ‘Gene flow between San and Khoi appears to have occurred mainly from the former
to the latter; hence it is possible that a certain proportion of the San contribution to
the Negroes has occurred via the Khoi’ (Nurse et al. 1985: 131).
8 The clicks in Ndebele are generally thought to have been lost through extensive contact
with Tswana and other non-Nguni groups.
312 R. K. Herbert

9 Linguistic avoidances are also practised by men towards the names of their mothers-
in-law and, occasionally, other persons. Hlonipha refers generally to ‘name avoid-
ance’: it is usually accomplished by some lexical substitution. What distinguishes
women’s language behaviour vis-à-vis their male in-laws is the far-ranging effects
of avoidance and the diverse linguistic practices that effect avoidance of the name,
including consonant substitution and deletion. A general review of name avoidance
practices in Southern Bantu is given in Herbert (1990a).
10 There is much variation from one locale to another as to whether prefixal and suffixal
elements within names must be avoided in hlonipha. In some areas, the final syllable
ni might require avoidance. See Raum (1973) for a detailed description of the range
of Zulu hlonipha practices and variants.
11 Such a possibility is mentioned by Louw (1962), but he does not ascribe the im-
portance to the role of hlonipha suggested here. Also, he puts equal stress on the
use of clicks in onomatopoeic words in explaining their incorporation. I suspect that
the latter is of marginal influence since there are several languages that show clicks
in such expressives without any indication of clicks being incorporated into normal
phonology.
12 These two facts may have independent historical explanations, however. The rela-
tively impoverished click inventory of Swati may be due to speakers of pre-Swati
not having incorporated very many borrowed words on account of less contact with
San populations. Note that the admixture of Gm1,13,17 , representing incorporation
of Khoesan peoples, is considerably less in Swati (25 per cent) than in Zulu- or
Xhosa-speaking populations. As noted earlier, the number of borrowed words in
Nguni languages that can be traced to contact during the Common Nguni period is
quite small; most of the Khoesan words in Zulu and Xhosa were acquired after dif-
ferentiation of the Nguni dialects/languages. A second possible, though less likely,
explanation is that Swati previously had more click distinctions and that they were
lost when the ancestors of the present Swati population migrated to the area around
the Usutu river (modern Swaziland) from the east and ‘mingled with the “Sotho”’
(Nurse et al. 1985: 143) who were resident there. One must also recognise certain
Tsonga influences on Swati.
The lesser role of hlonipha in Swati is more likely due to the second of the above
factors, i.e. contact and incorporation of a non-Nguni Bantu-speaking population:
hlonipha needs to be reconstructed for the Proto-Nguni people since all of the modern
languages show some trace of the practice. Numerous other sociocultural features
distinguishing Swati and Zulu are also due to Sotho ‘influence’, e.g. cross-cousin
marriage, which is anathema to the Zulu and Xhosa (Wilson and Thompson 1969:
97, 159).
13 Werner (1905: 352–3) reported that certain Zulu animal names also enjoyed near-
universal avoidance, for example, ingwe, ‘leopard’, was replaced by isilo, ‘wild
beast’. Imfene, ‘baboon’ and impaka, ‘wild cat’ were similarly avoided. Werner
uses the term hlonipha to describe these taboos and others such as avoidance of
the names of certain mythological creatures. Although they obviously share certain
features, it seems advisable to distinguish these patterns and the linguistic avoidances
of Nguni wives.
14 The question of whether Southern Sotho hlonepha was already in a weakened form
at the time of Kunene’s fieldwork is an open one. Some support for this notion
comes from the fact that there were no real punishments for non-observance of
 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu 313

the taboo; rather, hlonepha was viewed simply as a sign of ‘good upbringing’
(1958: 165).
15 Editor’s note: The author has graciously permitted the excising of a large section here
in the interests of space, and since the section is discussed by Finlayson in chapter
14. The excised text can be found in earlier versions of this article (Herbert 1990c
and 1995).

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16 The political economy of language shift:
language and gendered ethnicity
in a Thonga community

Robert K. Herbert

1 INTRODUCTION

The linguistic group classed as Tsonga (Guthrie’s S.50) is generally taken to

include at least three distinct subgroups, geographically distributed in South
Africa and Mozambique. There are, however, certain questions arising here. On
the one hand, there are the usual issues about linguistic heterogeneity within
the group and about the degree in which common identity has developed out
of the promulgation of a standard language in educational and other formal
contexts instead of common identity providing the impetus for a shared standard
language. The latter issue can be raised for all of the African language groups
in South Africa, but it is particularly vexing for the Tsonga.1
Social scientists often assume that deep-structure similarities and a sense of
shared identity provide the basis for assigning groups to particular categories.
In part, this tendency follows from a nineteenth-century equation of language
and nation, which was further developed into an unquestioned language =
culture = nation paradigm that served as the basis for most descriptive work in
southern Africa and, sadly, for the failed homeland policy of the former govern-
ment. However, even early analysts noted that the only basis for classifying the
Tsonga-speaking peoples was shared linguistic features and that there was nei-
ther a sense of common identity among the people nor a commonality of custom
(Junod 1896, 1905): ‘tous ces clans formant le peuple thonga n’ont en commun
que quelques coutumes tendant à disparaı̂tre. La seule chose qu’ils possèdent
en propre, c’est un langage bien caractéristique, antique, riche. L’unité de cette
tribu est bien plus linguistique que nationale’2 (1896: 5). In point of fact, Junod
disputed even the linguistic unity at some level and spearheaded a movement
to recognise a second standardised language, Ronga, to serve the people of
southern coastal Mozambique, next to T(h)onga/Gwamba used by the Swiss
mission in the Transvaal. Harries (1988) has very ably described the linguistic,
political and pragmatic aspects of the battle to draw ethnic/linguistic boundaries
in this case, although he overstates the case and fails to recognise that groups
that do not share any sense of common identity can nonetheless speak mutually

316
 The political economy of language shift 317

16.1 Distribution of Tsonga-speaking peoples in South Africa

intelligible languages. Thus, while it is true to argue, as Harries has, that Swiss
missionaries ‘invented’ the Tsonga, the raw materials for this invention included
diverse peoples whose everyday speech was sufficiently similar to allow for a
single written standard language to be developed.
Within South Africa, there are two diverse groups who are generally in-
cluded within a broad scope of ‘the Tsonga-speaking peoples’: (a) the groups
in the north-eastern Transvaal (formerly the Gazankulu homeland, now in
Mpumalanga and Northern Provinces), usually described as eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century coastal immigrants; and (b) a small group resident in
northern KwaZulu-Natal. Beyond a shared linguistic heritage, these two groups
have little in common. The former group, sometimes classed as Gwamba (Doke
1954), is actively Tsonga in language and custom, and is found in several
Tsonga-dominant rural areas in the former Gazankulu (Grobler et al. 1990),
and in several major urban centres. The latter group, part of the Ronga division,
is represented among the peoples resident south of the Mozambique border,
the area once known as Maputaland, part of former Thongaland, which was
formally incorporated into the KwaZulu ‘homeland’ as part of the Ingwavuma
318 R. K. Herbert

district in 1982. This chapter concerns the latter group of people, often known as
the Tembe–Thonga, and focuses in particular on the changing role of
language(s) in attributions of identity.

2 THE TEMBE−THONGA

The Maputu is a junior branch of the Tembe–Thonga, in particular the people

living in South Africa in the eastern areas of the Ingwavuma district of
KwaZulu-Natal.3

16.2 Distribution of African languages (van Warmelo 1952), Ingwavuma dis-

trict highlighted
 The political economy of language shift 319

The current linguistic situation is this area is complex. For longstanding polit-
ical reasons, the region is generally classed as ‘Zulu speaking’ (e.g. Grobler et al.
1990). Ngubane (1992), for example, identifies the local language as isiZulu
sase Nyakatho, which he glosses as ‘northern Zululand Zulu’, or isiNyakatho,
‘northern language’. On the other hand, Kubheka (1979) recognised an ad-
mixture of Swati and Thonga, with generally stronger Thonga influences on the
eastern side of Ingwavuma, and Swati influences in the west. The label isiTembe
is sometimes used to name a variety of language with strong Thonga features.4
The language traditionally spoken by the Tembe–Thonga is known as Thonga
or Ronga, the latter term being used by Junod (1896, 1927) to name the
southernmost of the six Thonga groups.5 These six groups may conveniently
be reduced to three ‘tolerably well-defined sections’ (van Warmelo 1974: 69):
northern group: Hlengwe [Tswa (and others)]
central group: Nwalungu, Bila, Hlanganu, Djonga
southern group: Ronga
It is likely that neither of the labels ‘Thonga’ and ‘Ronga’ was originally endony-
mous for any group. The Tembe–Thonga claim to have originated in Zimbabwe,
but there is no doubt that they have been in Mozambique since at least the
sixteenth century. Zulu incursions in the nineteenth century resulted in a series
of southward migrations. Tradition holds that Thongaland was first occupied
by the Tembe during this period. The Tembe lineage is traced back more than
ten generations to the founding chief, Tembe.
The term ‘Thonga’/‘Tsonga’ has a disputed etymology, often given as a Zulu
word for ‘slave’ or as relating to ‘east/dawn’ (Junod 1905: 223; Felgate 1982: 9).
Felgate reported that the term was resented and not used locally at the time of
his fieldwork in 1964–5; my own experience twenty-five years later is that the
same people do occasionally self-identify as Thonga, most especially when
they choose to deny their links to Zulu identity and hegemony.6
The Tembe clan predominates numerically and politically in the area. Indeed,
they sometimes claim to be ‘the original owners’ of the land, although this
claim is disputed by the next-strongest clan, which calls itself Ngubane. The
Ngubane reserve the ‘original-owner’ distinction for themselves, and claim to
have been dominated by in-migrating Tembe people, who were assisted by ‘the
Europeans’. Whatever the historical facts of early occupancy, both groups prob-
ably represent Thonga groups that migrated southwards from Mozambique.7

3 LANGUAGES OF THE TEMBE−THONGA

The Tembe–Tonga first received significant attention in the ecological field

reports of Felgate, written in the mid-1960s, which were edited by Eileen Krige
and published in 1982, and through the ethnographic study of Webster (1989).
In a brief section on language, Felgate (1982: 23) notes:
320 R. K. Herbert

The linguistic situation among Tembe-Thonga is very interesting. Despite the varying
ethnic origins of the people, the languages spoken are exclusively Zulu and Thonga, with
Zulu being predominantly the language of men, and Thonga the language of women.
On the South African side of the border men never speak Thonga . . . On both sides of
the border women speak Thonga almost exclusively. It is not at all uncommon to find
men addressing women in Zulu and the women answering them in Thonga.

These same facts are echoed by Webster (1989) and are consistent with ear-
lier descriptions by van Warmelo (1935) and Allison (1951); cf. also Junod
(1896: 6), who noted that the Ronga spoken in this area was ‘un language
intermédiaire entre le ronga et le zoulou’.
Certainly, a historical explanation for the presence of Zulu within the group
is not hard to find. As noted above, there were steady Zulu incursions into
Mozambique during the Shakan period and there was a Zulu influence of long
duration. Zulu formed the prestige group, and their language was a prestige
language. There is also good evidence of trading between Zulu and Thonga
groups for a period long before Shaka’s ascendancy; Thonga men probably
first learned Zulu in this context. Later, in the nineteenth century, there may
have been further pressure for men to speak Zulu as a result of what Junod
(1927: 33) called Zulu ‘despotic domination’ of the Thonga. Junod himself
noted the fact that women were not learning Zulu and that women ‘are the best
safeguards of the purity of the language’, an idea promoted by Jespersen (1922)
and several pre-feminist generations of linguists. Women’s non-shift to Zulu
and their historic maintenance of Thonga has gone largely unexamined in the
literature, which has focused on language shift among Thonga men. Certainly
the facts as they have been presented here are not extraordinary. What makes
the Tembe–Thonga case interesting from a linguistic perspective is not the
association of one sex or the other in taking the lead in language shift. Rather,
the case warrants closer investigation on account of the more than one hundred
and fifty years of sex-determined bilingualism in the area. (Cf. also Bryant 1929:
292.) Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the linguistic situation is, however,
an ongoing reinterpretation of the sex-differentiated behaviour, in which cultural
patterns are reproduced while the outward vehicles of expression, the languages
of Thonga men and women, are shifting.

4 LANGUAGE SHIFT

Linguistic research in situations of language shift has tended to focus on two

major research questions. First, there are the structural questions arising from
the gradual obsolescence of a local linguistic system. Do patterns of language
attrition mirror patterns of acquisition or creolisation? In the present case, em-
pirical research into the shift from Thonga to Zulu is interesting since the
two languages share many striking features, especially at the morpho-syntactic
 The political economy of language shift 321

level. There is an empirical question as to whether the processes of language

attrition for a single language would follow the same path in cases when the
target language is structurally similar or not, for example, would patterns of
attrition be identical for Thonga-speaking communities shifting to Zulu and for
Thonga-speaking communities shifting to Portuguese? There are no available
data to address this question.
The second focus in language-shift research has concentrated on social struc-
ture and the ways in which group attitudes cumulatively affect language choice
so that a (sub)group’s repertoire is reduced. Early research in this tradition de-
pended on census data, questionnaires and surveys to address this topic. How-
ever, more recent approaches have utilised participant observation, discursive
interviews and other ethnographic methods to advance our understanding of
how people’s revised perceptions of themselves and the world affect language
use. As Kulik (1992: 9) noted, the analytical tool most often used to investigate
these issues is the concept of ethnicity. A particular linguistic variety is seen,
analytically, as being intimately linked to a particular ethnic identity. Once this
link becomes salient, identity negotiation within and for the group becomes
possible. Most published reports of language shift discuss situations in which
one professed ethnicity is exchanged for another, and the mechanism of pro-
fession is language shift. To some extent, published descriptions of Thonga
men’s shift to Zulu fits within this paradigm. Over time, ‘Thonga men’ have
exchanged their Thonganess for Zuluness, and they accomplish this, inter alia,
by giving up the Thonga language and speaking Zulu. However, it is possible
for a group to shift languages without shifting its ethnicity. That is, the original
language becomes delinked from its ethnic associate, and the language shifts
without effecting a change in identity.8

5 RECONSTRUCTING PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE

An initial question here, however, must concern the accuracy of historical re-
ports of language use among the Tembe–Thonga. The earliest reliable report
seems to be van Warmelo’s A Preliminary Survey of the Bantu Tribes of South
Africa (1935), in which he noted that the VaTonga, known to the Zulu as
abakwaTembe or abakwaMabhudu (= Maputu), ‘have adopted Zulu custom
and language to a far extent and must be mentioned among the “Natal Nguni”
for that reason’ (1935: 81; emphasis added). Later, van Warmelo noted that
‘I have met members of the tribe who understand practically nothing of Tonga.
The customs observed by such are also more likely to be Zulu’ (1935: 91). At the
same time, older descriptions of the area are complicated precisely because it
was a linguistic border zone. The Language Map of South Africa (van Warmelo
1952) clearly indicates the northernmost portions of the district as ‘Tsonga-
speaking’, with a mixed Zulu–Tsonga zone to the south. On the Maputaland
322 R. K. Herbert

16.3a Domain of the Thonga language (Junod 1896)

Tsonga, van Warmelo says: ‘The Tsonga in Maputaland [Ingwavuma district]

are not a case of immigration, on the contrary . . . a frontier delimitation car-
ried out by the stroke of a pen and by men who cared little for such matters, cut
a single tribal entity in half as one slices a lemon’ (1952: 13).
In the early 1990s, older residents in KwaNgwanase, the district centre
(formerly Maputa and (E)Mangusi), recalled that ‘German’ missionaries and
 The political economy of language shift 323

16.3b Domain of the Thonga language (van Warmelo 1935); note the spread
of Zulu

doctors in the area, many of whom were undoubtedly Swiss, learned and used
Thonga in everyday communication. These residents reported that the foreign
men’s use of Thonga, rather than Zulu, was a source of amusement to young boys
at the time. Assuming this period to have been in the 1920s provides indirect evi-
dence for sex-based distribution of language already being well established at
that time. The striking sex-based distribution of languages was evident even to
324 R. K. Herbert

outsiders: ‘Most of the people living in this area use two languages, Thonga and
Zulu. Thonga is the language used in the home by the women and children, but
Zulu is the “official” language, and the language of the men’ (Allison 1951: 7).9
Both Felgate (1982) and Webster (1989) note that the South African migrant
labour situation would reinforce the association of men with Zuluness. Zulu
serves, to a certain extent, as the lingua franca among much of South Africa’s
ethnically diverse population and it is the African language of prestige through-
out much of the country. Thonga, on the other hand, is a distinctly non-prestige
language, reflecting the non-prestige status of Thonga ethnicity in the wider
national context. Men who seek work therefore may feign Zuluness in order to
improve their status in the employment setting. The prestige of Zulu explains
the tendency for men to change their surnames, e.g. many Tembe men have
taken the Zulu Mtembu as their name, especially when at work. Similarly, the
Gubande, who are now often known as Ngubane, often attribute the presence of
individuals named Gubande, the original form of the name, in their genealogies
to European mishearings and faulty transcriptions. There are some individu-
als whose own recounting of their genealogies will include both original and
re-formed varieties of the names.
In addition to language shift, Thonga men have abandoned their participation
in agriculture, which is seen by the Zulu as a female activity. In Mozambique,
Tembe men participate in agriculture (Junod 1927; Felgate 1982) and often tend
their own gardens. Yet it would be wrong to assume that Zulu influence has
been pervasive throughout all areas of sociocultural organization. The system of
land tenure, homestead arrangements, marriage laws, ritual life and taboos, etc.
are still distinctly Thonga, or at least non-Zulu. As Felgate noted, ‘the women
remain Thonga in activity and outlook . . . and the Thonga way of life persists’
(1982: 27). One reason for the limited influence of Zulu, as Webster noted, may
be that the low-lying, marshy, mosquito- and tsetse-infested area of Thongaland
was not compatible with Zulu lifestyle and the Zulu were therefore tradition-
ally content with a raiding and tribute-paying relationship. However, the limited
influence of Zulu is also explained by the non-participation of women in the
linguistic and cultural shift.

6 POLITICAL ADMINISTRATION
Territorial control has been disputed since European presence in the region.
The British navy persuaded two local groups to place themselves under ‘British
protection’ in the early nineteenth century; one of these groups was the
Tembe–Thonga. In 1875, the present Mozambique–South African border was
held to be the dividing line between the Portuguese and British spheres of influ-
ence. This line cut the Tembe–Thonga area, although there was little immediate
effect on traditional life since the population comprised small, independent
 The political economy of language shift 325

groups, which did not come under central political and judicial control of
Ngwanase until the 1890s. The British proclaimed British Amatongaland a
Protectorate in 1895. Two years later it was incorporated into Zululand, with a
special status marked in part by a succession of Thonga chiefs, including the
present incumbent, who is a direct successor in the Tembe line. Both Thonga-
land and Zululand were incorporated into Natal in 1897.
Zululand control of Thongaland was more forcefully exerted after 1982, fol-
lowing the sordid ‘Ingwavuma land deal’, in which the South African Republic
offered the district to Swaziland as a Swazi corridor to the sea in return for
Swaziland’s complicity in accepting the so-called KaNgwane homeland as
part of the kingdom. The land deal would have provided a buffer between
Mozambique and Natal, and it was formally endorsed by the chief. Under pres-
sure from Thonga headmen, who claimed that they had not been consulted and,
more importantly, from the KwaZulu government, which claimed that the dis-
trict has been an integral part of Zulu territory since time immemorial, the deal
was aborted. While the latter assertion is patently untrue, the practical conse-
quence of the incorporation into KwaZulu was a forced recruitment into Inkatha,
the national cultural liberation movement associated with Chief Buthelezi, and
a community sense of a Zulu occupational force in the area. A Thonga Indepen-
dence Party existed more or less clandestinely, but residents were unwilling to
discuss anything to do with the organisation. A few individuals indicated that
they would like Thonga to be taught in the schools and that their language had
been ‘stolen’ from them by the Zulu. On the other hand, most residents believed,
rightly or wrongly, that any expression of Thonganess, including the use of the
language, would serve as a pretext for their being denounced by Inkatha as
refugees and then repatriated to Mozambique. Indeed, one of the only two men
resident in one fieldwork area in 1990 was described as ‘the repatriation officer’.
For these reasons, the label ‘abantu basenyakatho’ (Zulu, ‘people of the north’)
was sometimes used rather than (a)maThonga in self-identifications.10 As ex-
pected, the Language Atlas of South Africa (Grobler et al. 1990) describes the
area as Zulu speaking, though it should be noted that the atlas is based on the
1980 population census which asked for self-reports of home-language use. The
older Language Map of South Africa (van Warmelo 1952) describes most of the
Ingwavuma district as mixed Zulu and Thonga, with the northern and eastern
regions exclusively Thonga speaking. Junod (1896) gives most of the district
as Thonga speaking (Ronga), although he also described the local linguistic
variety as ‘un langage intermédiaire entre le ronga et le zoulou’ (1896: 6).

7 LANGUAGE USE: THE SECOND SHIFT

The consequence of this state of affairs is that it is impossible to assess Thonga

identity and the use of the Thonga language in the area. When asked to identify
326 R. K. Herbert

their ethnic group membership, people almost universally assert it to be Zulu.

When questioned about aspects of homestead organisation, people often confess
that things are done very poorly in this area and they suggest that one should go
to Ulundi, the Zulu capital, to learn things ‘properly’.11 People show little overt
discomfort arising from the discord between the proclaimed links to Ulundi
and their oral history, twice recited for me by Chief Mzimba, which identifies
them as a people from the north, from the Kalanga region of Zimbabwe, and
their obvious links with the peoples of Mozambique. The chief’s notably poor
command of Zulu was popularly excused on account of his having come ‘from
Mozambique a long time ago’. As noted above, several Thonga names have been
re-made into Zulu ones, and Webster (1989) reported that Thonga residents in
Johannesburg actively seek to learn the appropriate izitakazela ‘praise names’
for the Mtembu and Ngubane clans. These identities are not only proclaimed
in Johannesburg, they are also imported into the homestead.
Thus, in the contemporary context, a number of factors conspire to reinforce
the ‘Zuluness’ of Thonga men. In addition to historical bilingualism, Zulu
identity is forced on them by the sociopolitical situation and by the belief that
it is easier to secure employment in the mines and cities, and easier to survive
life away from home, as a Zulu than as a low-status Thonga. What is notable
about all of these situational factors is that they occupy the public domain, and
that the men’s language of public discourse intrudes into the private domain of
the homestead and family life. No man admits to knowing Thonga, although
older men may accept the proposition that they spoke the language with their
mothers as young children.
In the recent political context, it is impossible to gauge the extent of Thonga
knowledge within the community, despite the fact that the present research was
officially sanctioned by the Tembe Tribal Council and by Chief Mzimba. The
latter could not publicly declare the foreignness of Zulu, but this message was
sent covertly on a number of occasions. Felgate, working in the 1960s, reported
100 per cent Thonga competence among women. Webster, twenty-five years
later, reported that 84 per cent of his female informants and 15 per cent of
the men spoke Thonga. It is worth noting that Webster was a recognised and
highly esteemed community worker, who enjoyed widespread trust until his
assassination in 1989.12 At the same time, it should be noted that the basis
for Webster’s report was solely informants’ responses to the question, posed
in Zulu, ‘Do you understand Thonga?’ (personal communication), and this
question is open to variable interpretations. My own observations, in the same
areas as Webster worked, is that Thonga use is very sharply diminished. In
the marketplace, for example, which is essentially a female domain, extremely
few conversations in Thonga are overheard, and these are almost exclusively
among very old women. Webster’s observation that ‘older women speak Thonga
 The political economy of language shift 327

16.4 Fieldwork sites in the eastern Ingwavuma district

more readily in public arenas’ (1989: 255) needs to be read with caution. In
KwaNgwanase, younger women no longer speak Thonga, and the language of
both public and private discourse is Zulu. It is no longer true, for example, that
mothers address their young children in Thonga – except perhaps in the most
remote villages along the Mozambique border.
This is not to claim that women, following one hundred and fifty years of
resistance, have now followed the men’s shift to Zulu. Indeed, the above descrip-
tion should not be understood as suggesting that men and women now speak the
same language. Men’s Zulu is hardly ‘pure Zulu’, although its speakers insist
that it is. Visitors from deep Zululand and urban Zulu workers in Johannesburg
often remark on the ‘bad Zulu’ of these men. The reaction of Thonga men is
typically one of strong offence: they insist that they are true Zulu. They quickly
show their identity documents, which records their identity as ‘Zulu’, and they
make conscious efforts to ‘pass themselves’ as Zulu.
Women’s Zulu, on the other hand, is described by all as ‘very bad Zulu’.
Their language is so replete with Thonga lexical residue as well as phonological
and morphosyntactic influences that some outside Zulu speakers claim it to be
unintelligible.13 The linguistic accommodation that has been made by women
is thus limited, and was described to me by one (male) informant thus: ‘The
328 R. K. Herbert

women think in Thonga still, but they have Zulu in their mouths.’ It is surely
not surprising that some accommodation to Zulu has been made by women
in the light of the political intimidation described earlier and the fact that the
prescribed syllabus in all schools was that of KwaZulu. This ‘makes sense’
to local residents as they are publicly Zulu, but the cultural component of
the language syllabus, such as those parts relating to hlonipha language, is
completely foreign to pupils, since local women do not hlonipha. Girls’ poor
performance in Zulu is popularly attributed to a general devaluation of female
abilities. Men and women simply agree that girls cannot learn Zulu properly.
This attitude channels reports of language use: since women cannot learn Zulu,
it follows that they must be speaking something else. The ‘very bad Zulu’
of women is sometimes called Thonga, by both women and men. The label
has thus been redefined in at least some contexts. However, much of what
passes for ‘Thonga’ is clearly Zulu. The notion that women speak Thonga is
a convenient fiction, maintained for a variety of reasons by both women and
men.
There are several notable differences in male–female Zulu performance lo-
cally. Women, particularly middle-aged women, tend to tekela whereas men
prefer to zunda, i.e. women use t in place of men’s z. In addition, the nominal
morphology of women is more ‘Thonga-like’ than that of men. For example,
women use more CV- prefixes than men, who employ the canonical VCV-
Zulu form of prefixes. Women’s speech occasionally has a fully class 5 li- pre-
fix, which Zulu does not. These are, however, variable features of women’s
performance. There are also some striking differences in vocabulary used by
women and men, with the general trend being that women’s vocabulary is
more ‘conservative’,14 i.e. Thonga.15 However, these differences are not reli-
ably present in everyday speech.
On account of the highly variable nature of women’s linguistic performance,
it is not possible to provide a list of ‘characteristic features’. Interestingly,
their speech ranges on a continuum from Gonde, the strongest form of Thonga
spoken in the area, to Zulu spoken with a Thonga underlay. In the latter case,
the most notable features may be phonetic and a few prefixal marks; in the case
of Gonde, there are large differences in vocabulary between Zulu and women’s
speech. Some representative points of differences between standard Zulu and
local speech patterns, here termed Nyakatho, are given below.

7.1 Vocabulary

Nyakatho Zulu English

ikhombo ishwa misfortune
ukuhleleleka ukuqala uhambo to undertake a journey
 The political economy of language shift 329

amatimba ummbila maize; mealies

inqopho ulaka anger
amathaku izinqe buttocks
isipakani ikati cat
umphahla izimvu grey hair
-shishita -chama urinate

7.2 Phonetic–phonological
(a) Tekela (women) Zunda (men/Standard Zulu) English
-enta -enza do something
-buta -buza ask a question
timbuti izimbuzi goats
(b) elision of initial /l/ in class 3 nouns
Nyakatho Zulu English
unilo umlilo fire
unomo umlomo mouth
unente umlenze leg
(c) nk-w alternation
Nyakatho Zulu English
iwuku inkukhu fowl
iwomo inkomo beast

7.3 Morphological
(a) Characteristic palatalisation of labials and some other consonants, e.g.
w/diminutive and passive suffixes, does not ocur in Nyakatho.
Nyakatho Standard Zulu English
isintombana (intombi) intonjana small girl
isimotwana (imoto) imotshwana small car
-lume (-luma) -lunywa be bitten
(b) absence of class 1a marker in Nyakatho
Nyakatho Standard Zulu English
Mame uMama Mother
Baba uBaba Father
(c) Nyakatho has a full CV class 5 marker /li-/ as opposed to Zulu /i-/
Nyakatho Standard Zulu English
litinyo izinyo tooth
lilanga ilanga day
litimba izimba ear of corn
330 R. K. Herbert

(d) Class 8 /swi-/ as plural of class 7 rather than Zulu use of class 10 as the
plural of both class 7 and class 9
Nyakatho Zulu English
swiwoni izoni sinners

(e) Class 10 prefix ti(n)- in Nyakatho

Nyakatho Zulu English
tiwomo izinkomo beasts
timbuti izimbuzi goats

(f) Nyakatho often exhibits a CV class 11 prefix /lu-/ rather than Zulu /u-/
Nyakatho Zulu English
lukunyi ukhuni firewood
luvemvane uvemvane butterfly

(g) Nyakatho occasionally shows a class 15 prefix hu- with vowel stems in
place of Zulu /uku-/
Nyakatho Zulu English
huwenta ukwenza to do
huwaha ukwakha to build

At present, the question of syntactic differences between Zulu and Nyakatho

remains for future description.
One needs to see women’s variable performances as strategic exploitations of
the linguistic resources available to them when they seek to harden the boundary
between local and Zulu identities. In order to harden that identity, i.e. to assert
a distance between their own identities and the Zulu identity claimed by men,
women move from local Zulu to ‘very bad Zulu’ to Gonde, though the latter
variety is available only to older women.

8 UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE SHIFT IN THONGALAND

The social meanings of the two shifts from Thonga to Zulu, first by men and
recently by women, are different. In part, this difference relates to the variable
link between language and ethnicity discussed above. In the case of Thonga
men, the linguistic shift correlates with a strategic shift in identity. In the
case of Thonga women, however, any attempt to negotiate identity is sharply
circumscribed.
The intriguing question in this scenario, as mentioned earlier, concerns female
behaviour. Webster summarised Thonga men’s own view of the situation in the
title of his 1989 article ‘Abafazi bathonga bafihlakala’ (Thonga women are a
mystery). Why do women not follow men’s lead and more thoroughly embrace
Zulu performance identity? Having given up, albeit under some force, Thonga
 The political economy of language shift 331

language for all intents and purposes, what are the rewards associated with
speaking ‘very bad Zulu’?
The answer may be profitably viewed from an ethnography of speaking ap-
proach of the sort championed by Hymes (1962, 1982) in which the variable of
language is seen as inextricably linked to other variables of sociocultural organ-
isation such as religion, kinship and other social relations, economy, political
organisation, and so on. Using this approach, the different cultural value sets as-
sociated with Zulu and Thonga qua languages are readily apparent. Of notable
prominence are those relating to the role and status of women, and these are key
pieces in the explanation of the dynamics whereby men actively espouse Zulu
identity while women do so reluctantly, half-heartedly and (deliberately) badly.
The position of Nguni, including Zulu, women has been amply documented in
the ethnographic literature (e.g. Ngubane 1981; Herbert 1990). In broad outline,
a Zulu women is a ‘perpetual minor’, who moves at marriage from the control
of her father to that of her husband and his male kin, especially the father-
in-law. It is not possible in the present context to review sex-based relations
in Zulu society in any detail. Suffice it to say that Zulu women, particularly
wives, operate with few rights of respect and privilege: they are ‘strangers’ in
the husband’s homestead, sources of potential contamination, and causes of all
manner of misfortune. It is not coincidental that the majority of accusations of
witchcraft in Nguni society are made against wives.
On the other hand, Thonga women traditionally enjoyed a number of rights
and showed a great deal of independence. Several positions within the kinship
system, most notably father’s sister and mother-in-law, carry privilege. The
former traditionally played an important role in political, economic and social
decisions, for example, at family councils. There is no equivalent in Zulu culture.
Similarly, sisterhood brings certain respect in Thonga society; elder sisters may
be called manana, ‘little mother’. Such usage is absent in Zulu. As Webster
(1989: 256ff.) points out, men and women use different kinship systems, Zulu
and Thonga respectively, to negotiate relations in a sort of ongoing contest to
define the situation.
As noted above, hlonipha, an elaborate system of respect through avoidance –
linguistic and otherwise – practised by Zulu women, is absent in Thonga society.
Thonga women are proud that they do not hlonipha, despite male demands that
they ‘show respect’. Thonga women traditionally enjoyed more liberal divorce
customs than their Zulu sisters (Clerc 1938). The overall impression is that the
position of women in Thonga society is, in some sense, ‘better’ than its Zulu
counterpart.
For women to embrace Zulu identity, ethnicity and custom as their men do
would involve a marked diminution of their status and power. Women’s recogni-
tion of this relationship underlies their reluctance to follow men’s shift to Zulu.
The private domain, which is to a large extent still controlled by women, remains
332 R. K. Herbert

Thonga in orientation – though not in verbal expression. This non-conversion

of the private domain and of women’s identity, or rather the non-convergence of
public–private and male–female domains, is expressed through the maintenance
of two linguistic varieties, Zulu and ‘very bad Zulu’.

9 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, language shift among the Tembe–Thonga needs to be understood

against a background of competing forces. Men’s shift to Zulu language, custom
and ethnicity has a historical basis in patterns of trade and domination wherein
Zulu served as a prestige language. This pattern was reinforced in the migrant
labour context and became a sine qua non of public performance under KwaZulu
political domination. Women held resolutely to their Thonga identity until fairly
recently when political pressures as well as the continued prestige of Zulu led
them to shift from Thonga, not to Zulu, but rather to a variety of ‘very bad
Zulu’. The latter distinction is a crucial one.
The explanation for women’s non-participation in the public shift to Zulu lies,
it is suggested, in the close link between language behaviour and the cultural
values associated with traditional Thonga culture. The introduction of Zulu val-
ues and cultural organisation into the private domain would result in a severe
reduction in women’s status and power. Their use of ‘very bad Zulu’ is a sort of
compromise between the need to identify publicly as Zulu and their desire to
retain control of private domains. In this sense, then, women recognise that men
have shifted their identity, and so they retain ‘Thonga’ for themselves. Indeed,
men call the local women ‘Thonga’, recognising that their identity and orienta-
tion has not shifted to the Zulu realm even when the women are Zulu speaking,
and the men confirm their own Zuluness by decrying the women’s Thonganess.
The boundaries of the separate subcultures of male and female continue to be
marked linguistically among the Tembe–Thonga although the Thonga language
no longer figures in the local linguistic repertoire. Linguistic and cultural sym-
bols are drawn from a repertoire available to subgroups for choice, adaptation
and emphasis. However, neither these symbols nor their exploitation is static.
The long-recognised sex-based bilingualism of the community is maintained
through the use of new, or at least different, linguistic resources. The dialectical
relationship between language and identity continues to be exploited here.
European anthropologists occasionally use the term ‘creolisation’ with ref-
erence to the processes described in this chapter. However, the term should not
be understood in the sense that it is normally used by linguists. It has developed
nuances of meaning in anthropology somewhat different from its original uses.
For anthropologists, creolisation refers to situations wherein vernacular (usually
local) and superstrate (usually foreign) influences come into play and engender
a new cultural form. Creolisation allows new bottles to be filled with old wine.
 The political economy of language shift 333

Creolised cultures are characterised by rapid change, the result of individual and
collective agency. In this regard, creolisation is the normal state of human affairs.

notes
1 There is much onomastic confusion here. The terms ‘Tsonga’, ‘Thonga’, ‘Tonga’,
‘Shangaan’ and ‘Gwamba’ are often used interchangeably. Tsonga has emerged as
the label used for all of the various linguistic subvarieties as well as the name of
the standardised variety used in South Africa (based on the Nkuna and Gwamba
varieties). The term ‘Thonga’ is reserved in this chapter for the linguistically related
group residing in northern KwaZulu-Natal; this form is generally taken to be Zulu,
but is occasionally used by this group to name itself. The South African Thonga are
a subgroup of Ronga, itself a subdivision within the larger Tsonga group (S.50).
2 ‘The clans comprising the Thonga people have nothing in common beyond a few
disappearing customs. The only thing that they hold in common is a rich, ancient and
distinct language. The unity of this tribe is indeed more linguistic than national.’
3 Field research for this chapter was supported by a grant-in-aid from the research
foundation of the University of the Witwatersrand and Title F support from the State
University of New York at Binghamton. Fieldwork was conducted during 1989, 1990
and 1992, mainly around KwaNgwanase, but also in subdistricts to the north and east,
including KwaMshudu and the Kosi Bay area. The chapter describes the language
situation prior to the South African transition to democracy. Reports from the area
since that time indicate some slight rise in moves to reassert Thonga identity, though
not expressed in any language revitalisation movement.
4 Whether this variety is viewed as Zulu with Thonga features, or as Thonga with Zulu
admixture, is usually decided on political grounds. Other analysts skirt the issue by
labelling it, for example, ‘a Thonga–Zulu dialect’ (Ngubane 1992: 11).
5 It should be noted that ‘Ronga’, like the appellation ‘Thonga’, is a label of convenience
based on linguistic, rather than social or cultural, facts. The Ronga never constituted
a social or political unit. The term was not used by the peoples so named as a self-
appellation. It is derived from the local word for ‘east’.
6 The meaning glossed as ‘slave’ was probably added after Zulu incursions into Thonga
territory in the nineteenth century. A more likely etymology is suggested by the
geographical distribution of the distinct peoples known as Thonga, Tonga and Tsonga.
All of these groups surround the ancient Zimbabwe empire. An etymology more likely
to mean ‘foreigner, outsider’ is suggested by this distribution. See Herbert (1996:
1345–6). As noted above, the Tembe–Thonga claim an ancient origin in Zimbabwe.
That several outsider groups adopted this name for themselves reveals something
about power and status and about the interactions between groups.
7 Felgate (1982: 13) suggests that the Ngubane were a Thonga group who migrated
southwards before the Tembe.
8 This summary ignores the important theoretical debates concerning the nature of the
variable labelled ‘ethnicity’. In South Africa, some of the relevant issues are partic-
ularly complex on account of the ways in which early administrative classifications
were used and transformed into politicised ethnicity after the advent of the Nationalist
government.
9 That children learn their mothers’ language, Thonga, is not surprising. This is the
language that children use when speaking to their siblings and playmates: ‘It is only
334 R. K. Herbert

when they [boys] become conscious of themselves as males that the switch to Zulu
as the dominant language is made’ (Felgate 1982: 24).
10 There are numerous historical reports that the label ‘(a)maThonga’ carried derogatory
overtones and ‘was never used by the people to whom it was applied’ (Harries
1983: 19). While it is certainly true that European perception/promotion of Tsonga/
Thonga/Tonga linguistic unity underlay a promoted sense of shared identity and
cultural unity, an argument Harries has made elsewhere (1988), one should not think
the Tsonga unique, or even unusual, in the southern African context. The derogatory
overtones associated with the label were largely purged, and the reluctance to use
the term today derives from other, more narrowly political, forces.
11 What is most striking here is that the typical Zulu central cattle pattern is missing;
huts are arranged in a line facing east rather than a circle, and the cattle kraal is not
within the homestead.
12 Belatedly, I need to record my debt to David Webster, who first suggested to me that
an anthropological linguist would find the study of language issues in the area inter-
esting. Several of my informants came to me through Webster’s recommendation. I
am also grateful to Sihawukele Ngubane and his father, Mr E. S. T. Ngubane, whose
advice, insights and assistance were invaluable during the fieldwork period.
13 Obviously, these outsider reports of unintelligibility need to be assessed with caution.
14 The basis for comparison is the Thonga/Tsonga spoken in southern Mozambique,
rather than the South African standard Tsonga of the Eastern Transvaal.
15 The linguistic situation is complicated by the presence of variety known as Gonde/
Gondzze/Konde, classed by Baumbach (1987) as ‘a Tsonga dialect’. Gonde is spoken
exclusively by old women along the coast from Lake Sibhayi to Bhanga Nek. It seems
to represent the ‘purest form of Thonga’ in the area, i.e. it is least influenced by Zulu,
though Ngubane (1992: 12) classifies it as a Zulu dialect that has been ‘externally
influenced by Swati and Thonga’.

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Felgate, Walter 1982. ‘The Tembe Tonga of Natal and Mozambique: an ecological
approach’, ed. Eileen Jensen Krige. Department of African Studies, University of
Natal, Durban, Occasional Papers No. 1.
Grobler, E., K. P. Prinsloo and I. J. van der Merwe 1990. Language Atlas of South Africa.
Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.
Harries, Patrick 1983. ‘History, ethnicity and the Ingwavuma land deal: the Zulu northern
frontier in the nineteenth century’. Journal of Natal and Zulu, 6: 1–27.
1988. ‘The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the politics of language construction in
south-east Africa’. African Affairs, 87: 25–52.
Herbert, Robert K. 1990. ‘ “Hlonipha” and the ambiguous woman’. Anthropos, 85:
455–73.
 The political economy of language shift 335

1996. ‘Some problems of ethnonyms for non-Western peoples’. In E. Eichler, G. Hilty

et al. (eds.), Namenforschung, vol II. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 1343–8.
Hymes, Dell 1962. ‘The ethnography of speaking’. In T. Gladwin and W. C. Sturtevant
(eds.), Anthropology and Human Behavior. Washington, D.C.: Anthropological
Society of Washington, pp. 13–53.
1982. Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Jespersen, Otto 1922. Language: its Nature, Development and Origin. London: George
Allen & Unwin.
Junod, Henri A. 1896. Grammaire ronga. Lausanne: Georges Bridel.
1905. ‘The Ba-Thonga of the Transvaal’. South African Journal of Science, 3: 22–262.
1927. The Life of a South African Tribe. London: Macmillan.
Kubheka, I. S. 1979. ‘A Preliminary Survey of Zulu Dialects in Natal and Zululand’.
MA thesis, University of Natal, Durban.
Kulik, Don 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ngubane, Harriet 1981. ‘Marriage, affinity and the ancestral realm: Zulu marriage in
female perspective’. In E. J. Krige and J. L. Comaroff (eds.), Essays on African
Marriage in Southern Africa. Cape Town: Juta, pp. 84–95.
Ngubane, Sihawukele 1992. ‘The Northern Zululand Dialects’. MA thesis, University
of Natal, Durban.
van Warmelo, N. J. 1935. A Preliminary Survey of the Bantu Tribes of South Africa.
Pretoria: Department of Native Affairs, Ethnological Publications No. 5.
1952. Language Map of South Africa. Pretoria: Department of Native Affairs,
Ethnological Publications No. 27.
1974. ‘The classification of cultural groups’. In W. D. Hammond-Tooke (ed.), The
Bantu-speaking Peoples of Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
pp. 56–84.
Webster, David 1989. ‘Abafazi bathonga bafihlakala: ethnicity and gender in a KwaZulu
border community’. In A. D. Spiegel and P. A. McAllister (eds.), Tradition and
Transition in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press,
pp. 243–71.
Part 2

Language contact
New varieties of English
17 From second language to first language:
Indian South African English

R. Mesthrie

1 INTRODUCTION
Indian South African English (henceforth ISAE) is worthy of the attention
of sociolinguists and scholars concerned with new Englishes, for a variety of
reasons. It offers the opportunity of examining in a relatively fossilised form
(on account of former rigid segregative tendencies in South Africa) the evolution
of a dialect of English under less than perfect conditions concerning educational
and social contact with target-language speakers. It also provides, again in a
relatively fossilised form, the opportunity of studying the changes a language
undergoes as it shifts from L2 to L1.
This chapter has two aims: (a) to complete the sociohistorical background
to language maintenance and shift among Indian South Africans begun in the
article on Indian languages (chap. 8, this volume); and (b) to examine the con-
sequences of social history on linguistic and sociolinguistic structure, manifest
in the dialect of English spoken by Indians in KwaZulu-Natal.
As a prelude to the history of ISAE the reader is referred to the back-
ground of indenture and immigration set out in chapter 8. Historical records
suggest that the vast majority of Indian immigrants (perhaps 98 per cent – see
Mesthrie 1992b: 12) had no knowledge of English. The language of the new
colony that Indians learnt quickest was the pidgin, Fanakalo. For communica-
tion among themselves Indians used an Indian language (usually Bhojpuri or
Tamil) and sometimes Fanakalo. Generally, the use of English among Indians
in nineteenth-century Natal was the exception rather than the rule.
Bughwan (1970: 503) states that English was first transmitted to Indians
by native speakers of the language – English missionaries, British teachers
and English-speaking sugar-estate owners. This is far too optimistic a view of
the social conditions prevailing in the colony. We can instead posit four main
possible sources of input to the learner:
(a) schooling, with teachers being native speakers of English;
(b) schooling, with teachers being non-native speakers of English;
(c) contact with native speakers of English in Natal;
(d) contact with non-native speakers of English (chiefly Indians).

339
340 R. Mesthrie

Written records suggest that all four sources were significant in shaping ISAE.
As far as education in the nineteenth century was concerned, it would appear
that the number of non-native English-speaking teachers was at least as great as
that of mother-tongue English teachers. This includes the missionaries, many
of whom were of Continental European origin (see further Mesthrie 1992b:
19–22).
By the 1930s the pattern of language learning had not changed much from
nineteenth-century trends. English was learnt as a second or third language out-
side the home (in classrooms or, in the case of large numbers who had no school-
ing, either at work or not at all). By the late 1950s, when education facilities
had improved, English began to be introduced in the home and neighbourhood
by children. In some homes a rapid inversion of roles took place. Whereas the
first- and second-born child might have arrived at school with no knowledge
of English, their subsequent influence in the home was in some instances so
significant as to cause the last or second-last child in a large family to arrive
at school with English as dominant language. In the 1960s and 1970s English
became the first language of a majority of Indian schoolchildren. A process of
shift is under way, with the Indian languages surviving with some difficulty.
The period of language shift can be thought of as gradual or rapid, depending
on one’s defining criteria. As 1960 was exactly one hundred years since the first
immigrations, the shift might seem a gradual one; but as 1960 was also less
than fifty years since the last shipload, the shift is perhaps not all that gradual.
In some rural homes, parents (especially mothers) learnt English from the
youngest children, rather than vice versa. This process, which I call a ‘closed
cycle of reinforcement’ in language shift, continues until today, though it is now
manifest in the interactions between grandparents (especially grandmothers)
and grandchildren. That is, those grandparents with little or no schooling who
spoke an Indian language to their children a generation ago are now forced
to learn English in order to be intelligible to monolingual grandchildren.
(In some homes grandchildren are lucky enough to receive input from grandpar-
ents in an ancestral language, but this is increasingly rare.) The closed cycle of
reinforcement is remarkable for its potential two-way influence: the grandpar-
ent learns from and with the grandchild, and in turn reinforces the grandchild’s
child-language. As one of my interviewees discussing his wife’s knowledge
of English put it, ‘Now with her purposes too, her grandchildren all growing
y’see, now she must communicate with them in the language they understand
[English]. So she goes along with that language. They teach the grandparents
how to speak the language’ (emphasis mine).

2 ISAE AND OTHER ENGLISHES

The kind of English that stabilised was, as I have already indicated, a very
special one, given that the policy of apartheid (1948–91) kept Indian children
 From second language to first language 341

away from first-language speakers of English descent, in hospitals, homes,

neighbourhoods, public facilities, schools, and even universities. The result is
that while being quite South African in some respects (aspects of lexis and
phonology), it is a recognisably different variety of South African English
(SAE). This difference is not always evident to the wider society, since ISAE
speakers adopt more careful and formal styles in public interaction. ISAE is
also similar to the English of India (in aspects of pronunciation, lexis and syn-
tax) but in many ways significantly different. Similarities are due to several
factors: shared mother tongues; input from a very small percentage of inden-
tured workers (of Christian background) and traders from India; and from the
early English teachers specially brought from India. There are four salient items
related to education that ISAE shares with Indian English, which are probably
a reflection of the influence of these early teachers: tuition(s), ‘extra lessons
outside school that one pays for’; further studies, ‘higher education’; alpha-
bets, ‘the alphabet, letters of the alphabet’; by-heart, ‘to learn off by heart’
(e.g. Don’t by-heart your work).
The main difference between ISAE and Indian English is that the former
is not a predominantly ‘educated’ or ‘elite’ variety. In contrast to Indian
English, which has been characterised as ‘bookish’, ‘Latinate’ and imbued with
a ‘moralistic’ tone (Kachru 1983: 39), ISAE is hyper-colloquial, sometimes in
situations demanding a measure of formalese.
ISAE shares similarities with L2 varieties of English throughout the world, in
some of its characteristic simplification and regularities. This includes the use
of grammatical elements that are, from the viewpoint of the L2 learner, more
salient than their standard English (sE) equivalents. For example, instead of the
perfective construction in ‘I’ve eaten’, ISAE speakers at their most casual say
‘I finish eat.’ (Compare this with Singapore English use of perfective already
– Williams 1987.) Another example is the (salient) form never for the standard
perfective negative haven’t: thus in informal ISAE ‘You never see him?’ is
the equivalent of standard Haven’t you seen him? Similarities with other new
Englishes extend to the use of an invariant tag, isn’t, in negative questions.
Thus He came there, isn’t is equivalent to sE ‘He came there didn’t he?’ (The
actual form of the negative tag varies in new Englishes – e.g. no, isn’t it, is it, etc.)
But, once again, there are differences between ISAE and other new Englishes.
One of the most significant is that it is now a first language for a majority of its
speakers; another is that it did not originate mainly in educational contexts.

3 SOME SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS OF ISAE

3.1 Phonetics
Although ISAE has many overlaps with Indian English, some of its features are
not quite as prominent as in the latter. In particular, retroflexion of consonants
such as /t. / and /d. / is not the salient characteristic it is in Indian English, and
342 R. Mesthrie

appears to be receding in ISAE. Likewise, the strong aspiration and murmur

associated with consonant articulation in North Indian English is receding in
ISAE. This probably reflects the greater influence of South Indian languages,
in which these features play only a minor role. One salient feature that ISAE
still shares with Indian English is the use of a syllable-timed rhythm rather than
stress timing, especially in colloquial styles.

3.2 Vocabulary
At its most formal, the ISAE lexis differs only slightly from general South
African English; at its least formal, it is exceedingly different. The differences
found in informal speech are catalogued in my Lexicon of South African Indian
English (Mesthrie 1992a), a work comprising about 1,400 items character-
istic of this dialect. Entries describe specific lexical items from a variety of
sources, points of grammatical usage (e.g. y’all as plural second-person pro-
noun), specific pronunciation traits (e.g. bagit for ‘bucket’ among many older
speakers), adolescent slang and proverbs (e.g. to want mutton curry and rice
everyday, which means ‘to expect a good time/the best always’). The majority
of lexical items are drawn from Indian languages in the sphere of kinship, re-
ligion and culinary practices. Interestingly, some of these still vary from home
to home, depending on the ancestral language. A good example is the word
for ‘spicy food’, for which the adjective hot is ambiguous. Speakers wishing to
describe spicy food rather than food that is hot in terms of the temperature use
one of the following, depending on the ancestral language: karo (Tamil); karum
(Telugu); thikku (Gujarati); thitta (Hindi/Bhojpuri); thikka (Urdu). Since these
are used in primarily domestic settings, the terms are not widely known. In
public discourse a term such as pungent or chilli-hot may be used. Three areas
of vocabulary are listed below: the lexis of love (which hint at a time when love
was not spoken about directly); some salient semantic shifts; and common lexis
drawn from Indian languages.
The lexis of love
future (n.) husband or wife-to-be
interested in in love with
get in touch have a romantic involvement
proposed affianced, engaged
disappointed jilted in love
spoilt carrying a child out of wedlock
marry out to marry outside one’s traditional sub-ethnic group
Some semantic shifts in ISAE
lazy unintelligent
interfere to molest
hint to speak ill of (not necessarily obliquely)
independent stand-offish, haughty
 From second language to first language 343

raw uncouth, vulgar

healthy fat, overweight (not a conscious euphemism)
goodwill compulsory payment to landlord to secure accommodation
Lexis drawn from Indian languages
isel a winged termite, flying ant (Tamil, Telugu)
dhania coriander (Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Urdu)
bhajia spicy fried snack (Bhojpuri, Urdu)
nikah Islamic wedding ceremony (Urdu)
thanni a popular card game (Tamil)
jhanda flag hoisted by some Hindus after prayers (Bhojpuri)

4 THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTINUUM IN ISAE

ISAE today is far from homogeneous: it is a continuum of varying styles and
strategies. A sociolinguistic description of ISAE can be best effected by divid-
ing this continuum at three salient points, resulting in sub-lects which I call
the ‘basilect’, ‘mesolect’ and ‘acrolect’. These terms are well known in creole
studies, where ‘basilect’ denotes the ‘deep’ creole furthest removed from the
colonial language, ‘acrolect’ the creole variety closest to the colonial language
and ‘mesolect’ the broad range of varieties between these two extremes. Im-
porting terms from creolistics is, I believe, not controversial, since creolisation
is a special case (under extreme social conditions) of the process described in
this chapter: the acquisition of a second language as a first language, under
conditions of minimal contact with target-language speakers.
As far as ISAE is concerned the basilect follows a largely nativised norm,
influenced as much by substrate phenomena and (universal?) strategies of L2
communication as by the norms of colonial Natal English. The basilect is today
typically used by older speakers with little education, who acquired English as
a second language. However, it is spoken with all the fluency of an L1. The
acrolect follows fairly closely upon the norms of colonial Natal English except
for its phonetics and two or three syntactic constructions (described later).
The mesolect(s) mediate between these two extremes by a host of interesting
syntactic strategies (also discussed later). In L2 acquisition terms the lects are
essentially inter-language varieties stabilised (or fossilised) at various points
of an inter-language continuum. Moreover (and this is what makes ISAE a
particularly interesting variety), these lects have been pressed into service as
L1s, for reasons set out in the article on Indian languages (chap. 8, this volume).
A brief exemplification of speech typical of each lect follows:

Basilect
Question: How often (do) you go to Durban?
Response: Where we go! Hardly we go, visit Durban too. Sometime ’olidays, my
’usband take his brother’s house an’ his sistern-law there an’ all of his
344 R. Mesthrie

connection. My connection, all staying Merebank. Sometime holidays we go, but

this year ’oliday we had, y’know, like we had some problem an’ all, like we want
to go visit, I don’ like to go stay that two–three weeks an’ all – they living ’ard
life like us too, they earn little bit money too. We must think too, we just can’t go
sit down, y’know, like brother or sister, anybody can be, like Durban-side they
must pay water, this-thing rate, lights, that-all they must pay. (fifty-five-year-old,
rural, female, working class)

(Loose sE equivalent: We don’t go. We hardly ever go to visit people in Durban. Some-
times during holidays my husband takes us to his brother’s and sister-in-law’s house or
to other relatives. My relatives live in Merebank. We sometimes go on holidays, but this
year we had some problems; even if we want to visit, we have to consider that to stay
for two or three weeks is an imposition, since they live a hard life, with a little money
only. We must be considerate; we can’t just pitch up and remain there for long. Even if
it’s our own brother or sister, or anyone close we have to realise that in Durban people
have to pay for services like lights, water, etc.)

Mesolect
Question: Tell me about the time you had a heart attack.
Response: I went an’ bought one soda water. So I had a soda water in the cafe, I took
my coat out, took my jersey an’ all out, I chucked it on the table. I sat, sat, sat – I
said no’, I felt I must reach home. I didn’t trust anybody to drive that van because
it was lent to me from somebody else. So somehow or other I managed, I jumped
into the van, an’ I drove the van an’ came, I just came an’ parked here an’ lied
down. My son was here, this second, third fellow of mine. Phoned by Dr T. G.
Singh, while I’m lying on the bed, I donno what happened, the wife gave me little
bit of sugar-water. I just drank that sugar-water, and eh, just when I finished
drinking the sugar-water I became normal. (sixty-year-old, urban, male, working
class)

Acrolect (regarding nursing–patient relationships in a small town)

Well, you see because it’s a small town, and everybody knows me, then automatically
they become more demanding, because – eh – they feel, well, everybody knows me and –
just go to Mary and we’ll ask her; doesn’t matter if she’s on holiday or it’s a Sunday,
or – y’know – something like that. And now I find that I’m not only doing the medical
part of it and trying to work; they come to me when they’re getting married, to design
their dress; or their children are having parties. Y’know I’ve become part of everybody’s
family, which is nice in a way. (thirty-year-old, female, urban, middle-class)

In addition to the three main lects, another turned up in my fieldwork con-

ducted in the late 1980s which I labelled ‘pre-basilectal’. It involves a small
number of (second- or third-generation) speakers whose command of English is
makeshift, and who have difficulties in expressing themselves in English, even
about domestic topics. Pre-basilectal speech is difficult to follow, even for one
 From second language to first language 345

who understands all the nuances of the basilect. In Mesthrie (1990) I discuss the
similarities and possible links between the pre-basilect and Butler English, a
rudimentary pidgin of South India. This is the earliest inter-language form dis-
cernible within ISAE and forms an important foil for the proper understanding
of the more focused and stable basilect.
New developments of the 1990s include: (a) the rise of a small group of well-
educated people who acquired newly created jobs as television announcers;
and (b) students graduating from private schools in which the norms of white
SAE prevail. Such ‘post-acrolectal’ speakers, who use an essentially non-ISAE
system, fall outside the ambit of this study.
Putting the main lects in boldface, the ISAE continuum may be presented as
follows:

pre-basilect – basilect – mesolect – acrolect – post-acrolect

The ratio of speakers of these lects in my fieldwork was respectively 1: 4:

12: 3: 0.1 My classification of speakers is based on their overall linguistic
performance in the informal interview situation.
If we were to characterise ISAE as one focused system (and this is probably
not feasible), that system would be closer to the mesolect than the basilect.
The mesolect carries less stigma than either the basilect or the acrolect. That
is, in informal situations an ISAE speaker has to strike a balance between not
sounding too basilectal (with its undertones of lack of sophistication, rural, aged,
etc.) or too acrolectal (which could be interpreted as ‘putting on airs’, being cold,
distant, etc.). A similar pattern has been observed for creolophone societies.
Washabaugh (1977: 334) describes three ‘pressures’ that adult speakers in a
post-creole continuum are caught up in: (a) a pressure to avoid basilect forms;
(b) pressure to acquire the acrolect; and (c) pressure to use a casual style in
informal situations.
These pressures have far-reaching consequences upon the syntactic behaviour
of ISAE speakers. The few glimpses of pressure (c) that were revealed on tape
were illuminating, however. One acrolectal speaker, after being drawn into the
interviewer’s confidence, and wishing to be friendlier than she had sounded up
to that point, asked two questions: Religion – you got that, eh – Catholic? and
It must be a really bad experience? The personal tone accompanying these
remarks was suggestive of a desire to be friendly and helpful, and was enhanced
by the use of syntactic properties that are atypical of the acrolect: topicalisa-
tion, absence of have before got in the first question and non-inversion of auxil-
iary and subject in the second. Conversely, a mesolectal speaker not wanting to
sound overdeferential, uneducated, easy-going (and powerless) might well in-
crease the use of ‘formal’ constructions such as do-support, auxiliary-inversion,
perfective have, etc.
346 R. Mesthrie

Another speaker (a college lecturer), whose interview style can best be de-
scribed as upper-mesolectal to acrolectal, showed similar patterns of style shift-
ing in a generally relaxed interview. In the middle of the session she turned to
her husband, who had just returned from shopping, and asked, You bought
cheese, Farouk? Once again, an intimate style required a switch away from the
acrolect constructions (do-support, in this instance). The reply of the husband,
a high-school English teacher, was even more revealing. Not realising that the
tape was running he said, in an ultra-casual style, No, but lot butter I bought.
This single utterance contains a number of basilectal features that he himself
might harangue against in the classroom: a predilection for topicalisation; lot
for ‘a lot of’ (or ‘much’ in classroom English); and a basilectal pronunciation,
[nɔ:] for acrolectal no (= [noυ]).
Another argument for not considering the ISAE system to comprise a bipolar
‘dialect plus standard’ mechanism comes from a study of the acrolectal end of
the continuum. The acrolect is not the same as sE or the (white) SAE variety
used in Natal. In terms of both accent and syntax there are subtle boundaries
which few speakers traverse. Only a few speakers are genuinely bidialectal in
ISAE and SAE. These tend to be young professionals employed in prestigious
commercial houses, where they come into contact with SAE employers and
clients. The group also includes a few radio and television announcers as well
as students in private schools. Those who carry the SAE dialect home run the
risk of being gently ridiculed (Your mummy’s using her Standard Bank accent)
and, in my observation, switch to the mesolect in intimate styles.
What are the syntactic features that the acrolect shares with the basilect and
mesolect, and that mark off the acrolect from general SAE?
(a) y’all as plural pronoun form. This form, which is below the level of social
consciousness for most ISAE speakers, occurs in informal letters (where
it is usually spelt you’ll) and formal speeches. It has a genitive form,
y’all’s.
(b) Copula attraction to wh- in indirect questions, which results in sentences
like (1)–(2):
(1) Do you know what’s/what is roti?
(2) I don’t know when’s/when is the plane going to land.
In sharp contrast is the (standard) SAE equivalent with the copula occurring
after the subject NP of the embedded clause. The equivalent of (1) would have
stress on sentence final ‘is’: Do you know what roti is?
(c) The use of of in partitive genitive constructions beyond standard English
contexts:
(3) The trouble with him is he’s got too much of money.
 From second language to first language 347

5 LINGUISTIC PROCESSES TYPICAL OF THE BASILECT

In comparison to the early inter-language forms characteristic of the pre-basilect,
the basilect displays a much more focused and developed structure. These can
be characterised in terms of two broad processes: (a) expansion of inner form;
and (b) complexification of outer form.2

5.1 Expansion of inner form

This refers to the development of ‘core’ structures that enable the basilect
to function as a full linguistic system. In comparison to the pre-basilect, the
basilect has structures such as relative clauses, a stable system of prepositions,
and topic-comment principles. From a sociolinguistic point of view what makes
the basilect remarkable is that such grammatical machinery has been developed
by using its own resources, rather than by recourse to structures from sE. I will
exemplify this claim by examining complementation and co-ordination in the
basilect.

5.1.1 Complementation
Among the more striking differences between basilectal ISAE and sE comple-
mentation are the following:
(a) Sentence-external placement of modal-like modifiers.
(4) Lucky, they never come. (= ‘We were lucky that they didn’t come.’)
(5) Must be, they coming now. (= ‘It must be that they’re coming now/they
must be on their way.’)
(b) This pattern is extended to constructions that would require raising and the
use of infinitives in standard English.
(6) They told I must come an’ stay that side. (= ‘They asked me to come
and live there.’)
(7) I like children must learn our mother tongue. (= ‘I’d like our children
to learn our mother tongue.’)
(8) Then Ram told Devi’s mother must tell I must come. (= ‘Then Ram
asked Devi’s mother to ask me to come.’)
Like (4)–(5) these show the pattern modal-like element +S, with the structure
of S unchanged. Although the usual English pattern with to infinitives and
raising does occur in the basilect, they are not as frequent as patterns exhibited
in sentences such as (6)–(8).
(c) The use of clause-final too as hypothetical marker in conditional clauses.
348 R. Mesthrie

(9) It can be a terrible house too, you have to stay in a terrible house.
(= ‘Even if it’s a terrible house, you have to live in it.’)
(10) Very sick an’ all too, they take them to R. K. Khan’s. (= ‘If they’re very
sick, they are taken to R. K. Khan Hospital.’)

5.1.2 Co-ordination
Both the basilect and pre-basilect often favour the paratactic stringing of clauses
instead of overt co-ordination markers.
(11) She was calling, she was telling . . . (= ‘She called and said . . .’)
(12) Born over there, I’m brought up over there. (= ‘I was born and brought
up over there.’)
When co-ordination is marked, a variety of strategies arise. The ones that are
‘created’ rather than ‘inherited’ (from Natal English) are exemplified below.
(a) The use of too clause-finally: there were a few instances of these in the
corpus.
(13) I made rice too, I made roti too. (= ‘I made both rice and roti.’)
(14) You walk into town too its difficult, you wanna do shopping too, its
difficult. (= ‘If you want to walk in town and do your shopping, it’s
difficult.’)
(There are parallels in such clause final marking in Indic and Dravidian lan-
guages – and rigid OV languages generally.)
(b) The use of salient phrase-final quantifiers:
(15) I speak English, Tamil, both. (= ‘both X and Y’)
(16) . . . rose-water, vicks, coconut oil, nothing. (= ‘neither X nor Y nor
Z . . .’)
(17) We had to take out our shirt, tie, vest, everything. (=‘all of X, Y, Z . . .’)
(18) They must have one cup porridge, water, anything. (= ‘one of X,
Y . . .’)

5.2 Complexification of outer form

Whereas the previous examples focused on the development of essential core
structures (‘inner form’) in the basilect, in this section I will exemplify the
fleshing out of syntax by psycholinguistic processes which do not always de-
rive from the English input. Such ‘fleshing out’ may lead to an increase in
redundancy, making an inter-language more like a native language.
 From second language to first language 349

5.2.1 Double marking of clause relations

In shifting from parataxis to a less paratactic state the same conjunction may
be repeated before each clause.
(19) But it’ll come, but too late. (= ‘It’ll come but too late.’)
(20) So when I was a baby, so my father-an’-them shifted here to Sezela.
(= ‘When I was a baby my father’s family moved here to Sezela.’)
Occasionally, the repeated conjunction occurs in clause-final position:
(21) We go Howick now, we feel different now. (= ‘When/if we go to Howick
today we feel that it has changed.’)
(22) But if I tell somebody now, they’ll say he’s bluffing now.
More usually, different conjunctions occur in each clause:
(23) Though I visit very often to Durban, but I don’t like it.
(24) But sincing the weather wasn’t promising too, then we decided to come
today. (= ‘Since the weather was not very good, we decided to come
today.’)
Sentences (23) and (24) show that an initial conjunction may co-occur with
a final one within the same clause. Double marking of clause relations is a
common feature of new Englishes (see Williams 1987), including black South
African English.

5.2.2 Use of target language forms with non-target meaning, function

and distribution
This is an often-remarked-upon characteristic of creole expansion that would
appear to have some relevance in L2 acquisition (Andersen 1983: 31–2). It is
a pervasive feature of basilectal syntax and morphology, though for reasons of
space only two areas will be covered: (a) aspect; and (b) changes in parts of
speech.

(a) Aspect marking The verbs stay and leave are used in non-target
language ways to convey aspectual distinctions. An’ stay after a verb signals a
habitual sense; an’ leave him/her/it is a completive marker.
(25) We’ll fright an’ stay. (= ‘We used to be afraid (for a long while).’)
(26) When mother-all here, we’ll talk mother, and laugh an’ stay. (= ‘When
my mother and others were alive we used to talk merrily (at length).’)
(27) She filled the bottle an’ left it. (= ‘She filled the bottle completely.’)
(28) We whacked him an’ left him. (= ‘We beat him up thoroughly.’)
350 R. Mesthrie

This construction, which is not a very common one, might be part of a larger
tendency to replace adverbs by verbs in sentences denoting habitual action:
(29) He’ll run an’ come. (= ‘He’ll come running.’)
(30) They only laugh and talk. (= ‘They always speak lightly/in a laughing
manner.’)
Sentences (25) and (26) show another aspectual difference from sE: the use of
the reduced form of will to denote past habitual action (equivalent to sE would).
The most striking innovation in aspect marking in ISAE is however, should for
standard English used to (see Mesthrie 1992b: 130–3).

(b) Change of part of speech An interesting change is shown by the

use of here ([hjæ]) as a sentence-final exclamatory tag, as in (31) and (32):
(31) I don’t like it, here!
(32) He’s troubling me, here!
The most plausible etymology for the tag is do you hear/you hear?, which
must have been reduced to hear and reinterpreted as here. Native-speaker
intuitions – including my own – suggest a current identification with ‘here’
rather than ‘hear’. The two forms are also phonetically distinct: here = [hjæ];
hear = [hje]. Furthermore, the syntactic contexts in which the form may occur
have been extended to include declaratives (indicating disapproval, a complaint
or anger) instead of the predominantly imperatives of the target language.
We have already seen the adverb too in a variety of functions. Two of these
functions have been described already: as clause-final hypothetical marker, and
as occasional marker of co-ordination. Yet another function is as focus marker:
(33) This weather too, it’s terrible. (no other terrible thing mentioned)
Whereas the focus falls on the NP in sentence (33), it is on the main clause
in (34):
(34) We were very small when they died too. (no other dead – or small – persons
mentioned)
In the basilect (and to a lesser extent, the pre-basilect), some words have
changed (or extended) their word-class affiliation, without a significant change
in semantics:
(35) We from born we staying here. born n.
(36) We very unity people this side. unity adj.
(37) From small he’s like that. small n.
(38) Very sin to see that thing. sin adj.
(39) He offed it! (= ‘He put it off.’) off v.
(40) Who’s look-aftering the baby? look-after v.
 From second language to first language 351

6 CHARACTERISTIC PROCESSES IN THE MESOLECT

While basilectal syntax consistently shows the creation of core grammati-

cal machinery, the mesolect is characterised by processes of restructuring of
such basilectal forms in the direction of the acrolect. Three processes will
be illustrated.

6.1 Replacement of form, without change of meaning

One characteristic of decreolisation that has some relevance to change in ISAE
is the manner in which restructuring takes place. Bickerton (1975) suggests
that when new forms in the mesolect are acquired from the acrolect they at
first retain the ‘old’ meaning, function and distribution of the forms they are
replacing. Slobin (1973: 184) suggests that this is in fact a general principle of
L1 acquisition – ‘a far reaching principle [for L1 acquisition] which could be
phrased as follows: new forms first express old functions, and new functions are
first expressed by old forms’ (emphasis in original). The process is noticeable
in mesolectal ISAE.
A few mesolectal speakers expressed emphatic co-ordination on the lines
of (41):
(41) My dad was a soccerite as well, he was a musician as well. (= ‘My dad
was both a soccerite and a musician.’)
This appears to be based on the basilectal pattern of OV-ordination with ‘too’
occurring at the end of each clause – see sentence (13). Speakers who produce
sentences like (41) conceive of too as non-standard (or, at least inappropri-
ate in certain styles) and replace it with the standard English form as well.
The resulting pattern illustrates the retention of the basilectal pattern, despite
seeming more acrolectal to the speakers.
A similar phenomenon occurs with certain lexical items and idioms. The
basilectal phrase for a bin, dirty box, is stigmatised in the classroom, and in an
effort to sound less basilectal some speakers use the phrase dirt-box. Likewise,
the basilectal phrase to make dirty (= ‘to litter’) is realigned as to make dirt
which is syntactically standardish without being a standard English idiom. The
same phenomenon can be seen in the change from to make masti (= to be
naughty, based on the Bhojpuri noun masti, ‘mischief’) to a mesolectal form
to make naughty (showing non-standard use of adjective as noun).

6.2 Addition of features

A related modification of basilectal features in ISAE involves addition rather
than replacement. The result is, once again, less basilectal but not more standard,
though it might feel so to mesolectal speakers.
352 R. Mesthrie

Copula deletion Sentences (42) and (43) illustrate two patterns in

the basilect involving absence of the copula (the basilect generally favours
a zero copula after that). Whereas (42) shows simple absence of the reduced
form ’s after where, (43) shows an attempt at compensating for copula absence,
by use of the deictic that at the end of the clause.
(42) Where that place – Chatsworth? (= ‘Where’s that place, Chatsworth?’)
(43) Paan that. (= ‘That’s paan/ it’s paan’; paan = ‘betel leaf’)
In attempting to avoid this basilectal pattern some speakers (usually mesolectal)
produce intermediary sentences which incorporate both basilectal and acrolectal
forms:
(44) Where’s the place is, Chatsworth?
(45) It’s paan that.
(46) Once you put thumb-prints, well it’s black and white that.
In attempting to ‘put in’ a copula in a that sentence, one mesolectal speaker
conspicuously inserted it twice, each time at an inappropriate point:
(47) Your uncle is that – that Nehru is in India.
(basilectal equivalent: Your uncle that – that Nehru in India; acrolectal
equivalent: That Nehru in India is your uncle.)
We have seen that one of the features of ISAE that occurs in all lects is the attrac-
tion of the copula to wh- forms in indirect questions (for example, even acrolectal
speakers say: Do you know when’s the plane going to land?). Acrolectal speak-
ers may use the standard equivalent without attraction in slightly formal styles.
Interestingly, a few times in the corpus mesolectal speakers (only) produced
the copula in both ‘attracted’ position as well as in its original trace position:
(48) You see where’s the bridge is?
For different reasons, no basilectal or acrolectal speaker would produce such a
hypercorrection.

6.3 Near misses

A third process, suggestive of an intermediary stage between the basilect and
acrolect in ISAE, involves what I call ‘near misses’. Speakers use forms that
are close to the standard, but differ in minor details: a divergent use of a
preposition from the acrolect, an overgeneralised environment for a rule, a re-
subcategorisation of a verb, a novel form of an old idiom, etc. These are typically
mesolectal since they involve neither the creation of a form (as one often finds in
the basilect) nor an exact ‘inheritance’ (as one finds in the acrolect). Speakers
have learned a form, but not completely. In situations involving monitored
 From second language to first language 353

speech they are easily able to produce a standard form, but in spontaneous dis-
course, under either very relaxed or very tense situations, they display several
‘near-misses’. By contrast, forms typical of the basilect often involve not-so-
near misses. The first of our two sets of illustrations concerns items that are
recognisably part of the dialect (chiefly the mesolect).
(a) (i) Prepositions:
(49) He’s got no worries of anyone. (‘about’)
(50) I’m not fluent with Afrikaans. (‘in’)
(51) I was good in arithmetic. (‘at’)
(52) You should be appreciated with that thing. (‘appreciative of’)
(ii) Adverbials, adjectives and quantifiers
for really really, truly
farest furthest
worst worse (in addition to its usual meaning)
more worse worse
the both both
(iii) Lexis and Idioms
sincing since
catch up catch on
scratch itch
can’t stick the heat can’t stand the heat
play fools play the fool
long-cut long route
to run a mock to run amuck, to revel
to pick somebody out to pick on someone
to take out one’s clothes to take off one’s clothes
Some of the ‘near misses’ involve a conflation of two target-language items,
or the influence of one over another. Thus sincing seems to be based on
both since and seeing; long-cut is formed by analogy with short-cut, etc. Such
neologisms, overgeneralisations and recategorisations are very common in the
new Englishes generally. Sey’s grammar (1973) of Ghanaian English and
Nihalani, Tongue and Hosali’s (1978) lexicon of Indian English give examples
which suggest that these processes occur to a much greater extent than in ISAE.
Indeed, these are the most salient feature of those varieties of English. In ISAE
they are one of a widely varying set of processes, and not the most divergent of
these from sE.
(b) Another interesting set involves items that are ‘one-off’ errors, used by
mesolectal speakers in the interviews. Although the individual items exempli-
fied in (53)–(55) are not characteristic of the dialect, the process is widespread
enough in the mesolect to warrant our attention.
(53) I accompany all the vegetables with spices. (= ‘I mix the vegetables with
spices.’)
354 R. Mesthrie

(54) I overlooked it. (= ‘I neglected to do it.’)

(55) You’ll find one person is linked relatively to a number of people. (= ‘. . . is
related to a number of people’)
This class of near-misses is psychologically interesting, since the speakers
would have little difficulty in using the correct forms in most situations. Yet
there seems to be an asymmetry between the passive command of English and
the productions of mesolectal speakers in semi-formal speech.
The gap between the basilect and acrolect is a wide one in ISAE, and the
mesolect mediates via a series of strategies. In connection with L2 data, the
point to be made is that the analyst should be sensitive to the characteristic
processes found in different (frozen) inter-language stages.

7 CONCLUSION

The differences that ISAE exhibits from sE are, I believe, much greater than
those exhibited by other new Englishes. The circumstances of its origins and
development have more than passing similarities with those that engendered
pidgin and creole languages. However, the reader should not be misled into
anticipating all kinds of problems in the classroom because of the differences
stressed in this chapter. For one thing, many young speakers are increasingly
able to shift to more standard ways of speaking in public and formal discourse.
However, the characteristics of ISAE usually surface in intimate and informal
conversations of even the most educated speakers. This closely follows Labov’s
(1972: 134) characterisations of covert prestige attached to the vernacular. In
moving from L2 to L1 within the special case of apartheid-dominated society
ISAE has not abandoned its former L2 features.3 These features have gone
underground, so to speak.

notes
1 The zero should not be interpreted literally; it signifies that no post-acrolectal speakers
turned up in the sample. The actual proportion is close to zero.
2 Valdman (1977: 155) discusses these processes in relation to creolisation.
3 This phenomenon still holds in the new post-apartheid society, but may gradually
change.

bibliography
Andersen, R. 1983 (ed.). Pidginization and Creolization as Language Acquisition.
Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Bickerton, D. 1975. Dynamics of a Creole System. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
 From second language to first language 355

Bughwan, D. 1970. ‘An Investigation into the Use of English by the Indians in South
Africa, with Special Reference to Natal’. Ph.D. thesis, University of South Africa.
Kachru, B. B. 1983. The Indianization of English. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Mesthrie, R. 1990. ‘Did the Butler do it?: on an analogue of Butler English in Natal,
South Africa’. World Englishes, 9, 3: 281–8.
1992a. A Lexicon of South African Indian English. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press.
1992b. English in Language Shift: The History, Structure and Sociolinguistics of
South African Indian English. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nihalani, P., R. K. Tongue and P. Hosali 1978. Indian and British English: A Handbook
of Usage and Pronunciation. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sey, K. A. 1973. Ghanaian English. London: Macmillan.
Slobin, D. 1973. ‘Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar’. In C. A.
Ferguson and D. I. Slobin (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development.
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, pp. 175–208.
Valdman, A. 1977. ‘Creolization: elaboration in the development of Creole French
dialects’. In Valdman (ed.), Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, pp. 155–89.
Washabaugh, W. 1977. ‘Constraining variation in decreolization’. Language, 53:
329–52.
Williams, J. 1987. ‘Non-native varieties of English: a special case of language acquisi-
tion’. English World-wide, 8, 2: 161–99.
18 Black South African English

Vivian de Klerk and David Gough

1 DEFINING BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH

English is a world language, likely to continue to play a leading role interna-
tionally as an important language of education and as the language of choice
for business, science and popular culture (Platt et al. 1984: 28). A consequence
of its dominant position and growth as the language of power and as an impor-
tant medium for the dissemination of knowledge is the striking increase in the
number of those learning and using English as ‘other’ language. In this process
English has acquired various identities and multiple ownerships (Kachru 1986:
31), one of them being black South African English (BSAE).
BSAE is the variety of English commonly used by mother-tongue speakers
of South Africa’s indigenous African languages. In terms of Platt et al’s criteria
(1984: 2–3), BSAE fits the category ‘new English’ in that it has developed
through the education system as an L2 in an area where English is not the
language of the majority, and has become localised for use in intra-regional
communication, as is typical of colonial contexts in which English has been
imported to compete with indigenous languages.1 However, defining BSAE
precisely is problematic: strictly speaking, whose English is BSAE? Is it the
English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English
in informal contexts and use it occasionally for business or work purposes? Is
it the variety of English used by those who have emerged from the education
system at some stage after Grade 10, and who have experienced a more formal
and extended exposure to English? Or is it a composite of all these varieties?
Researchers will need to investigate this question more thoroughly before a
definitive answer can be given.
Although reliable statistics are hard to come by, figures from the Central
Statistical Services (1994) indicate that about 7 million black people in South
Africa have a command of English as other language, a figure likely to expand
commensurately with positive perceptions of the high instrumental value of
English. Until recently BSAE tended to be discussed in prescriptive terms as
a variety deviating from the norm, not acceptable in formal contexts at all,
deficiencies in it attributable to interference from mother tongues or to poor

356
 Black South African English 357

tuition. The recent flood of heated and critical complaints from purists following
its increasing use in public media underline its erstwhile status as second-rate
‘non-standard’ variety. But increasingly it is being viewed (and described) as
a variety in its own right (Buthelezi 1995; Gough 1996;2 Wade 1997), worthy
of recognition, but more than that: an unavoidable fact of life. At the same
time, its status and prestige appear to be undergoing a rapid change for the better
(see section 3).

1.1 The historical context

The roots of BSAE lie in the history of the teaching of English to the black
people of South Africa. After early attempts to teach English to black children
at missionary schools, a massive growth in the school population necessitated
state assistance. From about 1935 in black schools the principle of education in
the mother tongue was applied for the first eight years of school, and in 1953 the
Bantu Education Act, against the weight of informed black opinion at the time,
entrenched mother-tongue instruction up to the highest possible level for black
pupils, and greatly increased the role of Afrikaans. Most of the mother-tongue
English teachers in the system were slowly phased out, effectively denying
black pupils access to native English speakers, except in the few remaining
mission schools. This limited contact with native-speaker norms while learning
English resulted in certain characteristic patterns of pronunciation and syntax
(traceable to the mother tongue) being entrenched as norms of spoken BSAE,
with consequential lowering of levels of comprehensibility (Wright 1996: 151).
The ideological force driving the education policy of the Nationalist gov-
ernment was apartheid, and studying through the mother tongue was a way
of reinforcing separateness while at the same time supposedly supporting the
inalienable human right to preserve separate identity, especially in the socio-
political sphere. However, despite its potential to promote black consciousness
and despite the obvious pedagogical advantages of acquiring initial literacy in
the mother tongue, the policy failed, largely owing to deep suspicion regard-
ing its ideological intention to create a semi-literate, isolated labour force
(Mawasha 1982: 25). Demand for the forbidden grew: English was seen by many
as the key to socio-economic advancement, and people failed to see the value of
their own indigenous languages (which they already ‘knew’), since these lan-
guages did not facilitate access to participation and mobility in wider society.
As a result of the Soweto uprising of 1976 the Department of Bantu Education
agreed in 1979 to allow schools, in consultation with parents, to choose their
own medium of instruction (MOI) after the first four years of school, and
hardly surprisingly, English emerged as the overwhelming choice. However,
between 1984 and 1994 black education virtually collapsed, owing to the long-
term effects of the underfunding of black education, overcrowded facilities and
358 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

serious deficiencies in teacher training and teaching methodology. Exacerbating

these problems was the fact that liberation forces increasingly began to use
schools as a power base in the political struggle (Wright 1996: 151), causing
major disruption.
By 1990, most teachers of English in Department of Education and Training
(DET) schools were L2 speakers, products of Bantu education themselves,
whose English was inadequate through no fault of their own. Despite an ‘official’
use of English as MOI, de facto there was and still is extensive use of African
languages in the classroom, and pupils have little exposure to mother-tongue
speakers of English, or varieties of English other than BSAE outside the class-
room (Mugoya 1991, cited in Gough 1996: 54). Thus it is clear that for the
average black child the contexts for learning English were highly inadequate
and constrained during the apartheid era. High drop-out rates and low levels
of proficiency in English have been the legacy of this system. For the vast
majority, the quality of education has been abysmally low, and the extremely
limited access to English (especially to a range of styles and functions) has
resulted in very mixed levels of competence in English. It is difficult to as-
certain how many South African black people have a ‘knowledge of English’,
and estimates vary between 32 per cent and 61 per cent (see Gough 1996: 53).
This difficulty is a reflection of the problem of defining exactly what constitutes
‘knowledge of English’. It is also a reflection of the striking differences in com-
petence among blacks, who range from completely fluent speakers and writers
for whom English has become a ‘second first language’ (de Klerk 1996b) to
those who are very low on the learner continuum, with almost no English at
all. The question of which of these varieties on the learner continuum is a true
reflection of BSAE is obviously also very difficult to answer.

1.2 The demographic context

In 1996 South Africa recognised its eleven major languages as official lan-
guages of the country in terms of its new constitution. Of its total population of
40.6 million, about 30.7 million are speakers of the nine indigenous African lan-
guages, while the former official languages, English and Afrikaans, are spoken
by only 3.5 million and 5.8 million people respectively (Statistics South Africa
1996). Distribution of the indigenous languages tends to be geographically lo-
calised, and to vary significantly from province to province. For example, all
eleven languages are spoken in Gauteng (formerly southern Transvaal) while
only three are used to any significant degree in KwaZulu-Natal (Zulu, English
and Afrikaans) and the Eastern Cape (Xhosa, English and Afrikaans), five in the
Western Cape and nine in Mpumalanga (Eastern Transvaal).3 English is the only
language that is significantly represented in all nine provinces, and consequently
it is in demand as lingua franca for communication across language groups.
 Black South African English 359

Although only 9 per cent of the country’s population are mother-tongue

speakers of English, there is a rapid increase in knowledge of English as an
additional language (Schuring 1993: 17), with the RCM (Reaching Critical
Mass) Survey reporting as many as 62 per cent of South Africans having a
knowledge of English and Bua (1993) reporting a figure of 43 per cent of
South Africans speaking some English.4 Indeed, its apparent neutrality, its
range of native and non-native users across cultures, its ability to fulfil a range of
linguistic functions and its rich literary tradition have made it a strong candidate
as internal de facto lingua franca: English is not only functionally attractive
(providing access to higher education, the international arena and wealth and
power) but it also carries positive connotations as the language of liberation and
resistance to apartheid domination, because of its role in the ANC and PAC as
the language of the struggle prior to 1994.
Despite the recent changes in state language policy, emphasising multilin-
gualism and the rights of indigenous languages against English as a prerequisite
for democracy (Sachs 1994), support for English in South Africa still seems
to be relatively solid. Increasing efforts (since 1994) to preserve the ecological
diversity of South Africa’s languages do not seem to have had much effect in
preventing English from showing an increasing tendency to monopolise many
areas of public administration. In addition to its use in governmental contexts,
and even more interesting, is the fact that English is increasingly predominant
as the most popular default language in other multilingual contexts such as
schools, university campuses or military camps, for talking to people from a
variety of language backgrounds (de Klerk 1996b; de Klerk and Barkhuizen
1998). As one soldier in military camp put it: ‘It’s whereby you use English
because I don’t understand some languages like Venda and Sotho except Zulu
which is similar to the Xhosa language. So it’s whereby you have to speak
English, and he has to speak English because he don’t understand me as well’
(de Klerk and Barkhuizen 1998: 166).
The Pan-South African Languages Board (PANSALB; a senate subcommit-
tee, charged with a watchdog role in ensuring that the country’s new language
policy is carried out) has complained that the tendency in government tiers to
use English as the sole medium of communication has showed a disturbing rise
(Eastern Province Herald, 6 June 1997). In its most recent report, the Language
Task Action Group (LANGTAG) (1996) explicitly denounced the steady drift
at provincial and national level to the use of English only, and declared its
intention to institute even stricter measures to counteract its insidious effect.
Nevertheless, the power and appeal of English seems to be growing in South
Africa, making the writings of Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994) and Sachs
(1994: 1) about linguistic imperialism assume increasing relevance. It is in
this context that BSAE has thrived, and has begun to develop fairly stable and
recognisable linguistic features.
360 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

2 FEATURES OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH

2.1 Phonology
2.1.1 Vowels
As is the case in other varieties of African English (Schmied 1991: 58–60), the
vowel phonology of BSAE may be explained in terms of the influence of the
native five-vowel system (as in the Nguni languages) or seven-vowel system
(as in the Sotho languages) with a result in loss of contrasts in comparison to
native varieties (Hundleby 1964; Adendorff and Savinni-Beck 1993). Thus, the
vowels in words such as strut, bath and palm tend to be merged to /a/,
while the vowels in trap, dress and nurse tend to be merged to /e/. The
vowel in the set lot and thought is /o/. The contrast between long and short
vowels may be lost, so that the vowels in fleece and kit may both be /i/ and
the vowels in foot and goose may be both /u/. Among the diphthongs, the
vowels in price, mouth and choice may be extended over two syllables,
giving [aji], [awu] and [oji] respectively. The monophthongs [e] and [o] (raised
allophones in Nguni, phonemes in Sotho) may be used as the vowels for face
and goat. As stress is non-phonemic in Bantu languages, schwa tends to be
realised as a full vowel (typically /a/ as in mother, but it may also take on
spelling pronunciation as in /e/ for seventy).

2.1.2 Consonants
Consonantal systems in the local African languages are fairly complex, and
the only English phonemes lacking generally are /ð/ and /θ/. These are typ-
ically pronounced as dental or alveolar stops [d] and [t]. Other features can
be attributed to specific native-language influences. /tʃ/ is a marginal phoneme
in Zulu and may be replaced with /ʃ/ by Zulu speakers (Jacobs 1994), while
Sotho speakers may pronounce the consonant cluster /kl/ as an ejective lateral
affricate /tl’/, a phoneme which occurs in the Sotho languages. There is lit-
tle evidence in the literature that such differential pronunciation features are
generally evaluated as markers of ethnicity or regional origin as they may do
in Nigeria (Schmied 1991: 57). However, anecdotal evidence from casual in-
terviews suggests that African speakers interacting in English can very often
identify a person as having a different first language from their own.
Other more widespread consonantal features are a trilled /r/ sound (as opposed
to an approximant). In addition, stops in the Bantu languages also appear to
have a later voice onset time in comparison to white South African English
(WSAE), and may also tend to be devoiced in word-final position. This may
result in voiced stops being perceived as voiceless. Jacobs (1994: 23) claims
that the cumulative effect of such consonantal and vowel features in what she
 Black South African English 361

refers to as the ‘Zulu English mesolect’ is an increase in homophony and a

fairly drastic decrease in intelligibility.

2.1.3 Suprasegmental features

Generally it is suprasegmental features (tone, stress and intonation) rather than
segmental features that appear to affect the intelligibility of varieties of English,
including BSAE. Word stress may be assigned idiosyncratically, very often on
the penultimate syllable, following the phonological rule in Bantu languages
where this syllable is lengthened (Hundleby 1964: 80–1). Thus one may find
se venty, hospita lity and cig arette (with a resultant full vowel rather than
schwa). Forms like committee have also been attested, however. Our experience
with BSAE-speaking students of linguistics indicates a very marginal ability
to assign native-speaker stress patterns to words.
As with other new Englishes, BSAE leans towards syllable rather than
stress timing, probably due to native-language prosodic patterns (Lanham 1984;
Genrich de Lyle 1985: 96–7). There is very little vowel reduction in connected
speech as such, tone groups tend to be very short and phonological promi-
nence is far more common than in WSAE. Consider the following example
demonstrating these features:
But I think that MAY be// SOME of the PEOple are comPLAINing// about that SECtion
(Genrich de Lyle 1985: 96).
[KEY: // – tone group boundary
CAPS – prominence
CAPS and italic – focal prominence]

In BSAE phonology, prominence may not have the discourse functions of sig-
nalling contrast and the difference between given and new information (as is
typically the case in native varieties), because in the Bantu languages gram-
matical and syntactic means are used to indicate contrast and given and new
information. Lanham (1984) finds that in BSAE such prominence appears to
be assigned to content words generally in pre-coded speech (i.e. written text
read out loud), while Genrich de Lyle (1985: 98) finds that it may be assigned
more or less arbitrarily in conversation. Casual observation of speakers with an
otherwise high degree of fluency in English also suggests that if there is an aux-
iliary within a sentence, this tends to attract sentence stress (without necessarily
indicating contrast or emphasis) as in ‘the results WILL be announced later’.
Very little study has been done on phonetic variation along the basilect–
acrolect continuum. Hundleby (1964) does, however, discuss some variation in
this respect and seems to indicate that differences between standard WSAE and
BSAE tend to be more phonetic than phonological. This area of study is still a
wide open one.
362 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

2.2 Grammatical features

BSAE shares grammatical features with a range of new Englishes generally
(Platt et al. 1984), and new Englishes in Africa in particular (Schmied 1991:
64–76; Bokamba 1992; Bamgbose 1992; Jowatt and Nnamonou 1985). Those
grammatical features listed have been typically derived from student writing at
Grade 12 and university level (see Gough (1996: 61) for a comprehensive list
of further references), since studies focusing on naturalistic data from speakers
with differing individual profiles such as de Klerk (1997) and Mesthrie (1997)
are somewhat rare. The following examples are typical of those cited generally:

(1) Non-count as count nouns

(a) You must put more efforts into your work.
(b) She was carrying a luggage.
(2) Omission of articles
He was  good man.
(3) Extensive use of resumptive pronouns
(a) My standard 9, I have enjoyed it very much.
(b) The man who I saw him was wearing a big hat.
(4) Gender conflation in pronouns
She came to see me yesterday (where the referent is male).
(5) Noun phrases not always marked for number
We did all our subject in English.
(6) Extension of the progressive
(a) Even racism is still existing.
(b) Men are still dominating the key positions in education.
(c) She was loving him very much.
(7) No singular third person indicative present
The survival of a person depend on education.
(8) Idiosyncratic patterns of complementation
(a) That thing made me to know God.
(b) I felt inferior to be there.
(c) I went to secondary school for doing my Standard 6.
(d) I tried that I might see her.
(9) Simplification of tense
(a) I wish that people in the world will get educated.
(b) We  supposed to stay in our homes.
(10) Past tense not always marked
(a) In 1980 the boycott starts.
(b) We stayed in our home until the boycott stops.
 Black South African English 363

(11) New prepositional verb forms

(a) He explained about the situation.
(b) They were refusing with my book.
(c) I find it difficult to cope up with my work.
(12) Structures of comparison
(a) She was beautiful than all other women.
(b) Some people think they are better to others.
(13) Use of too and very much as intensifiers
(a) She is too beautiful (i.e. very).
(b) Hatred is very much common.
(14) Use of in order that in purpose clauses
He went there in order that he sees her.
(15) Generalisation of being as a participial
He left being thirsty (= ‘He left in a thirsty state’).
(16) New pronoun forms
She was very unhappy of which it was clear to see.
(17) Question order retained in indirect questions
I asked him why did he go.
(18) Use of subordinators
(a) Although she loved him but she didn’t marry him.
(b) If at all you do not pay, you will go to jail. (‘If at all’ seems to be
intonationally one unit.)
(19) Invariant nè in tag questions (borrowed from Afrikaans)
You start again by pushing this button, nè?
(20) New quantifier forms
(a) Others were drinking, others were eating.
(b) I stay some few miles away.
(21) The most thing for ‘the thing I [verb] most’
The most thing I like is apples.
(22) X’s first time for ‘the first time that X . . .’
This is my first time to go on a journey.
(23) Can be able to as modal verb phrase
I can be able to go.

Explanations of such features are covered in depth by Gough (1994); they

appear to relate both to native-language transfer (which explains their specific
African quality) as well as universal features relating to principles of language
learning and usage (which explains their similarities with other new Englishes
generally). On the basis of naturalistic data collected in interviews with speakers
of varying degrees of competence, de Klerk (1997) also notes that a number of
364 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

the features listed here (including the lack of tense and concord marking) are
common to pidginisation processes universally.
It is important not to treat all of these grammatical structures monolithically
and as all equally representative of a uniform BSAE. There is, in this respect,
some evidence of considerable variability with regard to the relative accept-
ability and utilisation of such structures. Gough (1996), for instance, shows
that grammaticality judgements of twenty Xhosa-speaking teachers indicate
that some grammatical features may to be more acceptable than others among
educated speakers of BSAE. Thus, for example, structures such as (24) and (25)
below were described as ungrammatical by about 90 per cent of the sample.
However, structures such as (26) and (27) were typically regarded as gram-
matical, with only around 20 per cent of the sample indicating that they were
ungrammatical.
(24) I tried that I might see her.
(25) He was carrying a luggage.
(26) She was refusing with my book.
(27) He explained about the situation.
Such figures suggest that, at least in more acrolectal varieties, certain features
are more ‘entrenched’ or ‘fossilised’ than others. The study also suggests that
among educated speakers a fairly traditional norm of ‘correctness’ continues to
act as model. Somewhat contrary results, however, are suggested in preliminary
research involving first-year students at the University of the Western Cape
(a university with predominantly African and coloured students). Given the
task of correcting sentences such as:
(28) After chairperson have being chosen, she will leave for Cape Town.
around 90 per cent of the 50 (‘coloured’) Afrikaans-speaking students produced
standard versions of the sentence, while only around 30 per cent of the 250
speakers of African languages did so. Surprisingly, the feature most commonly
changed in the above sentence by the students speaking African languages
was to change being to been (around 50 per cent of students), while over
80 per cent of the students failed to correct either the missing article or to correct
have to has. This may be due to the stigmatising of particular constructions in
formal education, which may raise them more to the level of awareness than
others. More generally we may note that there is increasing research that re-
lates similar grammatical variation to pragmatic functions and social variables
(Mesthrie 1997; Wade 1995).

2.3 Vocabulary
A range of words from African languages reflecting African experience are
commonly used in BSAE and have indeed become part of SAE usage more
 Black South African English 365

generally. Examples include kwela-kwela ‘taxi or a police pick-up van’,

mbaqanga ‘a type of music’, morabaraba ‘a board game’, impimpi ‘a police
informant’ and mama ‘a term of address for a senior woman’. Some terms may
have a regional basis. For instance, skebenga ‘criminal’ seems to be found in
Xhosa-speaking areas, madumbies ‘a type of edible root’ in Natal and skeberesh
‘a loose woman’ is commonly used in Gauteng. Branford (1987) and Magura
(1984) provide a rich source of such items.
The use of certain English words reveals the type of semantic extension
common to other non-native varieties in general (Platt et al. 1984) and African
varieties of English in particular (Bokamba 1992: 135–138; Schmied 1991:
87–91). The following examples illustrate this phenomenon:

(33) He proposed love to her (‘He told her that he loved her’).
(34) Pass my regards to the family.
(35) I must quickly touch the beauty salon (i.e. ‘drop into’).
(36) You are scarce (i.e. ‘I haven’t seen you for a while’).

The idioms in (34) and (36) may well be spreading in SAE. Other examples
that have commonly been noted are the predicative use of late (as a euphemism
for ‘die’) as in My father is late, and the use of somebody for ‘person’, as in
He is a very important somebody (see Buthelezi (1995) and Adey (1977) for
more South African examples). Another common feature is the redundant use
of each and every, used synonymously with each. There are also differences
and restrictions in stylistic range, so that word-pairs such as abode/house and
mommy/mother may not necessarily be differentiated in terms of relative de-
grees of formality or informality. There may also be connotational differences:
it appears, for instance, that the public use of terms for sexual organs is even
more strongly tabooed than in Anglo-Saxon communities – a fact that has made
AIDS education problematic (see Crawhall 1993). A number of these particu-
lar lexical characteristics have also been noted in African varieties of English
outside South Africa (Jowatt and Nnamonou 1985).

2.4 Discourse patterns

While the development of particular styles of discourse has been seen as a fun-
damental part of the process of the nativisation of English (Kachru 1992), in
South Africa there has been comparatively little research into discourse fea-
tures of BSAE, particularly outside academic contexts. Pragmatic transfer has
been claimed in BSAE in terms of a preference for indirectness over the Anglo-
Saxon norm of directness or getting to the point (see Chick 1985, 1989 and
chap. 13, this volume). It has also been noted that native norms of defer-
ence towards superordinates may be carried over to English interaction (Gough
1996; Genrich de Lyle 1985: 125). This may be particularly prevalent in the
366 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

educational context, where lack of student participation may indicate respect for
the teacher as the repository of knowledge. Peires (1992: 11) also notes very little
participation from females in mixed-sex conversations, a carry-over of the tra-
ditional subservience of African women in African society (cf. de Klerk 1997).

2.4.1 Speech acts

In terms of differences in the realisation of specific speech acts (as discussed
generally by Kasper 1992), we may note that, as is the case elsewhere in Africa,
the expression sorry does not necessarily indicate apology involving the accep-
tance of blame by the speaker. Instead, it tends to be used as a general marker
of sympathy for hearer misfortune, whatever its source, and may thus be used,
for example, when a speaker sees the hearer bump herself or trip accidentally.
In requests it is commonly noted that the performative I request or I ask
is often used by African speakers in unequal encounters, as in I ask for an
extension. Such uses reflect a transfer of African-language structures and in-
dicate the African norm of acknowledging the status of a superordinate as
a person in the care-giving position of granting a request to the subordinate
petitioner. This is different from the Anglo-Saxon norm in which there is often
the expectation, witnessed by the use of modal forms (as in Could you please
give me an extension), that a person in authority may have the ability but not
the desire to grant a request.

2.4.2 Conversational norms

With regard to conversational norms, Peires (1992: 10–11) noted that self-
selection rather than other-selection is the norm in discourse in English between
Xhosa speakers, and that interruption and overlapping are far less frequent than
in English first-language discourse. She found that interlocutors will wait until
the current speaker has finished, and then will self-select to make a response.
In addition, speakers took significantly longer between turns than is common
for native speakers of English. Such intervals were not (as they would be in
native-speaker interaction) filled with hesitation markers or floor-holding de-
vices, and apparently caused no discomfort (cf. Chick 1985, 1989). Of possible
significance here is the fact that Ndiki (1997), in his research on the develop-
ment of conversational competence among African high-school pupils, noted
that very little attention is given to developing conversational interaction in the
English-language class, and pupils have far less confidence in conversational
interaction than in producing written language.

2.4.3 Discourse markers

BSAE discourse is also characterised by idiosyncratic discourse markers (as
described by Schiffrin 1986) that appear to be strongly influenced by the mother
tongue.
 Black South African English 367

(i) in fact
The phrase in fact in native English conversation (as in In fact, he’s very rich,
for instance) is used for emphasis or to underscore a point. In black English
discourse this marker is particularly common and does not appear to have this
meaning, as is evident in the following conversation:
A. Hello, doctor.
B. Hi, Vuyisile. (pause)
A. In fact, I want to talk to you about my essay.
The origin of this in fact appears to be from an African-language equivalent
which is used in conversation as a topic-changing or topic-initiating marker.
(ii) I can say that
The use of the italicised expressions below is another feature of BSAE conver-
sation:
(37) In my opinion I can say he is not correct.
(38) I can say that this is an interesting book.
(39) On my side I do not think this is relevant.
These expressions are essentially equivalent to a common expression in African
language discourse, such as ndingathi, ‘I can say’ or ngoluvo lwam, ‘in my
opinion’. They are routinely and formulaically used in conversation in a way
somewhat equivalent to the English ‘I think’. The phrase I can say does not
really mean what it does in native-speaker conversation (cf. also Peires 1992:
6; Wissing 1987: 84).
(iii) Again
Again may be used as a marker of additional information (something like ‘in
addition’). This also appears to be due to the influence of a marker common in
African languages which covers the sense of both ‘again’ and ‘in addition’:
(40) Smoking is bad for health. Again it affects people around the smokers.
(iv) By all means
The phrase by all means, rather than being a discourse marker of assurance, as it
is in native-speaker English, typically functions as an intensifier, as exemplified
in (41), which could be glossed as ‘You should try to do the best you can’:
(41) You should try by all means to do your best.

2.4.4 Information structure

While information structure in discourse is typically signalled in native-speaker
English by stress and intonation, in BSAE (as is the case in the African languages
368 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

themselves) word order and morphological devices appear to be used far more
often for signalling informational relatedness. As we have seen, in fact, stress
within the sentence may not indicate salience at all, and very often seems
somewhat randomly assigned, as the following relevant examples from BSAE
show (Gough 1996: 67; Wissing 1987: 151):
(42) The best education, I need to get it.
(43) A student, if he cheats, he will be expelled.
(44) She informed her lecturer that the extension, she wanted it for another
reason.
Mesthrie (1997) notes that, as opposed to the general explanation of simple
transfer from African languages, such instances, although occurring more fre-
quently in BSAE, are very similar in function to topicalisation, contrast and
focusing in general English usage. Wade (1995) holds, on the other hand, that
in many instances such topicalisation constructions, unlike the case of native
varieties, may be used to indicate change of topic in extended discourse.

2.4.5 Stylistic features

With regard to stylistic features, formal written BSAE shares with other new
Englishes the penchant to the florid – a tendency towards ornamental English,
using circumlocution, the idiosyncratic use of proverbs and Latinate vocabulary,
such as the extensive use of whereby, as exemplified in the words of the soldier
interviewed at the military camp (see section 1.2).
The following extract from a letter by a black academic published in the
University of Transkei News (August/September 1992) illustrates these features
nicely:

It is important not to forget that there is a struggle at an advanced stage going on in South
Africa, Transkei and logically also at the Faculty of Education at Unitra. Our struggle,
with an important dimension of empowering the indigenous black victims of apartheid,
is to be pursued in every corner and sphere of life in our country including in the Faculty
of Education in Unitra. It must be waged here and everywhere . . . Indigenous people in
the faculty must be given way to take the bull by the horns and advance our struggle.
We cannot sit idly by and read about contributions from [names of various universities]
while we sit like frightened frogs in the face of a dying snake . . . Indigenous people are
knocking on the door to take what is their birthright.

A range of explanations for the occurrence of this style has been offered both
for new Englishes in general (Platt et al. 1984: 148–50) and BSAE in particular
(Wissing 1987: 179; Scheffler 1978: 26). Such explanations include rhetorical
transfer from native language, the attitude that the only good English is more
formal English, or simply restrictions in the knowledge of English register.
 Black South African English 369

In the formal academic prose of students from disadvantaged backgrounds

there are often indications of a lack of exposure to the formal conventions of
academic literacy and basic skills (Jefferay 1993), a limited ability in ‘Cognitive
Academic Language Proficiency’ (Murray 1990), a dominance of a narrative
rather than expository mode (Genrich de Lyle 1985: 125) and the possible
effects of the transfer of strategies found in formal oral styles in African lan-
guages (Gough 1998). Consider the following example produced by a student
of linguistics at Rhodes University who is a mother-tongue Xhosa speaker,
writing on the topic of how she acquired English:

Problem I experienced with second language was that I was not able to perform and also
not good in writing as well. I only speak second language when I was going to the shop
by asking prices of the goods. The only thing that motivated me was because I wanted
to pass and my teacher used to tell us whoever wants a job one will be forced to speak
English.
I was having problem speaking English. I was having an attitude towards second
language but there wasn’t a choice. I was forced. I was experiencing some problem
with learning second language because in my family English was not a spoken language
even by mistake. I was speaking English in the classroom after that I was not speaking
because there wasn’t a person to speak with. The fact that I was coming from a working
class family made me to suffer at school because every subject was taught in English
during my Higher Primary [Standard 3–5]. There were no people through which I can
speak the second language with except with my teacher at school
The worst of all because I was from working class there were no enough source like
libraries within the location and even at home there were no English books to read not
television unlike middle class and upper class homes whereby one was enjoying the
privileges of many be having some magazines and books
Besides poignantly revealing many of the grammatical features discussed above,
this essay also demonstrates the ‘waffle phenomenon’ characteristic of certain
types of non-native referential discourse more generally. This phenomenon
appears to result from writers feeling that they are not expressing their ideas
clearly in the linguistic forms to which they are restricted and needing to repeat
themselves in order to get their message across.

2.5 Code-switching
The mixing of English and vernacular languages in the same conversation
is a common feature of black South African discourse, as is the case more
generally in the new English-speaking world (Myers-Scotton 1989; D’Souza
1992), where it forms part of its users’ total stylistic repertoire. It may be the
norm or, in Myers-Scotton’s terms, the unmarked choice among certain social
groups (typically the educated elite) whose membership is symbolised by using
both languages. As Myers-Scotton (1989: 343) notes, while English symbolises
membership of the elite, educated and powerful, because the participants’ other
370 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

(specifically African) group membership is also salient to them, it is not used

exclusively but rather together with the vernacular. Consider the following ex-
ample recorded on a university campus (Herbert 1996: 3), where such switching
is particularly common. The three students are discussing a student protest at
the University of Witwatersrand:
A. I-Admin iyazi ukuthi I-power yama-students ikwi-mass-action. And if they discredit
mass action they will have conquered. (The administration knows that student
power lies in mass action . . . )
B. Yinye into abangayazi ukuthi we cannot let them get away with this. (There is one
thing they don’t know that . . . )
C. Into ecasulayo ukuthi kube iqenjana elincane eli-protestayo. (The annoying thing is
that it turns out to be a small group that is involved in the protest action.)

Code-switching also appears to be a feature of certain urban varieties, such as

Soweto Zulu slang. Consider the following example from Mfusi (1989: 31),
which also includes switches to Afrikaans (in bold):
I-Chiefs isidle nge-referees optional time, otherwise ngabe ihambe sleg. Maar why
bengastophi this system ye-injury time?
(Chiefs [a local soccer team] have won owing to referee’s optional time, otherwise they
could have lost. But why is this system of injury time not phased out?)5

3 SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

3.1 Attitudes
Given the dramatic shifts in sociopolitical power in South Africa recently,
and because of the growing demographic status of its speakers, attitudes to-
wards BSAE are rapidly changing and it is enjoying increased vitality in a very
favourable ideological milieu (Wade 1997). The stigma associated with the use
of non-standard varieties, so strong in the past, has been replaced by a growing
assertiveness and confidence in the value of SAE varieties, including BSAE.
One may go so far as to say that it is no longer simply a case of covert prestige
being attached to BSAE (see Smit 1996); instead, the prestige is becoming
more overt. Contributing factors are its use as a major language of government
combined with the rising socio-economic status of its speakers, who are rapidly
forming a black middle class: the Financial Mail (13 June 1997) shows that
almost as many blacks (3.5 million) as whites (4 million) comprise the top
socio-economic bracket in the country (cited in Wade 1997).
Given the current focus in South Africa on democracy, non-racialism and
egalitarianism, there has been increasing emphasis on democratic language
rights as well as an awareness of the linguistic difficulties prevailing in the
country. As a result, prescriptive concern for correctness has declined, and
tolerance and mutual respect have led to more emphasis on getting the message
across, rather than on elitist requirements regarding concord, tense and other
 Black South African English 371

grammatical niceties. The prospects are very good for greater acceptance of
variability in educational contexts and in business. We are certainly witnessing
this in the media, where serious announcements and up-market advertisements
are increasingly in BSAE accents,6 reflecting changing perceptions of its status,
authority and persuasive appeal. This growth in the prestige of BSAE is likely
to lead to increasing confidence among BSAE speakers and learners, who,
because they can identify strongly and positively with the variety, are likely to
master it more easily. In addition, such a variety may act as a powerful national
unifier, bridging the gap between speakers of often very different indigenous
languages.
While acknowledging the growth of more positive attitudes to BSAE in South
Africa, it would be inaccurate to claim that support for English (of any variety) is
unequivocal: trends in the growth of the appeal of BSAE will probably be slowed
down by three different factors. First, the traditional voices of prescriptivists,
both academic and non-academic, continuing to make themselves heard, fight-
ing against changes in standards and refusing to recognise the validity of BSAE.
Second, it is very likely that the steadily increasing numbers of young black
South Africans emerging from former whites-only English-medium schools,
who typically acquire something closer to standard SAE by the time they leave
school, will counteract the appeal of BSAE. With their privileged educational
backgrounds, these young people undoubtedly will form the elite class of the
future, and are very likely to work towards maintaining the normative value
of SAE, or even conservative (exonormative) English as opposed to ethnically
marked BSAE (‘elite closure’ in Myers-Scotton’s terms (1993); see also Wade
1997). Third, many speakers of African languages experience a love–hate rela-
tionship with English, and find themselves forced to make an effort to master it
only for instrumental reasons. Many learners of English experience deep am-
bivalences in their relationship to it, and Peirce (1995: 19) uses the notion of
‘investment’ instead of instrumental or integrative motivation to explain the
apparent contradiction between learners’ motivation to learn English and their
sometimes ambivalent desire to speak it. An investment in English will pay off
only in certain aspects of the lives of non-English South Africans, and it needs
to be worth their effort.
In addition it will be increasingly important to monitor ongoing changes in
the role and status of BSAE. Patterns of language choice and use are related to
socio-economic and political processes, and to the distribution of knowledge
and power, and for these reasons the role, status and development of BSAE in
South Africa are likely to change dramatically in the next decade, significantly
altering patterns of communication.
Peirce (1990: 108) argued that ‘People’s English . . . is a struggle to appro-
priate English in the interests of democracy in South Africa’: nevertheless one
must ask to what uses such a variety (if it is one) is put, and what meanings
it may carry. Several educationists support efforts to maintain some sort of a
372 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

standard (Wright 1996; Titlestad 1996), while others argue persuasively for
the need to resist these pressures (Webb 1996) and advocate the recognition of
naturally evolved local forms of English suited to the needs of their speakers.
Wright (1996: 154) points out the irony inherent in the support of BSAE by
elite black writers and academics who express their views in sE.
The problem seems to lie in interpretations of the concept of ‘democratic
language rights’. For some, this implies the need to recognise and promote
the localised forms that language takes as equally viable and effective as the
standard. For others, it implies an obligation (on the part of the state and edu-
cators) to deliver to learners a model of English that has international currency
and will afford them the advantages that others the world over enjoy once they
have mastered sE. Proponents of this point of view recognise that black vari-
eties of English are legitimate and meet the immediate communicative needs
of local speakers. However, they also see such varieties as stigmatising their
speakers in wider linguistic contexts, and limiting their comprehensibility and
their opportunities to participate in the global village on an equal intellectual and
economic footing with speakers of other varieties of English which have greater
currency worldwide. The attitudes towards BSAE of both South Africans and
other speakers of English will need careful investigation before any serious
claims can be made about changes in the status of BSAE.

3.2 Bilingualism and literacy

It is only speakers of dominant and prestigious languages who can afford to
be monolingual; fluent speakers of the indigenous languages of South Africa
in their day-to-day lives, because they speak subordinate languages, have been
deprived of power, prestige and economic benefits and have been confronted
with a need for English as well. They have had to become bilingual or mul-
tilingual. As Phillipson et al. (1995: 487–8) put it, ‘it is possible that we are
witnessing, in tandem with an increased recognition of minority language rights,
the emergence at the . . . global levels, of a diglossia in which “international”
languages (English is the most obvious case) are used for high-prestige pur-
poses, while the local language is progressively confined to the domestic, private
sphere’. In the case of South Africa, the variety of English that is very likely to
take precedence is BSAE, rather than any other standardised form of English.
However, not all speakers of BSAE can be seen as being really proficient in
English.
While bilingualism can broadly be viewed as an ability to process two lan-
guages in the oral and written modes, wide ranges of relative proficiency are
possible, especially in the oral domain. The most powerful factor influencing a
person’s bilingualism is the social context, and South Africa’s political history,
while on the one hand forcing many people to develop some competence in
 Black South African English 373

English, has on the other prevented them from acquiring sufficient competence
in it to further their personal ambitions, by failing to provide adequate support
for its acquisition and by severely limiting access to mother-tongue English
speakers. Most speakers of African languages encounter very little English
of any kind, and it could be argued in some cases that they do not speak a
recognisable variety of BSAE, but that each has arrived at a different stage
on a learner–language continuum (de Kadt 1993: 314). The very rudimentary
(pidgin-like) forms of English used by many black South Africans cannot be
classified as representative of BSAE, and in such cases speakers could not
be termed ‘bilingual’ in the stricter sense of the word. Their level of compe-
tence in English reflects an incomplete educational process and this explains
why descriptions of black varieties of English often tend to highlight negative
aspects and to compare them with better-recognised varieties of English, rather
than acknowledge the development of a unique BSAE.
Indeed, to view BSAE uncritically as a means of access to power and self-
improvement which will automatically be accompanied by a range of social and
educational benefits is grossly misguided. At present BSAE offers no guarantee
to any of these, and ‘to lead students to believe that there is a one-way relation-
ship between particular genres taught in school and those positions [of power] is
to set them up for disappointment and disillusion’ (Street 1993: 122). Literacy
is a set of social practices that function to empower or disempower people, and
the real literacies of true power, while being understood implicitly by those who
use them, in commerce and government, are not taught in educational institu-
tions. They certainly are not taught through the medium of BSAE, written or
spoken. It would probably be true to say that the vast majority of black South
Africans achieve, at best, a functional command of English, enabling them to
understand signs, read newspaper headlines, fill out applications, etc. They lack
the more empowering cultural and critical literacies (see Williams and Snipper
1990) which usually operate through more prestigious forms of English.

3.3 Language loss

A possible consequence of the growing appeal of English, whether traditional
standardised varieties or BSAE, is language shift among generations of children
who now attend English-medium (formerly white, often private) schools. Their
competence in the mother tongue is already decreasing (Schlebush 1994: 98),
and informal observations confirm an incomplete command of an African lan-
guage among many black children attending such schools. Despite energetic
attempts by the state to legislate and entrench language rights, little is being
achieved on the ground to maintain the indigenous languages: many teach-
ers are not equipped or trained to teach these languages, and prospects for
the establishment of adequate training facilities are not promising. Progress on
374 V. de Klerk and D. Gough

devising L2 syllabuses for the indigenous languages is slow, and support among
mother-tongue speakers for their own languages is worryingly low. This atti-
tude is partly attributable to apartheid policies of the past: while the Nationalist
government ensured the development of the nine indigenous languages (via
separate language boards and enforced mother-tongue instruction), this rein-
forced a view (among mother-tongue speakers) that these languages must be
inferior if they were reserved for black people. This attitude shows now in
rising registration figures of black children at English-medium schools, and in
increasing evidence of lack of support from mother-tongue speakers for their
indigenous languages. In addition, reports of some African children speaking
English at home and African languages at school are indicative of an identity
crisis among these children.

3.4 The future of BSAE

The structured inequalities of South African society are played out in language,
and specifically in English (de Klerk 1997: 114). Ordinary South Africans
who do not speak English as a mother tongue face a dilemma in a world where
English holds the upper hand and has a privileged status compared with African
languages. South Africa’s people are unlikely ever to be free not to learn English,
owing to the huge economic, political and ideological constraints that make
the ‘choice’ of English inevitable. This would further reinforce English as the
language of power and prestige, the crucial gatekeeper to social, educational and
economic progress and full participation by the mass of people in political and
economic processes. Despite recent changes in the country to redress former
linguistic imbalances by improving the status of the indigenous languages and
downgrading English and Afrikaans, the pressure to master English has not
declined. But the means to do so have deteriorated rapidly: the country now faces
an unprecedented educational crisis: huge numbers of experienced teachers left
the profession in 1997, enticed by severance packages in order to adjust the racial
demography of the teaching profession. At the turn of the twentieth century
there are fewer English-speaking teachers than ever before to provide some
sort of acceptable model to learners in schools, and provincial governments
admit to being unable to meet the cost of paying salaries, electricity bills and
buying textbooks. Apart from those privileged few who can afford the luxury
of private education, black South African learners face the bleak prospect of
unmotivated and poorly trained teachers in cash-strapped schools. Whatever
form BSAE takes in the next decade will be determined by levels of formal and
informal exposure to English, but if these drop below a certain minimum, the
comprehensibility of BSAE will almost certainly be jeopardised.
With such a rapid decline in levels of competence in English, the power and
elitism of the privileged few who have mastered sE will probably be enhanced
 Black South African English 375

and entrenched, while the masses will find themselves unable to improve their
own English because of a massive national decline in competence. The ques-
tion that therefore remains to be answered is the degree to which variants of
BSAE will drift away from L1 English before a backlash arises, either from
educators or from the learners themselves. The success of current efforts to
resist value judgements and recognise the worth of BSAE will depend not only
on the goodwill of South Africans, and on the co-operation of all speakers of
English, worldwide, but on the rate at which the variety drifts away from recog-
nised standard forms of English. It remains to be seen whether a recognisable
variety of BSAE will make its mark proudly and globally as a distinctive and
recognisable variety of English, equal in all respects to British, Australian or
South African standard varieties.

notes
1 Platt et al., however, seem uncertain about the status of BSAE, since to their thinking
it developed in a territory where there was a sizeable presence of L1 speakers.
2 The interested reader is referred to Gough (1996) for a fuller, more comprehensive
literature survey of relevant works in this area. Reference to all of these works has not
been repeated in this chapter.
3 The big differences in estimates probably relate to the question of what constitutes
‘knowledge of English’ in qualitative terms – a highly problematic concept (see Gough
1996: 53).
4 Statistics from the Development Bank of South Africa cited in Democratic Party
discussion document (1995: 2).
5 Referees and injury time are better considered loanwords rather than examples of
code-switching.
6 One needs to be careful to distinguish between accent and other features of BSAE.
While the phonological effect on English of indigenous black languages is distinctive
and almost unavoidable, the syntactic and lexical aspects of BSAE are not much in
evidence in formal contexts of use at this stage.

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Part 2

Language contact
New urban codes
19 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes of
the working-class Afrikaans-speaking
Cape Peninsula coloured community

Gerald L. Stone

1 INTRODUCTION

Ethnographic research between 1963 and 1991 (Stone 1991) has confirmed that
members of the working-class Afrikaans-speaking Cape Peninsula coloured
community speak a distinctive dialect (mother tongue of a region or commu-
nity), and not merely slang. The dialect is a marker of the community’s identity,
which is reflected in endogamy, ties of descent, kinship and preferential asso-
ciation, and shared residential areas, both voluntary and enforced. Irrespective
of ‘racial’ appearance, members of this community have tended throughout the
period of research to identify themselves informally as bryn1 ‘brown’; the for-
mal English translation, ‘coloured’, has to some extent different connotations,
although the denotation is identical.
Very broadly speaking, coloured identity is part of a national system of
communal identity formation whose two poles are ‘black’ and ‘white’. Coloured
identity is regarded as intermediate, paradoxical, anomalous, deracinated and
liminal in South African society (Turner 1969). This opens it to ambivalence:
one the one hand, to sacralisation as humble, egalitarian and creative of identity,
and on the other to stigmatisation as bastardised, outcast and destructive of
identity. To the extent that the national system is consensually maintained,
coloured communal identity may well continue as long as the system does
(despite the collapse of legalised apartheid).
White domination promoted, exploited and rigidified this system, with vir-
tually total success from 1948 until it bred the first mass civil rebellion in black
and coloured communities in 1976. The term ‘coloured’, and even more its
formal Afrikaans version, Kleurling, were thus doubly stigmatised, and the
very constructs of communal identity and ethnicity themselves were anathe-
matised as ‘racist’ by the politically helpless and humiliated coloured middle
class. The traditional working class, on the other hand, have contended that this
stigmatisation and disavowal of coloured identity were fraudulent, and that the
confirmed middle class were snobs (sturfies, ‘stiffies’, ‘starched’), who had be-
trayed the working class and hou hulle wit (‘act white’, ‘pretend to be white’),

381
382 G. L. Stone

and have sought favour with the politically dominant of the time, white or
black, against the interests of the working class and against their own nature.
For the traditional working class, class has been colour, and colour, authentic,
unchangeable nature. For the middle class, colour has been class, and class,
changeable culture.
Between 1963 and 1990 the size of the Peninsula community classified
‘coloured’ increased by about 317 per cent (Stone 1991: 146). On demographic
evidence I have suggested that the size of the Peninsula coloured speech com-
munity dominant or bilingual in the working-class Afrikaans dialect increased
by 365 per cent to about 863,000 speakers during this period (Stone 1991: 147).
This growth cannot be attributed wholly to natural increase, but also reflects
large-scale immigration from rural and other urban areas. It is impossible to fix
precise geographical boundaries to the dialect, which begins to fade among the
working class into more middle-class Afrikaans beyond greater Cape Town and
Atlantis, but it can be heard to varying degrees – especially among speakers
who present themselves as ‘disreputable’ – in the larger Peninsula and Boland
towns: Stellenbosch, Paarl and even Worcester.
Marked changes in inter-dialectal and intra-dialectal codes have been
wrought by many factors, including the imposition of the Group Areas Act and
the establishment of townships on the Cape Flats, rapid growth of population
and of the national economy, upward mobility, the introduction of television
and the decline of white domination since 1976. Notably there has been an
increasing shift to bilingualism or dominance in middle-class English and to
a far lesser extent middle-class Afrikaans. There have also been increases in
lexical innovation following civil rebellions in 1976, 1980 and 1985; a consid-
erable increase in the size of the speech community’s lexicon and versatility
in code-switching; and the sudden emergence in 1980 of the lexis of prison
gangs into the lexis of delinquent gangs outside prison. Since the repeal of
all the major legislation of white domination in 1991, a trend towards indi-
vidualism has intensified, and there has been a greater degree of upward and
downward mobility. The working-class coloured trend towards the domestic,
or at least public or formal, use of middle-class English or working-class vari-
ants of English has also grown rapidly. Since the mid-1960s it has become
increasingly common to encounter parents who converse with each other in
the dialect, rear their children in a variant of English, and prefer English mass
media.
Since the international resurgence of Islam in 1973 the Peninsula Muslim
community of Indonesian and Indian origins has increasingly switched from
Malay to Arabic lexis in its variant of the working-class dialect, and espe-
cially in customary religious discourse, which was previously Arabic in refer-
ence to religious ritual and Malay in reference to communal custom. Finally,
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 383

since 1985, urban working-class and ex-peasant Xhosas in the Peninsula have
increasingly adopted the dialect as their variant of Afrikaans in discourse
with coloureds and whites. (Urban working-class Zulus, from Natal or the
Witwatersrand, have tended to continue to prefer English.)

2 METHOD

The method employed in my study has mainly been participant observation

in the speech community, both informally as a hyskind ‘honorary adoptive
child’ in a working-class family, member of an adolescent and young adult
male peer group, and later as a foster-parent, and formally as a social worker,
social anthropologist and psychotherapist. In these and other, informal, roles, I
acquired much of the dialect as a second language between 1963 and 1965, and
have used it almost daily since then, often thinking and occasionally dreaming
in it. In 1975 I began recording a lexicon of the dialect, initially with informal
help by G. J. Gerwel. No matter how familiar I was with a lexical item, it
was formally confirmed in lexis and meaning(s) by interview with each of at
least three speakers likely to be unfamiliar with each other, before inclusion in
the verified lexicon. A total of seventy-six speakers participated in verification
between 1975 and 1991.
In my study I have sought to describe the life-span and etymology of each
item, where necessary with the help of dictionaries and lay and academic speak-
ers of middle-class Afrikaans, Xhosa and Zulu. The vast majority of working-
class informants appeared to know little of etymology other than the connota-
tions of metaphoric innovations and modified borrowings, obvious Afrikaans
and English origins, and the Zulu origin of much of the prison-gang lexis.
They tended to deride their dialect as recently and dishonourably opgemaak
‘artificially composed’ and nagemaak ‘inauthentic in terms of tradition’. They
were surprised and fascinated to hear more detailed revelation, often disclosing
conceptual ingenuity and centuries of preservation. Indeed, the entire enterprise
of recording and verifying the lexicon has invariably fascinated speakers: they
have participated enthusiastically, offering assistance without reward other than
hospitality and the occasional favour. Virtually all uninformed speakers, who
regarded their dialect as parochial, ambivalently stigmatised and formally inef-
fectual, underestimated the size of its lexicon (and therefore their own idiolects)
by 90 per cent or more, and put it at a few hundred items.
Since 1983 I have acquired and verified the prison lexis partly by participant
observation outside prison but mainly by interview, since I was becoming too
old to move as readily as before among the delinquent adolescent and young
adult males who used it outside prison. I also consulted Lötter and Schurink’s
(1984) monograph on the origins, myth and organisation of coloured prison
384 G. L. Stone

gangs, which contains a useful if partly unreliable and misspelt list of over four
hundred items of what they refer to as ‘jargon’ (1984: 187, my translation),
including many items which are dialectal but not prison lexis.
Items unique to a friendship group or an individual were excluded from the
verified lexicon. I have often found such lexical innovations, but have never
encountered an individual who claims to have introduced an item that has
entered the communal dialect. On the basis of daily usage, habitual alertness
and frequent sociolinguistic discussion with speakers since 1975 (except for
a short break in recording) I conclude that I have thus far recorded 90 per
cent or more of all the dialectal items in present or past use by speakers who
have become adolescent between 1963 and 1991. The current verified lexicon
numbers nearly five thousand items (counting multiple meanings in some cases),
and several hundred more are in the process of verification.
A far fuller account of the ethnographic and lexicographic issues and meth-
ods is in Stone (1991: 148–250). To my knowledge this chapter (originally
appearing in 1995) is the first publication on lexicography of the dialect as
a whole. There is some unpublished work, on segments only: Kotzé’s (1983)
study of lexical variation of Afrikaans among Java Muslims (of claimed
Indonesian descent), Heilbuth’s (1984) lexicon of the small Cloragail argot of
moffies ‘effeminate male homosexuals’, Fagan’s (1984) translation of a letter
ordering prison-gang murders in prison-gang lexis on toilet paper and Stone’s
work (1991) setting out the Disreputable Lexicon of adolescent and young
adult males. These and Lötter and Schurink (1984) apart, no formal or disci-
plined lexicography appears to have been undertaken. I have also made use
of Makhudu (1980) and Mfenyana (1981), which contain lexis in Flaaitaal
or Tsotsitaal on the Witwatersrand (including some items found also in the
Peninsula dialect).2

3 SOCIOLINGUISTIC CODE AND COMMUNAL IDENTITY

No other community in South Africa has had to contend with such universal and
extreme stigmatisation – including self-stigmatisation – as coloured commu-
nities and their subordinated antecedents. For three centuries prior to the elec-
tions of April 1994, every daily act of political subordination, indifference or
resistance has been informed by consciousness of outcastness and non-entity
unique in the country. This has been too formative to be ignored or readily
transcended, and remains too harrowing and mortifying even to be verbalised.
Moreover, coloured communities have been the receptacle of universal con-
tempt by white, black and themselves, as uniquely lacking in ‘racial’ and cultural
integrity.
Halliday (1978: 181) defines a (sociolinguistic) code ‘as a systematic pattern
of tendencies in the selection of meanings to be exchanged under specified
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 385

conditions’. This definition may be applied also to enactions of identity, and

permits us to understand a code as the system of ideological rules organising
the construction of reality, including identity.
The dialect of the working-class Peninsula Afrikaans coloured speech com-
munity has been given no proper name, but its Respectable Lexicon is accu-
rately regarded by its speakers as their mother tongue, and its Disreputable and
Delinquent Lexicons (as well as peripheral lexicons and jargons; see below)
as equally unique to folk community and region. Both speakers and outsiders
distinguish it from suiwer (‘pure’, i.e. middle-class or standard) Afrikaans and
generally stigmatise it as kombuis ‘kitchen’ Afrikaans or die slang ‘the slang’,
i.e. not a language but an informal, disreputable admixture of terms. It is also
occasionally stigmatised as plat Afrikaans (common or vulgar Afrikaans; lit-
erally, ‘flat’ Afrikaans). Since the advent of Black Consciousness in the late
1960s, the common, self-stigmatising, self-sacralising term Gamtaal (‘Ham-
language’, ‘the language of the children of Ham’) has tended to fade along with
the self-nomination of coloured people as Gam (Stone 1972, 1991: 284–6).
The middle class tend to dismiss it as ‘not a language’ and to discourage their
children from using it; and ‘respectable’ working-class coloureds of rural origin
have tended to despise it as a volatile linguistic mess, characteristic of unsta-
ble urban Peninsula coloureds. (The name Kaaps, invented by Small (1974)
and sometimes used by academics, has not acquired currency in the speech
community, who are unfamiliar with it.)
However, until twenty-five years ago some speakers also termed it vlottaal
‘fluent, smooth language; compare with the Witwatersrand term “Flytaal”’.
The dialect is also beloved by speakers as the sacramental marker of commu-
nal membership and style, and vehicle of underdog intimacy and love between
members. Use of the dialect powerfully signifies the sharing of subjective com-
munal consciousness and reality. All but the most grimly respectable speakers
are entertained at the metaphoric creativity, connotative wealth and wit of much
of its lexis. Many adolescents and young adults, male and to a lesser extent
female, who dabble playfully in rebellious disreputability, prize their know-
ledge and use of the Disreputable and even the Delinquent Lexicons. Some
adult males, rhetorically adept, become connoisseurs of the dialectal lexicon
as a whole, and deliberately add rare terms to their idiolect, usually acquired
from an older generation.
Speakers regard the dialect as wholly oral, informal and parochial. When
politically polemical plays in it were first composed (all by authors born outside
Cape Town) and performed during the 1970s, working-class audiences were
uncontrollably amused at what they saw as the incongruity of the informal
slang of a politically insignificant local community being performed formally
and rendered politically significant. But for ease of communication, speakers
occasionally write each other stylistically awkward letters in the dialect or an
386 G. L. Stone

English translation of it, with highly idiosyncratic spelling. In the past few
years, commercial television and radio advertisements have utilised stereotypic
folk characters speaking the dialect.
The stigma attached to the dialect has waned since the 1960s. Yet it is still
regarded as the marker of static communal identity, and currently all speakers
(apparently the large majority) who aspire to upward mobility periodically code-
switch into middle-class English or Afrikaans, signifying their sociolinguistic
competence in upward mobility, especially to middle-class strangers.
Apart from the peripheral lexicons of Java Muslims, ‘moffies’ and Rastafar-
ians, and the specialised jargons of speakers in the construction and fishing
industries, the lexicon consists of a hierarchy (in terms of socio-economic
status and psychosocial development) of four lexicogrammatical codes, sig-
nifying the enaction of four corresponding working-class identities. Speakers
implicitly assign all the dialectal lexis to one or more of these codes. They
are respectively the ‘respectable’, ‘disreputable’, ‘delinquent’ and ‘outcast’.
Codes are commonly switched in address to different respondents and during
discourse with the same respondents. For instance, it is utterly inappropriate to
use the delinquent code to one’s respectable mother, and the respectable code
when the enaction of delinquency is expected by one’s delinquent peers, unless
one intends to signify disorientation or defiance.
Codes are implicitly graded internally: respectable/middle class, respectable/
disreputable, disreputable/respectable, disreputable/delinquent, delinquent/
disreputable, delinquent/outcast, outcast/delinquent and outcast/silence. The
terms of the corresponding intracommunal identities are set out in detail in
Stone (1991: 245 and 250–359). However, it is impossible to understand the
codes – and thus begin to understand the consciousness of the speech commu-
nity – without some brief outline of the corresponding identities.
As is apparently universal, all identity enaction is constructed in terms of
the religious antinomy of ‘Nature’ versus ‘Culture’ (Lévi-Strauss 1964). In this
speech community, Natural identity is regarded as consisting of one’s body and
all one’s innate urges, impulses, emotions, limitations and abilities. Unless con-
gruent with Culture, Natural identity is regarded ambivalently, on the one hand
stigmatised as potentially egocentric and antisocial, on the other hand sacralised
as a source of individual survival, vitality and identity in the face of anti-Natural
Culture. Natural identity enaction regarded as unmannerly, uncouth, obscene
or uncivilised is termed rou (‘raw’, ‘crude’). Culture is regarded as consisting
of all honourable, prosocial self-regulation and self-creation that tend to psy-
chosocial and communal development and oppose anti-Cultural Nature. One
must bear in mind that these are folk constructions. In scientific terms, all iden-
tity enaction is psychosocially acquired and thus cultural, whether or not it is
construed in folk terms as Natural.
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 387

3.1 Respectability
Speakers enacting respectability describe themselves as decent mense (decent
people), but give the Respectable Lexicon no particular name. Respectability
is regarded as sacramental Cultural omnipotence over stigmatised Nature in all
one’s identity enactions, and thus as the pursuit of perfect order, stability, privacy
and development in upward socio-economic mobility or at least avoidance of
downward mobility. It is a struggle for control over the imputation or enaction
of stigmatising disreputability. Decent mense define themselves in opposition
to skollies ‘delinquent ruffians, riff-raff’ – the stigmatised Natural – who are
said to act ignorantly, vulgarly and malignantly in public and indeed to have no
standards of decency at all.
The Disreputable, Delinquent and Outcast Lexicons are collectively termed
skollie tale ‘riff-raff terms’ by the respectable (compare with the Witwatersrand
term ‘Tsotsitaal’), and ou roeker tale by the disreputable, delinquent and out-
cast, who scrupulously avoid the term skollie as sanctimonious and dishonouring
(except as a humorous verb meaning ‘to scavenge’ or as the proper name for a
domestic dog). Ou roeker (delinquent male adolescent or adult, unless stated as
a child or female) literally means ‘old smoker’, one who has rebelliously been
smoking cigarettes and perhaps dagga ‘cannabis’ even prior to adolescence.

3.2 Disreputability
The boundaries of disreputability may be focused or extended. Focused disrep-
utability (referred to as ‘disreputability’ except where otherwise stated) rejects
confirmation in delinquency, let alone outcastness. Extended disreputability
includes confirmed delinquency and outcastness. In disreputability, Culture –
mainly the rules of respectability – is ambivalently violated and intermittently
yielded to Nature. Disreputability is the pursuit of instability, ambivalence,
optionality, lability, aggrandisement and creativity in communal identity and
in the conflict between Culture and Nature. It may be frank or ambiguous. If
ambiguous, it may engage in masquerade – flirtation with, or passing as, an-
other communal identity. And it proposes itself as ‘I-don’t-care’ in flaunted
imperviousness to all consequences.
From 1975 to 1990 disreputable/respectable and respectable/disreputable
adolescent and young adult males were termed cats: playful, upwardly mo-
bile, English-dominant or bilingual individuals sharing a highly gregarious
and public subculture that idealises modernity, pop music, material display
and adult sophistication. Cats were sharply differentiated by outies (English
lexis, from outlaw, exotically Ngunicised pronunciation as in awuti) from
themselves. An outie is a disreputable/respectable or disreputable/delinquent: a
388 G. L. Stone

more impoverished, socially static, serious, tough, rough, plainly spoken male
regarding himself as more authentically masculine and working-class coloured.
Whereas a cat was non-delinquent and non-violent, an outie is ready for vio-
lence and competent in it, although he might not initiate it.

3.3 Delinquency
Delinquency is the violent pursuit of disorder: the publicly flaunted, malignant
triumph of stigmatised Nature over persecutory Culture. The delinquent identity
is the disreputable writ large, stripped of its ambiguity, optionality and ambiva-
lence, and taken to its sadistically rebellious and violent conclusion within the
social network of the community (beyond which the actor becomes outcast).
In oral myth, gang name, graffito, tattoo and enaction, actors of the identity
dramatise and romanticise themselves as heroic criminal warriors, bearers of a
tradition of vengeful, triumphant defiance of the violently sanctimonious, depri-
vatory and exclusive Cultural authority of parents, the respectable, the coloured
middle class, the dominant white stratum of society, and the identity style of
the Christian West. They are contemptuous of the merely disreputable, who
are ineffectual, timid and phony ‘inauthentic’, whereas vollende (‘authentic’,
‘confirmed’, ‘full’) ou roekers kyk their ding (‘pursue their thing to the hilt’) and
dala (‘do the deed’, ‘act boldly, consequentially, ruthlessly and remorselessly’;
from standard Zulu dala, ‘create’, ‘form’, ‘conceive’, ‘cause’).

3.4 Outcastness
Outcastness is the nameless spectre that has haunted Peninsula coloured iden-
tity since its formation from the ruins of Khoekhoe and San society and slavery.
Outcast identity is disavowed and alexicalised: discourse on it is always avoided
except in utter despair, and it has no name. For total outcastness signifies dis-
integration, annihilation and death, and any identity – however stigmatised – is
to be embraced as preferable.
Outcast identity is the pursuit of chaos and disintegration in violence
(rebellion against fate) or silence (submission). The identity is located below the
hierarchy of working-class communal identities, and is regarded as outside soci-
ety and Culture, in the community but not socially of it. Outcastness is victimisa-
tion by both stigmatised Nature and persecutory Culture, precluding or disqual-
ifying the actor from normative participation in communal life. The stigma may
be external (racial appearance, gross physical deformity, crippling or profound
injury) or internal (Nature: severe or recidivistic criminality, especially mur-
der, addiction, compulsive promiscuity in females and homosexuals, histrionic
effeminate homosexuality, paedophilia, parent–child incest, sadomasochistic
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 389

sexual perversion, madness, mental retardation, vagrancy, profound illness and

extreme old age). Outcastness is regarded as imposed or achieved; if imposed,
it may be ambivalently resisted.
Those confined in institutions, including criminal prisoners, are regarded as
outcast. Prison lexis consists mainly of the lexis of prison gangs founded by
Zulus around the turn of this century on the Witwatersrand (van Onselen 1982:
171–201). Three main gangs, identified in Afrikaans by the numbers 26, 27
and 28, have predominated and spread through South African prisons, but the
27s have faded greatly in numbers and power. Evidently in the early 1950s a
small proportion of coloured criminal prisoners began to join, and membership
became widespread among them from the mid-1970s. Beginning in 1976, but
especially in 1980, the prison lexis suddenly infiltrated delinquent lexis outside
on a large scale, and the formerly rigid segregation between gang life inside
and outside began to disintegrate. Certain large gangs outside became identified
with particular prison gangs.
From the outset the prison gangs had their own dialect, mainly antilinguistic
Zulu (Halliday 1976, 1978), with a small proportion of Afrikaans and English
lexis. The data suggest that the full dialect runs to nearly a thousand lexical
items. It is partly incomprehensible to speakers of standard Zulu, not only be-
cause of the antilinguistic transformations, but also because lexis, grammar and
discourse are highly cryptic, elliptical, condensed and metaphoric, and many
mythic constructs have mystic religious connotations. Senior coloured mem-
bers can discourse entirely in prison lexis. Among Zulu-speaking prisoners and
a small proportion of coloured senior prison-gang members the dialect is named
as S(h)alambom (from Zulu for ‘outcast, hermit or vagrant’).
Prior to emergence outside prison into the Delinquent Lexicon in 1980, the
prison-gang lexicon constituted the only outcast lexicon of the speech com-
munity. All prison-gang subculture, including language, was maintained with
rigorous conservatism and potentially murderous authority by senior mem-
bers through the instrument of Die Boek (‘The Book’, modelled on the Bible);
the oral, putatively secret language, myth of origin, cosmography and religio-
military and ethical codes of the 26, 27 and 28 prison gangs.

4 SOCIOLINGUISTIC CODE AND DISCOURSE

Predominantly Afrikaans speakers are to some extent bilingual or even multilin-

gual, depending on the extent to which they identify dialectal lexis as Afrikaans,
English, Xhosa and Zulu and comprehend the original meaning. (These is-
sues can be complex: items may be variably identified as two, more or none
of these, and a new meaning may be assigned.) Since the mid-1960s there
has been an increasing flight from Afrikaans into English by the respectable,
disreputable and even delinquent, and since the late 1970s into Zulu as well
390 G. L. Stone

by the disreputable and delinquent. Prior to the 1990s, there appeared to be no

male delinquents fully bilingual in working-class Afrikaans and English, but
such bilingualism has become manifest on an increasing scale, especially since
1992.
Here is the same statement in five codes, the middle-class and each of the
four working-class codes:

Middle-class Afrikaans: Sê my wat gebeur hierso?

Working-class respectable:
Working-class disreputable:
Working-class delinquent:
Working-class outcast:
‘Tell me what’s happening here?’
Vertel my wat gat aan hiesa?
‘Tell me what goes on here?’
Maak my vol accor’ing dié beweging?
‘Make me full according this movement?’
Gee my wat gat só?
‘Give me what goes so?’
Hoe sal ek gcwala dié djaar?
‘How shall I comprehend this year?’

In prison lexis, a day is ironically lexicalised as a year: ‘This year’ transforms

place (here) into time (today) and intensifies the present tense: ‘now’. Gcwala
is standard Zulu for ‘become full’, ‘become abundant’, and has become an
antilinguistic metaphor for ‘see’, ‘observe’, ‘absorb’, ‘receive’, ‘comprehend’,
and for ‘say’, ‘speak’, ‘discuss’.
As the code is changed from middle to working class the lexis becomes in-
creasingly concrete in semantics; and as it is changed from standard to slang
to dialect, and from respectable to outcast, it becomes increasingly metapho-
ric, hinted, allusive, elliptical, condensed, cryptic and mystic. This reflects
increasing alienation from white and middle-class and working-class respec-
table coloured identities, towards the mythic enaction of hermetic, mystic,
superNatural symbiosis of identity with Nature in outcast communitas (the
subjective enaction of communal identity; cf. Turner 1969: 80–118).
There is considerable evidence that the consciousness, ideology and myth of
the more deeply stigmatised identities – the disreputable, delinquent and certain
outcast identities – reflect historic continuity with communal identities before
and during colonisation and enslavement.
Disreputable lexis and discourse are termed wheatie(s) (sometimes spelt
weatie[s], wietie[s] or withi, from the Xhosa uthi, ‘to say, speak’). Urban
working-class black dialects in the Cape and on the Witwatersrand are some-
times named Withi.
Wheatie is a partly linguistic, partly paralinguistic form of rhetoric, the craft
and art of influencing the respondent by disclosing (in this case, displaying) the
self. This has been highly valued in societies throughout the world, taught in
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 391

Western society since the time of Aristotle, and now academically termed ‘com-
munication’. Architecture, religion, sport, dress, violence, rituals, propaganda
and advertising are of course all forms of rhetoric.

5 THE DIALECTAL LEXICON AS BRICOLAGE AND ANTILANGUAGE

We may formulate myth as a discursive construction of reality in any de-

grees of subjectivity and objectivity, including science (and thus this chapter).
Between ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ myth and ‘science’, Lévi-Strauss (1962: 16–22)
describes a developmentally intermediate, transitional form, ‘bricolage’, found
in both preliterate and contemporary societies.
In its old sense, the verb ‘bricoler’ [in French] applied to ball games and billiards,
to hunting, shooting and riding. It was however always used with reference to some
extraneous movement: a ball rebounding, a dog straying or a horse swerving from its
direct course to avoid an obstacle. And in our own time the ‘bricoleur’ is still someone
who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman . . .
The ‘bricoleur’ is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the
engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and
tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is
closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand’. . . The
set of the ‘bricoleur’s’ means . . . is to be defined only by its potential use or, putting
this another way and in the language of the ‘bricoleur’ himself, because the elements
are collected or retained on the principle that ‘they may always come in handy’ . . . In
the continual reconstruction from the same materials, it is always earlier ends which
are called upon to play the part of means: the signified changes into the signifying and
vice-versa.
This formula . . . could serve as a definition of ‘bricolage’ . . . the ‘bricoleur’ also, and
indeed, principally, derives his poetry from the fact that he does not confine himself to
accomplishment and execution: he ‘speaks’ not only with things . . . but also through the
medium of things: giving an account of his personality and life by the choices he makes
between the limited possibilities. The ‘bricoleur’ may not ever complete his purpose but
he always puts something of himself into it . . .
Now the characteristic feature . . . of ‘bricolage’ on the practical plane, is that it builds
up structured sets, not directly with other structured sets but by using the remains and
debris of events . . . or odds and ends in English, fossilized evidence of the history of an
individual or a society . . .
Mythical thought, that ‘bricoleur’, builds up structures by fitting together events, or
rather the remains of events, while science . . . creates its means and results in the form
of events, thanks to the structures which it is constantly elaborating and which are its
hypotheses and theories . . .
‘Bricolage’ also works with ‘secondary qualities’, i.e., ‘second hand’.

I suggest that the dialect constitutes linguistic bricolage. The ‘ends’, the ‘stan-
dard’ dialects from which it is composed, are appropriated and adeptly made
to constitute a new ‘means’, the working-class dialect, under the noses (so to
392 G. L. Stone

speak) of the sanctimoniously dominant from whom it is taken. The processes

of construction are partly serious, rule-bound and consequential, and partly cre-
ative, playful, whimsical and unpredictable, and the two processes interweave
and oscillate in unstable equilibrium (Brillouin 1949). The dialect constitutes
an identity marker through which speakers rhetorically play with – and ‘play
up’ – their communal identity, slyly, ingeniously entertaining and mocking
the dominant in despoiling their dialect by cheerfully, wittily displaying (and
mocking) their own subordinate identity without fear of consequence.
The triumph of this achievement is celebrated in the myth of Gam as disrep-
utably prescient, nimble and creative bricoleurs under conditions of subordina-
tion and manifold scarcity of resources: it is commonly joked that ’n Boer maak
’n plan maar Gam het ’n plan! (‘a Boer makes a plan but Ham already has a
plan!’). The naively clumsy, struggling ‘Boer”s own clichéd claim to ingenious
bricolage is appropriated, mocked and trumped.
Among the more impoverished working class it remains taken for granted
in life that no one, whether the middle class or one’s own parents, will freely
give one the manifold, informal, everyday educational knowledge essential for
the development of identity. If one actually dares to ask, one is summarily sent
away as an inquisitive, precocious nuisance. Instead, one is tacitly expected to
scavenge and steal it, to steel met die oeg (‘steal with the eye’, by tolerated
unobtrusive observation) and steel met die oor (‘steal with the ear’, by toler-
ated unobtrusive eavesdropping). From infancy, one is educated only in self-
reliant bricolage, and then implicitly and only by tolerance of silent curiosity.
A common result, especially among males, is an acutely watchful sensitivity
to communal consciousness, reality, identity and language – and abilities in
lexicogrammatical creativity in working-class discourse – far more developed
than in the middle class. Another consequence, once widespread but steadily
diminishing, is alienation from figures of educational authority as mystifying,
egocentric and violently sanctimonious (Stone 1970).
We now turn to the codes of the linguistic bricolage of this speech community
formed out of religio-political subordination which continued throughout the
period of fieldwork. Any such exegesis must clearly encompass the patterns of
relationships between the languages of the subordinate and the dominant, and
within the former. Halliday (1978: 2) formulates language ‘as social semiotic’,
which ‘means interpreting language within a sociocultural context in which
the culture itself is interpreted in semiotic terms – as an information system,
if that terminology is preferred’. Thus ‘dialect variation expresses the diversity
of social structures (social hierarchies of all kinds)’.

Language actively symbolizes the social system, representing metaphorically in its pat-
terns of variation the variation that characterizes human cultures. This is what enables
people to play with variation in language, using it to create meanings of a social kind, to
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 393

participate in all forms of verbal context and verbal display, and in the elaborate rhetoric
of ordinary daily conversation. It is this same twofold function of the linguistic system,
its function both as expression of and as metaphor for social processes, that lies behind
the dynamics of the interrelation of language and social context. (Halliday 1978: 3)

Equally, language
not only serves to facilitate and support other modes of social action that constitute its
environment, but also actively creates an environment of its own, so making possible all
the imaginative modes of meaning, from backyard gossip to narrative fiction and epic
poetry. The context plays a part in determining what we say; and what we say plays a
part in determining the context. (Halliday 1978: 3)

With this theoretical framework, positing that language and reality generate
each other, Halliday provides the context for the social semiotic presentation
of a phenomenon that he terms ‘antilanguage’, i.e. the ambivalent reversal of
the rules of a referent language.
Detailed exegesis of this working-class dialect and possibly others as anti-
language is precluded here (cf. Stone 1991: 68–77, 517–35). I can only intro-
duce such an exploration by pointing in this dialect to the intracommunal
and sociolinguistic hierarchy of the ‘standard’ referent codes (of middle-class,
‘standard’ Afrikaans and English and standard Zulu) and the four working-class
codes of respectability, disreputability, delinquency and outcastness in the fol-
lowing terms: on the one hand, of corresponding intracommunal identity and
degree of stigma, dishonour, disorganisation, antagonism towards and linguistic
distance from referent language(s); and on the other hand, reversal of these by
counter-reality, creative relexicalisation, overlexicalisation, metaphoric con-
notation and rhetorical foregrounding of interpersonal meaning and social
hierarchy.

6 SELECTIONS FROM THE LEXICON 3

The selections below, constrained by space, are chosen for their inclusion of
items especially significant in terms of the corresponding communal identity’s
frame of consciousness, myth and ritual. Undated items were in circulation
before, during and after the research period for this chapter, 1963 to 1991.

6.1 From the respectable lexicon

broke: (Eng.) (v. i.) Hawk, usually vegetables, fruit, fish or flowers, but other
edible or easily portable goods as well since 1985. broke met (iets): sell
(something) by hawking. Partridge (1972: 116): ‘broker. A pedlar or monger:
pejorative: late 14th to 18th centuries; std Eng till 17th century, when it be-
came colloquial. 2. in late 16th to early 17th century, a receiver of stolen
394 G. L. Stone

goods. (. . . .) 3. broker: (. . . ) A person either ruined or penniless: colloquial

from circa 1890’.
bryn: (adj.; in plural as nouns only: brynes and brynmense) As with all
human identity, the full significance is not verbally encompassable. Neutral
informal reference to person or people denotatively and formally designated
in English as coloured. Term appropriated by Afrikaner nationalist newspa-
pers in mid-1970s after longstanding objections by such people to official term
Kleurling, and subsequently used by Afrikaner nationalist politicians, press and
state radio and television. Sometimes ambivalently rejected by humanists de-
claiming Ek is nie bryn nie; ek is ’n mens!: ‘I am not brown; I am a human
being!’ (or ‘a person!’). Can connote intracommunally shared suffering, neigh-
bourly forgiveness and appeal to solidarity against white oppression, as in Ons
is a’mal brynmense (see brynmense), but since 1980 increasingly in pride
in development and political activism. Profoundly intimate but fading sym-
biotic ambivalence towards Afrikaner identity in conflicting religio-political
claims to territory (see bos) except among long-Anglicized Capetonian middle
class. White racial descent not essential term, and construed as diminishing
in value. Reference not necessarily to racial appearance or descent but essen-
tially to Naturally inherited communal identity as formed integrally from birth
and enacted in consciousness, style, etc., even if the actor has become a pass-
white. Profound subjective connotations of both precious, creative, vital Cultural
syncretism and horrific stigmatized outcastness. No exact English translation:
‘brown’ is not conventional currency; ‘coloured’ is formal and lacks above-
mentioned connotations. Significance undergoing rapid change towards uncer-
tainty, ambiguity and complexity since 1976, with conservative retreat as well
with severe economic recession and unemployment, and increasing competi-
tion with black working class since 1990. See blush, boer, bootie, darkie,
Goenta, Hottie, vaal, wit, and in Disreputable Lexicon blou, boesie, boes-
man, boesmanian, broer volgens colour, bryn broer, brynes, bushy, djoems,
houtkapper, kaffir, majoin(t), oondstok, spoek, steenkool, swartgat, vaal,
whitey, witgat. See next item. Literally, brown. Term dates back at least
ninety-five years.
brynes: (n.) Neutral reference to individuals, community or communities of
bryn people. Literally, browns.
brynmense: Neutral or sympathetic reference to community of bryn people.
Hence Ons is a’mal brynmense: ‘we are all brown-people’, an appeal to
sympathetic, shared consciousness in underdog communal solidarity. Literally,
brown-people.

6.2 From the disreputable lexicon

broer: (1) Intimate friend, comrade in arms, especially in disreputability or
delinquency. (2) friend in need. (3) peer. Literally, brother. Hence my broer:
 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes 395

address to peer, stranger or familiar, connoting intimacy, loyalty, familiarity and

claims of communitas. Literally, my brother. Also common among evangelical
and ecstatic religious sects. Hence broer van my!: expressive, joyous greet-
ing or acknowledgement. Synonyms beu, bla, bra (becoming most popular
usage), brigade. My broer volgens colour: affected, untranslatable: Literally,
my brother in terms of colour (see my bryn broer, my brynes: my brown
brother. See bryn).
brood: (Afr.) (1) (v. t.) Rob, cheat, rip off. (2) (n.) proceeds of robbery or
fraud. (3) (n.) easy profit, money for jam, something for nothing. Thus (4) (n.)
illicit advance information about examination question paper. Hence brood
kraak: meet with good fortune in the way of acquiring something valuable,
often by disreputable or delinquent means. Lit: crack a bread. (5) (n.) fool,
gullible person, sucker, easy meat. See kroets. Literally, bread.
bryn: (adj.) my bryn broer: My communal comrade (affectionate). Literally,
my brown brother. (Respectable Lexicon: bryn is by far the most common term
used by actors of the communal identity to refer to themselves.) Connotations
in this Lexicon are wholly positive: communitas, cheer, home, hearth.
brynes: (n.) my brynes: Variant of my bryn broer (see bryn) and broer:
my broer volgens colour (see broer). Literally, my browns (superlative, my
coloureds’ coloured, as precious to me as the whole community).

6.3 From the delinquent lexicon

’mphatha: (Zulu) (1) Prisoner who is not member of prison gang and is treated
as ignorant, helpless prey for plunder, sex, recruitment and instruction by
numbered prison gangs. Synonyms apie, een-oeg (see oeg), Frans, leëmens,
rondemens, tôtie, voël. (2) fool, idiot, know-nothing. Std. Zulu: imphatha:
‘clumsy novice’. magoemse (or umhumzu) ’mphatha: tough, experienced,
shrewd non-prison-gang member who is respected by prison gang members as
an outsider equal to themselves in rank and rights, is trusted, allowed to go
his own way, and may be a huisbaas (head of cell). Synonyms stêk Frans,
ystervoël. See umhumzu, boek-dertig. ’mphathaland: world outside prison.
Literally: novice-land. Synonyms mzukwana, vry lewe. Prison. 26, 27 and
28 gangs.
mzukwana: (Zulu) (1) The world outside prison. (2) the Golden Age, the
Garden of Eden of the creation and flourishing of the founding band from which
the numbered prison gangs descend, living free in disused mine shafts and caves
in the hills around Johannesburg, and plundering travellers before capture and
imprisonment. This idyllic period is dated between roughly 1812 and 1930 in
different versions of the folk myth of origin, but was about 1890 according to
historiographic research (van Onselen 1982: 171–201). Std. Zulu: mzukwana:
on the day which, at the time that; zikwa: disappeared, gone out of sight. Hence
the hlahluka (or tambuku) van umjikwana (i.e., mzukwana): the moderate
396 G. L. Stone

law and ways of freedom of the world outside as opposed to the hlahluka
(or tambuku) van die Point: the totalistic brutality and fatefulness of the prison
world, mythified as ‘another world’ (translation).

7 CONCLUSION
Freud (1900: 608) observed that ‘the interpretation of dreams is the royal road
to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’. Similarly lexis, in the
ethnographic context of discourse, social situation, ritual, myth and community
or society, may be described as the royal road to the consciousness, reality,
ideology and identity of the speech community.

notes
1 adjective: literally, ‘brown’; noun in plural only, brynes. See lexicon entries below.
2 Flaai is not found in Afrikaans. I suggest the spelling ‘Flytaal’, i.e. ‘sly language’, from
the British English slang fly, ‘artful’, ‘wide awake’, ‘knowing’ and fly-boy, ‘artful,
knowing man’, usually working class. See Stone (1991: 405) for fly-boy, ‘habitually
cunning working-class youth or man’, sometimes a nickname, usually for male who
has traded illicitly in drugs or liquor since adolescence; fly-fly, ‘casually’, ‘briefly’,
‘in passing’, i.e. circumspectly; and fly padda, ‘sly chap’, in the Peninsula dialect
(frogs are usually hidden, appear watchful, and fall silent when exposed).
3 Section 6 contains selected quoted material from Stone (1991).

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20 An introduction to Flaaitaal (or Tsotsitaal)

K. D. P. Makhudu

1 INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY

Flaaitaal, or Tsotsitaal, is a South African township argot which is used mainly,
but not exclusively, by black males in various urban centres. It is a mixed code
in so far as it seems to have been initially reliant on Afrikaans for structure
and a variety of languages for its lexis. To the uninitiated ear, Flaaitaal might
sound like a variety of Afrikaans; but such a conclusion would overlook its
robust Bantu language texture. Although ‘Tsotsitaal’ is a well-known term, in
this chapter I will use the term ‘Flaaitaal’, which is a more commonly used
name.

2 THE ORIGINS OF FLAAITAAL

Flaaitaal probably owes its origins to language contact within a multilingual
setting in nineteenth-century South Africa and to the rise of the urban and town-
ship communities. In the latter half of the nineteenth century with the discovery
of minerals in the South African interior people from all over the world, as well
as from parts of South Africa, flocked to these diggings: Europeans speaking
English, French, German, Dutch or Yiddish and Africans speaking Zulu, Xhosa,
Sotho and Tswana, to name a few. Although this era preceded the evolution of
Flaaitaal, it might well have sparked the initial yet crude substratum for its
later emergence. An example of informal Afrikaans used by Bantu-language
speakers is mentioned by M. S. Evans in a 1916 publication cited by Reinecke
et al. (1975). It is clear from this article that African farmhands, living close to
western Johannesburg, in attempting to master Afrikaans produced a ‘broken’
variety of this language. Another possibility is raised by van Rensburg (1989 and
personal communication), who cites the influence of Griqua people living around
the mines. Flaaitaal may thus have arisen as a ‘mixed’ language on account
of Bantu and/or Khoesan-speaking people attempting to express themselves
through one or more of the Indo-European languages that they encountered.
There is, therefore, the possibility that Flaaitaal originated as a type of proto-
pidgin, fashioned by expediency to lay the foundations for new communication

398
 An introduction to Flaaitaal 399

systems. We will return to a discussion of what kind of language Flaaitaal is

later in the chapter.
Flaaitaal should not, however, be confused with Fanakalo, a pidgin language
used in the mines to effect communication between overseers, who are prin-
cipally white, and Africans, who are principally labourers (see Adendorff,
chap. 9, this volume). Fanakalo is an out-group language of work and ex-
ploitation; Flaaitaal is a slightly more spontaneous in-group result of social
and linguistic interaction among equals, or those sharing similar sociocultural
values and perspectives. This shared context emerged among Africans living
in Johannesburg’s satellite townships of Sophiatown, Fidas, Alexandra and
Prospect. Today Flaaitaal is most vibrant among African residents of the
townships and locations established around Johannesburg in the 1950s,
such as Soweto with its suburbs of Orlando, Rockville, Meadowlands and
Diepkloof to the west; Germiston, Boksburg and Benoni with their townships
of Katlehong, Vosloorus, Daveyton and KwaThema to the east; Vereeniging
and Vanderbijlpark with their townships of Sharpeville, Boipatong, Bophelong
and Sebokeng to the south; Randfontein and Krugersdorp with their townships
of Mohlakeng and Kagiso; to the north, outside of Pretoria are Atteridgeville,
Saulsville and Mamelodi; and finally further north-west is GaRankuwa and
Mabopane (see map 20.1).
In these townships Flaaitaal may be known by any of the following names:
Iscamtho, Withi, Sepantsula, Lingo, Lingam, Isikhumsha, Shalambombo,
Himli, Himbul, Taal, Hova, Bika, Sjita, Setsotsi, Tsotsitaal and Flaaitaal. While
these largely regional appellations do not indicate the distinctive characteristics
of each Flaaitaal variety, they are illustrative of this language’s vitality and
provenance.

3 SPEAKERS OF FLAAITAAL

Flaaitaal speakers are predominantly African males between the ages of 15

and 54 (Schuring 1983; Slabbert 1994). Flaaitaal is largely an urban male
phenomenon. In analysing why this should be so, the dynamics of the African
initiation ceremony might be illuminating. Another explanation for the non-
representativeness of female users might lie with the establishment of male-only
hostels and compounds in the mining towns. Life in single-gender dwellings
would largely exclude women and include the world of work and prison. In
addition to its ‘male’ connotations, Flaaitaal carries overtones of urban life, as
evidenced by the superior attitude of Flaaitaal speakers to non-users, who are
stigmatised as ‘country bumpkins’. Modern-day speakers and even casual users
of this ‘lingo’ identify themselves with a particular form of Flaaitaal associated
with a particular township that was destroyed by the apartheid policy of forced
removals. For example, Soweto speakers claim that their variety of Flaaitaal
400 K. D. P. Makhudu

20.1 Townships in the PWV (now Gauteng) area during the apartheid era

or ‘Fly Taal’ originated in Sophiatown, Alexandra, Newclare and the Western

Native Township (Janson 1983; Makhudu 1980; Slabbert 1994). Likewise, the
Flaaitaal speakers of Atteridgeville and Saulsville point to Bantule township
and the old Marabstad area as the wellspring of their variety. The Sebokeng,
Boipatong, Sharpeville and Bophelong speakers cite Evaton, Top Location and
 An introduction to Flaaitaal 401

Tuka-toun as their sources, respectively. The Flaaitaal speakers of the West Rand
townships of Kagiso and Mohlakeng cite Munsieville and Madubulaville, and
those from the East Rand cite Dukathole, Dindela and Etwatwa as their places
of origin. The political significance of keeping alive the memory of the old
townships should not be overlooked; few of the townships’ property holders
were adequately compensated for the deprivation of their property rights. One
use of Flaaitaal was to denote resistance or defiance; the common cry in the
Defiance Campaign against the infamous Group Areas Act was Ons dak nie,
ons phola hier! (literally ‘We won’t move, we’re staying put!’). Interestingly,
this sentence shows the interweaving of the grammar and lexis of the dispos-
sessor – dak from Afrikaans slang nak, ‘to leave’ or from English duck (v.) and
phola from Zulu ukuphola, ‘to be cool, to sit down and reflect’.
There is one other strand in the origins of Flaaitaal: the contribution of
coloured speakers. In Kimberley and suburbs adjacent to Johannesburg such as
Eldorado Park, Eersterus, Rust-Ter-Val, Bosmont and Riverlea coloured male
speakers employ a variety of Flaaitaal and have, over the years, contributed to the
association of Flaaitaal with Afrikaans (D. Mattera, personal communication).
The relationship between Flaaitaal and non-standard lects of the Cape such as
Kaaps, Skollietaal and Gamtaal needs to be thoroughly researched.

4 CONTEXTS OF USE

Some studies of Flaaitaal or Tsotsitaal have uncovered links with prison varieties
in gaols such as Leeuwkop in Bryanston and the Fort in Johannesburg. These
connections with hardened gangs such as the Big Five and the Jerries (Germans
or Majeremane), whose members are serving or have served long-term sen-
tences, have given Flaaitaal speakers a notoriety that has overshadowed the
reality of its communicative function. Several writers, such as Schuring (1983),
Mfusi (1992) and Ntshangase (chap. 21, this volume) accept such criminal links
but point out that Flaaitaal is used in a range of contexts that go beyond the
underworld.
Flaaitaal can count poets and authors among its users, notably Sipho Sepamla,
Achmat Dangor, Essop Patel and Gibson Kente (Mutloatse 1981). The inclu-
sion in the list of Dangor and Patel, who are not mother-tongue speakers of
an African language, suggests that Flaaitaal is spreading as a general urban
phenomenon. The use of Flaaitaal in literary texts should not create the im-
pression, however, that Flaaitaal is stable and unchanging. It has other eminent
users, if only for symbolic purposes such as black solidarity. These include
the well-known jazz musician Hugh Masekela (originally from Sophiatown)
and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (originally from Munsieville) who both claim
to use Flaaitaal when speaking casually with other Flaaitaal-using friends
(Sunday Times, 25 April 1993; 28 November 1993). Around the time of a
402 K. D. P. Makhudu

new post-apartheid order, ANC leaders tried to establish a rapport with their
supporters by making the occasional remark in Flaaitaal, notably at the begin-
ning of rallies. Few observers will deny the effective use of Flaaitaal by Cyril
Ramaphosa (a prominent ANC politician and former trade unionist) to praise
ANC leader Nelson Mandela at the April 1993 funeral of Chris Hani: Heitha,
Comrade Pres. Mandela, Heitha ‘Hail to you President Mandela, Hail’.1
Flaaitaal can best be understood in terms of Halliday’s concept of ‘anti-
language’.2 In his terms, an anti-society is a society that is set up within another
society as a conscious alternative to it, as a mode of resistance. ‘An anti-language
stands in relation to an anti-society in much the same relation as does a language
to society. The simplest form taken by an anti-language is that of the creation of
new words for old; it is a language relexicalised’ (Halliday 1978: 165). I shall
illustrate two characteristics of anti-language as outlined by Halliday (1978) and
by Stone (1991) for Cape Coloured varieties. The first is ‘overlexicalisation’: the
anti-language is not merely relexicalised in certain areas, it is overlexicalized;
for example, the word fly/flaai itself denotes ‘city-wise, urbane, slick’. This
dichotomy fly/not fly is represented by words for authentic Flaaitaal persons die
main ou, ‘the main man’, or group terms such as die autis, die ouens and majitas.
This contrasts with the foolish, dim-witted or ‘slow’ person characterised as
mugu [muxu], bari, mumish, pop, gashu [xaʃu:] etc.
The volume of terms for the notion of ‘friend’ or ‘in-group member’ is
overwhelming. These may be adopted from other South African languages or
be new coinages.
FT word Source language
bra [bra] brother (English)
bab [ba:b] baba (‘father’ – Zulu)
bri [bri] brigade (English, French, Italian)
budi [budi:] boetie (‘little brother’ – Afrikaans)
brikhado [bri:kado] obrigardo (‘thank you’ – Portuguese)
mri [mri:] mratho (‘younger brother’ – Pedi)

Each of these examples denotes ‘a friend’ in Flaaitaal, yet in each case some
sort of semantic shift has taken place through either calquing or specific phono-
logical processes. These internal processes in the lexicon of the argot render
the language highly changeable, so that anyone who does not keep abreast is
soon left behind by the rapid turnover of vocabulary. For example, the concept
‘friend’ has at any one time up to thirty synonyms. This raises the issue of
whether Flaaitaal is an in-group or ‘secret’ means of communication. This is
certainly the case with the ‘slang’ employed by prisoners but is less likely to be
the case in the generally common township ‘lingo’. However, it is true that each
variety of Flaaitaal used in a specific locality is slightly different. The residents
of Kagiso would differ from those of Atteridgeville in the way they refer to a
‘despised person’, for example:
 An introduction to Flaaitaal 403

FT word Locality
bari [bari] generic
barzen [barzən] Kagiso
mumish [mɒmi:ʃ] Atteridgeville
jankrap[daŋkrap] Meadowlands
dat [da:t ] Eldorado Park
mqhaka [m!aka] Sharpeville
hamish [hami:ʃ] Rockville/Soweto

Overlexicalisation gives clues to domains in which Flaaitaal is used. The world-

view and life style of speakers can be gauged from the overlexicalised areas:
food, drink, vehicles, police, prison, smoking, entertainment and the like.
Madubanya (1975) refers to the shifting vocabulary for these domains as the
‘existential rationale behind this parlance’.

5 METAPHORICAL PROCESSES IN FLAAITAAL

The second feature of the anti-language that Halliday (1978: 175) noted as
a defining characteristic is its metaphorical character: ‘An anti-language is a
metaphor for an everyday language; and this metaphorical reality appears all
the way up and down the system. There are phonological metaphors, gram-
matical metaphors and semantic metaphors.’ Those structures and collocations
are usually self-consciously opposed to the norms of the established language
or languages. Examples from Flaaitaal of processes that fit Halliday’s scheme
abound, and I shall describe only a few here (for further details consult Makhudu
1980):

5.1 Nasalisation
Sound change English/Afrikaans FT Gloss
/b/ > /m/ beer /miya/ beer
baikie /maikie/ jacket
/d/ > /m/ dom /mom/ foolish
/f/ > /m/ vang /maŋ/ arrest
/v/ > /m/ vest /mesten/ clothing
/p/ > /m/ papier /mamir/ papers
/t/ > /n/ timing /naimiŋ/ wise
met or moet /mun/ with
/d/ > /n/ dak or duck /nak/ dodge

5.2 Use of borrowed suffixes

(a) Using the Bantu verb inflectional morpheme -a:
English drift becomes Flaaitaal /drifta/, ‘to leave’.
English risk becomes Flaaitaal /riska/, ‘to chance’.
404 K. D. P. Makhudu

(b) Using the Afrikaans or English noun-plural-forming morphemes:

(i) -s to Bantu ntwana becomes FT /ntwanas/, ‘children’.
(ii) -e to FT bra becomes FT /braze/, ‘brothers’.
(c) Using Bantu locative affixes such as Nguni -eni and Sotho -eng:
English lounge becomes FT /lonjani/, ‘drinking place’.
Afrikaans bar becomes FT /bareni/ or /bareŋ/, ‘drinking place’.
(d) Using various diminutive suffixes:
(i) Afrikaans -kie in FT nouns like /burki/, ‘Afrikaner, white farmer’;
/dronki/, ‘drunkard’, etc.
(ii) Zulu -wana in FT nouns like /ntsundwana/, ‘a suit’, etc.
(iii) Sesotho -ana in FT nouns like /mbuzana/, ‘a ten-rand note’, etc.
(e) Using abstract noun suffixes:
(i) Flaaitaal has several forms derived from the Afrikaans abstract noun
suffix -heit:
-eit as in juleit, ‘to work’; muleit, ‘to work’ etc.
-et as in braket, ‘to corner’; skhuvet, ‘pleasurable’, etc.
-at as in sulat, ‘work’; gazat, ‘to pool up money’, etc.
(ii) Flaaitaal also uses the English abstract noun suffix -tion pronounced
/ʃen/ or /tʃen/, as in /rokʃhen/, ‘to cause a commotion/trouble’;
parakʃen/, ‘to cause a commotion/trouble’; /mantʃen/, ‘to eat’, etc.

5.3 Syllable reversion

Afrikaans kop, ‘head’, becomes FT /bogen/ by voicing.
Afrikaans slaan, ‘hit’, becomes FT /nals/.
English hall becomes Bantu /hola/ then FT /laho/ by vowel insertion.
Setswana madi, ‘money’, becomes FT /dami/.

5.4 Reduplication
(a) Complete reduplication with change of meaning:
Stem Language Meaning FT FT meaning
nice English nice /naiza-naiza/ party
vang Afrikaans catch /fang-fang/ hit repeatedly
-thenga Zulu to buy /thenga-thenga/ cheap woman
-tama FT to eat /tama-tama/ delicious food
(b) Partial reduplication
Stem Language Meaning FT FT meaning
ndama FT money /ndadama/ money
blackjack English policeman /jekeja/ policeman
dikoto Sesotho clubs /makotokoto/ a firearm
snaaks Afrikaans funny /snakanaka/ a foolish person
 An introduction to Flaaitaal 405

5.5 Lexical metaphors

(a) Colour
/braun/ brandy
/tʃoklet/ (brown) South African paper money
/tʃok/ cigarettes
(b) Composition
/eister/ silver coin or similar currency, from Afrikaans
yster, ‘iron’
/ntsimbi/ silver coins, from Bantu (Zulu especially) insimbi,
‘iron’
/tʃlep/ coins of some kind, from Afrikaans klip, ‘stone’
(c) Sound (onomatopoeia)
/xa / matches
/thwa/ gun
/mirin/ or /tsirin/ money
/vum/ or /gum-gai/ car
(d) Shape
/aram/ rolled packet of marijuana (from Afrikaans for
‘an arm’).

6 CONCLUSION

The widespread and increasing use of Flaaitaal raises questions about its status
in the future. It is certain to continue flourishing in urban multilingual centres,
and to continue influencing standard forms of the African languages. In the past
communicative needs in the urban centres led to the formation of this informal
and lively means of expression among initial strangers who then became close
associates through it. This makes Flaaitaal similar in many ways to pidgin and
creole speech forms. Whether, like creole languages, Flaaitaal will stabilise
into a first language is uncertain. The matter is certainly deserving of future
research.

notes
1 As Ntshangase notes (chap. 21, this volume), this particular form of greeting is com-
mon to Flaaitaal and Iscamtho.
2 I am indebted to Stone (1991) in this section for drawing my attention to the applica-
bility of Halliday’s work in the South African context.

bibliography
Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as a Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of
Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
406 K. D. P. Makhudu

Janson, T. 1983. ‘A Language of Sophiatown, Alexandria and Soweto’. Paper presented

at the York Conference on Urban Pidgins and Creoles, September 1983.
Madubanya, M. 1975. ‘Tsotsitaal’. Term paper, University of Texas.
Makhudu, D. P. 1980. ‘An Etymological and Morpho-Phonological Description of
Flaaitaal/Tsotsitaal: A Sociolinguistic Perspective’. BA(Hons) paper, University
of the Witswatersrand.
Mfusi, M. J. H. 1992. ‘Soweto Zulu slang: a sociolinguistic study of an urban vernacular
in Soweto’. English Usage in Southern Africa, 23: 39–83.
Mutloatse, M. 1981. African Contemporary Writings. London: Heinemann.
Ntshangase, D. 1993. ‘The Social History of IsiCamtho’. MA thesis, University of the
Witswatersrand.
Reinecke, J. E., S. M. Tsuzaki et al. 1975. A Bibliography of Pidgin and Creole
Languages. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Schuring, G. K. 1983. ‘Flaaitaal’. In G. N. Claasen and M. C. J. Rensburg (eds.),
Taalverskeidenheid – ’n blik op die spektrum van taalvariasie in Afrikaans. Preto-
ria: Academica, pp.116–33.
Slabbert, S. 1994. ‘A re-evaluation of the sociology of Tsotsitaal. South African Journal
of Linguistics, 12, 1: 32–41.
Stone, G. L. 1991. ‘An Ethnographic and Socio-Semantic Analysis of Lexis among
Working-class-Afrikaans-speaking Coloured Adolescent and Young Adult Males
in the Cape Peninsula, 1963–1990’. MA thesis, University of Cape Town.
Sunday Times. Doc Bikitsha’s ‘In Focus’ column, 25 April 1993; 27 June 1993;
28 November 1993.
van Rensburg, M. C. J. 1989. ‘Orange River Afrikaans – a stage in the pidgin/creole
cycle’. In M. Pütz and R. Dirven (eds.), Wheels within Wheels. Frankfurt: Peter
Lang, pp. 135–51.
21 Language and language practices in Soweto

Dumisani Krushchev Ntshangase

1 INTRODUCTION
Language practice, by nature a complex phenomenon, is yet more complex
in Soweto where together with English and Afrikaans many African languages
are spoken in almost every resident’s immediate experience. Apart from the
standard African languages used in Soweto, there is also another form of lan-
guage that seems to cut across all linguistic, political and ethnic barriers created
by the apartheid state but which also reflects other barriers. This language is
commonly called by its speakers Iscamtho [is/amtho]. This name is probably
derived from the Zulu word ukuqamunda [uk’u!amunda], which means to talk
volubly.1 Iscamtho has been confused with Flaaitaal or Tsotsitaal, with which
it has many parallels.
The purpose of this chapter is to show that Iscamtho is a different variety
from Flaaitaal. Iscamtho has very strong leanings towards Zulu and Sotho:
both of these influence the lexical base of Iscamtho even though there are
social and linguistic differences between them. Iscamtho also forms a very
important marker of urban identity, particularly a Soweto identity which re-
flects a number of social phenomena. Languages are not abstract entities but
important social and historical phenomena which bind, and sometimes re-
flect cleavages within, communities. Thus, Iscamtho reflects an urban iden-
tity and, at the same time, the social barriers between its users and
non-users.
Iscamtho is a language that is used ‘through’ another language – a type
of basilect, yet it retains its own defining features, i.e. it has no structure of
its own since it relies heavily on the language structures of the languages
from which it ‘operates’. This means that it has not yet developed its own
syntactic base which will make it linguistically independent of the base
languages.
In Soweto, Iscamtho is used mainly ‘through’ Zulu and Sotho. Below, I offer
renditions of the English sentence ‘I am going’ in both the Sotho-based and
the Zulu-based Iscamtho, Standard Zulu and Standard Sotho to illustrate the
changes the language undergoes and how it retains its features.

407
408 D. K. Ntshangase

(1) Zulu Ngi-ya-hamba.

1sg.-tense-go
(1a) Iscamtho Ngi-ya-vaya.
prefix-tense-go
(2) Sotho Ke ya tsamaya.
1sg.-tense-go
(2a) Iscamtho Ke ya vaya.
prefix-tense-go

A Zulu speaker will use (1) and an Iscamtho speaker from a Zulu background
will use (1a), a Sotho speaker (2) and an Iscamtho speaker from a Sotho back-
ground (2a). It is worth mentioning here that the etymology of the Iscamtho
word vaya can be traced to the Afrikaans word waai (‘blow’, as in ‘the wind
blows’). Below, I offer renditions of the same English sentence in Flaaitaal and
Afrikaans.
(3) Afrikaans Ek loop.
1sg.-go
(3a) Flaaitaal Ek thler.
1sg.-go

What these sentences illustrate is that Iscamtho draws its lexical base from Zulu
and Sotho while Flaaitaal draws its lexical base from Afrikaans. This linguistic
difference shows that Iscamtho cannot be considered a variety of Flaaitaal, as
Mfenyane (1977; 1981) asserts.

2 THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF ISCAMTHO

The speech communities of Flaaitaal and Iscamtho derive from totally different
social and historical backgrounds. Flaaitaal emerged, and draws its speech
community from, the freehold townships of the Western Areas of Johannesburg
(Sophiatown, Martindale and Alexandra). Iscamtho, on the other hand, emerged
from an argot called Shalambombo and draws its speech community from the
squatter communities of Orlando, Pimville, the Eastern Native Township and
the Moroka Emergency Camp.
Freehold townships and the squatter communities mark different processes of
African land dispossession and urbanisation; and these two languages not only
reflect different social transformations but also mark permanence in black urban
settlement. Freehold townships were largely occupied by Tswana-speaking
groups from the Western Transvaal, while the squatter communities were largely
Nguni, particularly Zulu and Xhosa. This can be explained by understanding the
different ways in which African communities were dispossessed of their land.
 Language and language practices in Soweto 409

There are regional and historical variations in the process, which are important
in understanding the processes and periodisation of urbanisation (see Bundy
1987; Delius 1983).
Iscamtho and Flaaitaal developed as argots or criminal languages. Iscamtho
developed from an argot called Shalambombo used by a criminal gang network
called Amalaita, which operated in and around Johannesburg between 1890
and 1930. The gang, which used a mine dump in Crown Mines as their head-
quarters, lived mainly in Orlando and Pimville and were composed mainly of
Zulu migrants. Their counterparts, AmaRussia (sometimes spelt AmaRashea),
who were mainly Sotho migrants from Lesotho and the Orange Free State,
lived in Newclare and later the Moroka Emergency Camp (see Bonner 1987;
1990). Flaaitaal, on the other hand, developed among the criminal gangs of the
Western Areas who were composed mainly of urban male youths. As Makhudu
notes (chap. 20, this volume), Flaaitaal is also known as Tsotsitaal. Flaai meant
‘citywise’ and tsotsi meant ‘urban citywise and slick’.2
Crime and criminal gangs became very popular in black urban settlements
around Johannesburg between the 1930s and the 1950s and, as Glaser (1990)
says, young children growing up in Johannesburg identified more with criminals
than with professionals. This resulted in the increased use of the languages as-
sociated with criminality. Thereafter Flaaitaal and Iscamtho no longer reflected
the life of the underworld but that of the young and urban-wise, and assumed
an urban identity, which distinguished itself from the rural identity of migrant
workers.
The same is true of language practices in South African prisons. Keswa (1975)
has documented the history and practices of prison gangs in South Africa. Prison
gangs can be divided into two sorts; those who use Flaaitaal (the 26, 25 and
Air Force) and those who use Shalambombo. In interviews I undertook with a
number of former prison inmates and from my experiences in a South African
prison, members of the 28 and 27 prison gangs said they use Shalambombo;
for them it was not exactly the same as Iscamtho, though very similar. They
could understand both Shalambombo and Iscamtho but could also exclude an
Iscamtho speaker if they opted to use Shalambombo.
The linguistic structure of Iscamtho suggests that it has some linguistic pro-
cesses that are different from those of Zulu. It is worth noting that the word
‘Iscamtho’ itself reflects a peculiar linguistic process. As mentioned before, it is
probably derived from the Zulu word ukuqamunda. There is a use of the dental
click (spelt <c>) instead of the palatal click (spelt <q>). This can also be noted
in words such as icanda for egg; the Zulu word is iqanda.
There is also a high degree of vowel elision in Iscamtho. Zulu nouns have a
V (vowel), VCV (vowel–consonant–vowel) or VN (vowel–nasal) structure in
their prefixes, as in nouns like u(V prefix)-limi (tongue); isi(VCV prefix)-lwane
(animal); and um(VN prefix)-fana (boy). The word Iscamtho itself reflects this
410 D. K. Ntshangase

vowel elision process in the noun prefixes, for in Zulu the word would be
isicamtho. This is also evident in a number of other words, e.g. iskole instead of
isikole (school). Vowel elision is an important morphological and phonological
difference between standard Zulu and Iscamtho. We can also note variation in
the syntax of the language. The question form in Zulu ends with the question
formative na, as in sentence 4:
(4) U-ya-hamba na?
2nd sg. prefix-long form tense-go interrog.
‘Are you going?’
However, in Iscamtho there is a different process operative.
(5) Why u-zunda ama-jents?
Interrog. 2nd sg.-hate noun prefix-young men
Why do you hate gents? (gents is derived from gentlemen and means ‘young
men’).
If Iscamtho strictly followed Zulu syntactic patterns, (5) would have been
(6) Yini u-zonda izi-nsizwa na?
Interrog. 2nd sg. -hate noun prefix - young men interrog
This shows that Iscamtho does not use the na Zulu question formative. There
are numerous examples where the na formative is not used, as in (7) below
(7) U-zo-vaya?
2nd sg.-future aux-go
‘Will you go?’
This sentence has a higher intonation contour than an ordinary declarative
sentence. Apart from the differences in the lexical items (i.e. where Iscamtho
uses different words from Zulu with semantic shift), our examples show that
there is a systematic difference in the language structure between Zulu and
Iscamtho. Afrikaans not only influences the linguistic base of Flaaitaal, it also
shapes a majority of its lexical items. Iscamtho, on the other hand, has very little
Afrikaans and a heavy English influence apart from its Zulu and Sotho base.
This has significant political undertones. The anti-Afrikaans events of 1976 had
more to do with this than is commonly recognised. The differences in the base
(or matrix) of Flaaitaal and Iscamtho as well as in the code-switching practices
characteristic of the two varieties are analysed by Slabbert and Myers-Scotton
(1997: 338):

Those versions that we call Tsotsitaal always have a variety of Afrikaans – generally a
nonstandard variety – as their matrix language (ML). In contrast, those versions that we
call Iscamtho always have a South African Bantu language as their ML; most often it is
Zulu, but Sotho-based Iscamtho is also attested, and there may be other versions with
other Bantu languages as their ML.
 Language and language practices in Soweto 411

Slabbert and Myers-Scotton conclude that although Flaaitaal and Iscamtho

are not structurally related to each other with regard to their morphosyn-
tactic bases, they are related in other ways. First, they share some content
morphemes. Second, Afrikaans is significant in both varieties – as matrix lan-
guage in Flaaitaal and as embedded language in Iscamtho. (The terms matrix
and embedded language are discussed in Slabbert and Finlayson, chap. 12, this
volume.) Third, there are slang words common to both varieties. Slabbert and
Myers-Scotton’s interest lies more in the nature of township code-switching,
and they conclude further that the code-switching configurations in Flaaitaal
and Iscamtho are not substantially different from code-switching reported in
other parts of the world.
When the Western Areas of Johannesburg were destroyed in the 1950s and
its people relocated to what is now called Soweto, speakers of Flaaitaal and of
Iscamtho had to share the same urban space. Flaaitaal in Soweto was spoken
in locations designated for the relocated ex-Western Areas people; these are
Dube, Diepkloof, Meadowlands and Rockville. The rest of Soweto was shared
by those who were in the squatter communities (Lebelo 1988).
In 1976 students rose up against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium
of instruction at schools. The anti-Afrikaans protest had two important effects
on language practices in Soweto. First, after 1976 there was a sudden shift
to Iscamtho in communities that had been traditionally Flaaitaal speaking.
Flaaitaal lost most of its domains and speakers to Iscamtho. More people ended
up speaking Iscamtho than Flaaitaal. Remaining speakers of Flaaitaal within
Soweto are older people who had left the Western Areas in their late twenties
and early thirties. Today, most young males in Soweto speak Iscamtho rather
than Flaaitaal. In places such as the townships of Pretoria, however, more young
males speak Flaaitaal than Iscamtho. Second, after 1976 there was a decline in
the use of Afrikaans lexical items within Iscamtho and an increase in English
lexical items.
Not everyone in Soweto speaks or identifies with Iscamtho. Generally, the
language is spoken by young males who were born there or who have resided
long enough to have acquired its habits. Females, adults, new arrivals and
hostel dwellers are not prototypical speakers of this language. Glaser (1990)
in his study of criminal gangs in Sophiatown shows that females in criminal
gangs were marginal and marginalised. Criminal gangs, like the communities
from which they are created, are male dominated and patriarchal (McRobbie
and Garber 1976). Females invariably became marginal users of Iscamtho and
Flaaitaal. Those females who used the language were scorned and ridiculed by
both speakers and non-speakers of these varieties, being referred to as prosti-
tutes, nymphomaniacs and social outcasts.
Even when Iscamtho ceased to be specifically a criminal language, females
who used this language were still seen as such. Most females who use Iscamtho
412 D. K. Ntshangase

patronise shebeens3 and stokvels4 and speak it to their peers and boyfriends who
are usually shebeen and stokvel patrons themselves. The following are words
associated with female users of this language:

is-febe from Zulu feba, ‘to carry on prostitution’

is-gendane from Zulu genda, ‘to play a game of tossing up pebbles’. This has
implications that such women ‘sexually toss up’ men
is-khebereshe from Zulu khebe, ‘large hole or pit’ as assumed to be true of a vagina
of a prostitute
i-tiye from English tea, which is shared by many people as is a prostitute
i-jita 5 from Iscamtho word for a young man, where a female using this lan-
guage is thought to have shed her femininity

The overall impression given by the lack of extensive female participation in

Iscamtho speech networks is that a sexist division exists. However, there is
growing evidence to suggest that more females are becoming accepted users of
Iscamtho.6
As mentioned before, adults who came from the Western Areas of Soweto
use Flaaitaal primarily among themselves, but working-class adults generally
use an urban form of Zulu.7 Middle-class adults, apart from Zulu, use English
among themselves as a reflection of their social status. Hostel dwellers use
‘standard Zulu’.8 In brief, Iscamtho is an age-graded, gender-specific urban
language.
The Iscamtho lexicon also reflects a sense of political awareness among its
users. The word for a house in Iscamtho is i-dladla, which is a traditional
Zulu storehouse. The fact that under apartheid Africans were housed in small
dwellings and were legally regarded as temporary sojourners in urban areas is
expressed in the use of this word. Some of the various slogans used by political
activists are in Iscamtho. Heita Mandela, heita (‘Hello Mandela, hello’) a salute
to the president at a political rally, is a phrase that could pass as Flaaitaal or
as Iscamtho. In Zulu it would be Sawubona Mandela, sawubona, or Dumela
Mandela, dumela in Sotho.
Attitudinal studies that I have conducted reveal that most people within
Soweto, speakers and non-speakers, regard Iscamtho as a low variety. It is still
seen as a language of criminals or criminally oriented people.9 When asked
whether they wished their children to be taught Iscamtho as a school subject all
respondents replied with a strong ‘no’.
Research in black schools shows that when young, particularly male, teach-
ers who grew up in Soweto want to explain something students find difficult
to understand in class, they switch to Iscamtho for clarification. One teacher
who teaches Zulu said that he usually switches to Iscamtho to explain difficult
 Language and language practices in Soweto 413

concepts. If this happens in a Zulu lesson, it shows that students do not neces-
sarily speak standard Zulu or even understand all of it.
An increasing number of families use Iscamtho as a first language. Moreover,
the advertising and entertainment industries have also begun to accept Iscamtho.
Today, there are many electronic and print adverts which use Iscamtho as images
of urban culture and communication. These range from adverts on Radio Metro
to designer-label clothing adverts in the press. Many theatre plays also use
Iscamtho. Brenda Fassie, Stimela and Senyaka10 use Iscamtho in their songs.

3 CONCLUSION

An important aspect of both Iscamtho and Flaaitaal is that they embody salient
features of black urban culture. These languages and the urban culture they
support, ironically, involve an acceptance of the townships as ‘home’, even
though they were created by the apartheid state to serve its own interests. Current
evidence shows that these languages are growing in numbers of speakers and
functions. Whereas previously Flaaitaal and Iscamtho were not used within the
family, they are increasingly used in this domain, even by women and children.

notes
1 Doke et al. (1982).
2 Bothma (1952) suggests that the word tsotsi comes from the word tsetsefly, which
is an insect. I would suggest that the word is derived from the Sotho verb go tsotsa,
which means ‘to rob’ and is directly used with the original meaning.
3 Shebeens are family houses where people who want to purchase liquor are allowed
to come and drink inside. They can be seen as a black alternative to pubs in white
suburbs.
4 Stokvels are savings schemes where members invest an agreed sum of money over an
agreed period. Once it is the turn of a member to receive money, he or she is encouraged
to invite many people to come and purchase liquor and meals at an inflated price. This
usually happens over the weekends and is done from Friday until Monday. There are
a number of such schemes which include burial societies, syndicates and ‘kitchen
parties’ (a modern version of the old tea parties). It is estimated that stokvels in South
Africa turn over 30 million rand a month.
5 Glaser (1990) asserts that this word is coined from the 1940s film The Magic Garden.
It is nonetheless used to refer to a young man who is citywise, probably with criminal
inclinations.
6 Interviews with Sizakele Tshabalala, Nandi Tshabalala, Anonymous (preferred
name), Thembeka Galeta, Zinhle Galeta (December 1992); Kholeka Mange, Gabisile
Mange, Lawukazi Mange (January 1993); Maureen Kaunda (February 1993).
7 I am indebted to Steve Lebelo for raising this issue. More investigation has to be done
as to whether apart from Iscamtho there is an urban form of Zulu. Presently I am
414 D. K. Ntshangase

unable to offer any solutions to this but from anecdotal evidence would suspect that
there is an urban form of Zulu; I am not yet sure what distinguishes it from Iscamtho.
8 I am indebted to Dr Adam Ashforth for this realisation that hostel dwellers become
suspicious of users of non-standard Zulu and that the use of standard Zulu serves as a
means of converging with hostel dwellers. It will be interesting to note how language
use between hostel dwellers and Soweto residents became a means of identification
during the political violence of the early 1990s.
9 For more findings on attitudes towards Iscamtho see Ntshangase (1993, chapter 6).
10 Brenda Fassie’s song is ‘I-straight le ndaba’; Stimela’s song is ‘Iscamtho asikho’;
Senyaka’s song is ‘Why uzonda amajents’.

bibliography

Bonner, P. 1987. ‘Desirable or undesirable Sotho women? Liquor, prostitution and mi-
gration of Sotho women to the Rand, 1920–1985’. In C. Walker (ed.), Women
and the Organisation of Gender in South African History. Johannesburg: Ravan
Press.
1990. ‘An evil empire? The Russians on the Reef, 1947–1957’. Paper presented at
the History Workshop Conference, University of the Witwatersrand.
Bothma, C. V. 1952. ‘’n Volkekundige ondersoek na die aard en ontstaans van tsotsi-
groepe en hulle aktiewiteite soos gevind in die stedelike gebied van Pretoria’. MA
thesis, University of Pretoria.
Bundy, C. 1987. The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. London: Heinemann.
Delius, P. 1983. The Land Belongs to us. Johannesburg: Ravan.
Doke, C. M., D. M. Malcolm and J. M. A. Sikakana 1982. English – Zulu Dictionary.
Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Glaser, C. 1990. ‘Anti-Social Bandits: Juvenile Delinquency and the Tsotsi Youth
Sub-Culture on the Witwatersrand, 1935–1960’. MA thesis, University of the
Witwatersrand.
Keswa, E. R. G. 1975. Outlawed Communities: A Study of Contra-acculturation among
Black Criminals in South Africa. Pretoria: n. p.
Lacey, M. 1982. Working for Boroko. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
Lebelo, S. M. 1988. ‘Sophiatown removals and political acquiescence’. BA (Hons)
dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand.
1990. ‘Apartheid’s Chosen Few: Urban African Middle Classes from the Slums of
Sophiatown to the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, 1935–1985’. Paper presented
at the History Workshop Conference, University of the Witwatersrand.
Lukhele, A. K. 1990. Stokvels in South Africa: Informal Savings Schemes by Blacks for
the Black Community. Johannesburg: Amagi Books.
McRobbie, A. and Garber, J. 1976. ‘Girls and sub-cultures’. In T. Jefferson and
S. Hall (eds.), Resistance through Rituals: Youth Sub-Cultures in Post-war Britain.
London: Hutchinson.
Mfenyane, B. 1977. ‘Iskhumsha nesiTsotsi: The Sociolinguistics of School and Town
Sintu’. MA thesis, Boston Graduate School.
1981 ‘Scamto – Isjita: the black language arts of SasAfrika’. In M. Motloatse (ed.),
Reconstruction. Johannesburg: Ravan Press., pp. 294–302.
 Language and language practices in Soweto 415

Ntshangase, D. K. 1993. ‘The Social History of Iscamtho’. MA thesis, University of the

Witwatersrand.
Slabbert, S. and C. Myers-Scotton 1997. ‘The structure of Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho:
code-switching and in-group identity in South African townships’. Linguistics, 35:
317–42.
van Onselen, C. 1984. A Small Matter of a Horse: The Life of ‘Nongoloza’ Mathebula,
1867–1948. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
Part 3

Language planning, policy and education

22 Language planning and language policy:
past, present and future

T. G. Reagan

That language planning should serve so many covert goals is not surprising.
Language is the fundamental institution of society, not only because it is the
first human institution experienced by the individual, but also because all other
institutions are built upon its regulatory patterns . . . To plan language is to plan
society. (Cooper 1989: 182)

1 INTRODUCTION
In 1971, Rubin and Jernudd edited a book entitled Can Language be Planned?
That was, and remains, an important question, and one that linguists and policy
makers are increasingly confident in answering in the affirmative. As Robert
Cooper noted in the quotation above, ‘to plan language is to plan society’ – and
the planning of society is, if anything, an increasingly common phenomenon in
both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. In fact, the significant question
is not whether language can be planned, but rather how and by whom. In this
chapter, the nature of language planning as an applied sociolinguistic activity
will be explored, with a particular focus on the challenge of linguistic diversity in
South Africa, as well as on the ways in which that diversity has been addressed in
the past and is likely to be addressed in the years ahead. Further, policy issues
in language planning in the South African context, the challenge of ethnicity
for language planning, and finally the future of language policy and language
planning in South Africa will be discussed.

2 THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE PLANNING

An important point that is often minimised, or even overlooked entirely, in
discussions of language planning is that such activity is profoundly political
in nature (see McKay 1993; Pennycook 1994; Phillipson 1992). Language
planning involves public decisions about language, its use, status and develop-
ment – decisions that have overwhelming significance socially, economically,
educationally and politically for both society and the individual. Language
planning cannot be separated from such concerns, nor, indeed, would it be

419
420 T. G. Reagan

appropriate to try to do so. Language-planning efforts are, in short, inevitably

ideological in nature, and this fact must be taken into account in trying to
understand them (see Tollefson 1991: 22–42).
A number of different definitions of language planning have been suggested
(see Cooper 1989). Among the most compelling and complete is that offered by
Eastman (1983: ix), who defined language planning as ‘a developing field that
sees language as a social resource . . . language planning is done through the
cooperative efforts of political, educational, economic and linguistic authorities’.
This definition can be further expanded to include the following features: (a) lan-
guage planning is a conscious and deliberate activity; (b) language planning is
future oriented; and (c) language planning involves choices, and the decision-
making process involved in making these choices.
Further, language planning should be (at least ideally) an essentially demo-
cratic process; one must be sensitive to the role of any authority – however
benevolent or necessary. The language-planning process itself can be divided
into four components: (a) fact finding; (b) establishment and articulation of
goals and strategies; (c) implementation; and (d) evaluation.
Finally, language planning consists of two related but distinct types of ac-
tivities: status planning and corpus planning. In the South African context,
examples of status planning would include the selection of ‘official’ languages
and the use of various languages in official and semi-official settings (for
example, as media of instruction in schools, in law courts, by the state broad-
casting corporation, etc.). Corpus planning, on the other hand, would focus
primarily on the lexical development and expansion of Afrikaans and the
African languages of South Africa. Specific examples of corpus planning would
include the creation of new terminology, and the production of dictionaries,
textbooks, etc.
Language planning can serve as a tool for empowering groups and individu-
als, for creating and strengthening national bonds and ties, and for maximising
educational and economic development. Relatively successful examples of lan-
guage planning include the cases of Turkish (Dogancay-Aktuna 1995; Heyd
1954), Swahili (Polomé and Hill 1980; Whiteley 1969), Hebrew (Sáenz-Badillos
1993; Saulson 1979) and the Central Asian languages of the former Soviet
Union (see Comrie 1981). However, language planning can also be used to
maintain and perpetuate oppression, social-class discrimination, and social and
educational inequity; the history of language policy in South Africa is a pow-
erful example here, as we shall see. Therefore, both the goals and the resultant
policies of language planning should be critically evaluated.
Donna Kerr (1976) has suggested four ‘tests’ that a good public policy must
pass. These four tests, and the fundamental questions that they seek to raise, are:
(1) The desirability test. Is the goal of the policy one that the community as a
whole believes to be desirable?
 Language planning and language policy 421

(2) The justness test. Is the policy just and fair? That is, does it treat all people
in an equitable and appropriate manner?
(3) The effectiveness test. Is the policy effective? Does it achieve its objectives?
(4) The tolerability test. Is the policy resource-sensitive? Is it viable in the
context in which it is to be effected?
These four ‘tests’ are quite useful in evaluating language policies, and may
serve as a working model for analysing different language-planning processes,
providing us with a series of questions that can be used in evaluating different
language-policy options. At this point, though, it is useful to look briefly at the
current state of linguistic diversity in South Africa, and to consider the changes
in that diversity that are likely to occur in the short- and intermediate-term
future.

3 LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

As a general rule, it is safe to say that the more developed a nation is (primarily,
though certainly not exclusively, in economic terms), the greater the degree of
linguistic uniformity that will characterise it. If one keeps this correlation in
mind (and the relationship is correlative rather than causal), South Africa falls
just where one might expect – somewhere between the developed nations and
the countries of the so-called Third World. The language situation in South
Africa is characterised not only by the number and variety of African, Asian
and European languages that coexist, but also by alternative varieties of these
languages. Specifically, there are the koine languages of the townships (see
Schuring 1985), the Afrikaans of the coloured population (see van den Heever
1987, 1988) and a number of distinct native and non-native varieties of South
African English (see, for instance, Mesthrie 1992). There are also three lan-
guages – Arabic, Sanskrit and Hebrew – used almost exclusively for religious
purposes. Finally, there are the various natural sign languages used by the dif-
ferent deaf communities in South Africa (see Penn 1993; Penn and Reagan
1990, 1994, 1995; Reagan and Penn 1997).
However, despite the high degree of linguistic diversity in the country, South
Africa also shares a number of linguistic characteristics with the world’s
‘developed’ nations. The country’s linguistic diversity includes a language of
wider communication, English, which is widely spoken throughout the country,
and by members of virtually all of the different ethnolinguistic groups. There
is a high level and degree of bilingualism and even multilingualism, reflect-
ing the educational level of the population as well as the extensive inter-group
contact that continues, in spite of the legacy of apartheid, to characterise South
African society (see Kaschula and Anthonissen 1995). And, although still far too
low to be acceptable, and certainly skewed disproportionately towards certain
groups at the expense of others, the literacy rate in South Africa is impressive
422 T. G. Reagan

by ‘Third World’ standards, if not by Western ones (see, e.g., French 1982;
National Education Co-ordinating Committee 1993: 69–70). In short, the no-
tion of South Africa as a ‘Fourth World’ society (i.e. one in which elements of
both the ‘First’ and ‘Third’ worlds coexist) clearly makes a great deal of sense
from the perspective of the country’s linguistic situation.
And what of the future? At least in the short term, the language situation is
likely to remain basically unchanged. Those changes that do occur will fall into
four well-documented linguistic processes: language spread, language change,
language emergence and language death. Further, it is important to emphasise
that regardless of the nature of recent political change in South Africa, it is
virtually assured that linguistic diversity will remain a feature of social life
for generations to come, and that bilingualism and multilingualism will remain
commonplace for many, perhaps even most, South Africans well into the next
century.

4 THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF LANGUAGE POLICY IN

SOUTH AFRICA

The taalstryd, or ‘language struggle’, has been a central point of disagreement

and debate throughout the history of South Africa, especially in the educa-
tional sphere (see, for example, Malherbe 1977; Nel 1959: 13–32; Potgieter and
Swanepoel 1968: 98–109). Under the apartheid regime, the language-medium
question was most controversial in black education, where the policy of initial
mother-tongue instruction was widely denounced as an attempt to retribalise
black South Africans (Bunting 1986; Dunja-Blajberg 1980; Hirson 1981; Troup
1976: 34–5). To some extent, though, it is important to remember that the
mother-tongue policy was in fact a reflection of the historical ‘language struggle’
that took place in the white community of South Africa in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, since that struggle deeply influenced both white
perceptions and government policy with regard to language policies in edu-
cation. This earlier ‘language struggle’ had focused in part on the rights of
Afrikaners to educate their children in their mother tongue, in the face of
ongoing efforts at anglicisation (see Kroes 1978; Steyn 1980). Although the
tensions between English and Afrikaans were never eliminated, government
policies of what might be termed ‘active official bilingualism’, coupled with
English and Afrikaans speakers attending their own-medium schools, mitigated
what tensions existed. Language remained a highly controversial issue in black
education, however (Hartshorne 1987; Marivate 1993; Reagan 1986a, 1986b,
1984). Somewhat ironically, it was the Afrikaner government that supported
mother-tongue schooling for blacks, while blacks themselves, for the most
part, opposed such schooling. It is this irony that provides, at least in part, a key
to understanding the apartheid-era debate on language policy in South African
education. The apartheid regime consistently favoured mother-tongue schooling
 Language planning and language policy 423

for blacks (and, in fact, for almost all children in the country), but for arguably
quite different reasons from those used to defend mother-tongue instruction for
white children. It is clear that mother-tongue programmes for blacks were not
only consistent with the ‘ideology of apartheid’, but that they functioned as
one of the pillars of apartheid in perpetuating both racial and ethnolinguistic
divisions in South African society (see Reagan 1987b). Mother-tongue school-
ing for blacks was employed from the passage of the Bantu Education Act of
1953 to the end of the apartheid era to support the social and educational goals
of Verwoerdian-style apartheid. The apartheid regime used such programmes
to reinforce ethnic and tribal identity among black schoolchildren, seeking to
‘divide and conquer’ by encouraging ethnolinguistic divisions within the black
community (see Hartshorne 1992, 1987; Heugh 1985). As Barnard perceptively
noted,
Moedertaalonderwys . . . is not the Afrikaans term for mother-tongue instruction. It is
a political concept which has its roots in the dogma of Christian National Education.
According to this dogma, each ‘race’ or ‘volk’ has its own identity which sets it apart
from all others . . . Surely one has to wonder and become suspicious when there is
this insistence on the part of the authorities to force upon all children, against the
wishes of their parents, a particular language . . . What is being attempted is certainly
not mother-tongue education in the interests of the children but the enforcement of
‘moedertaalonderwys’ as an instrument of social control and subjugation, as a means to
an end. (Quoted in Heugh 1987b: 143–4)

Given this historical background, it is easy to understand the resistance to

mother-tongue education, as well as to mandatory instruction in Afrikaans
(see Reagan 1987a), found in many parts of the black community during the
apartheid era. Indeed, schooling designed to emphasise ethnic and cultural
differences all too often falls prey to this sort of ‘pluralist dilemma’. As the
Australian scholar Brian Bullivant has observed, programmes designed and
intended to encourage ethnic identification, including various kinds of multi-
cultural education programmes in many Western societies, ‘are ideal methods
of controlling knowledge/power, while appearing through symbolic political
language to be acting solely from the best of motives in the interests of the
ethnic groups themselves’ (Bullivant 1981: 291).
This was clearly the case in the South African instance, and while few blacks
were taken in by the rhetoric of pluralism, the same cannot be said for much of
the South African educational establishment, which began utilising the language
of multiculturalism and cultural pluralism towards the end of the apartheid era
(van Zijl 1987). The real problem that now confronts educators and language
planners alike in the South African context is how the realities of cultural and
linguistic diversity can be dealt with in an equitable and just manner.
With respect to language policy, under the apartheid regime a number of rela-
ted and overlapping language policies were implemented in South Africa (see
Reagan 1986b). Among the more important of these language policies were:
424 T. G. Reagan

(i) status planning with respect to Afrikaans (see Steyn 1992);

(ii) lexical development in Afrikaans (corpus planning) (see van Rensburg
1992);
(iii) lexical development in the various African languages (corpus planning);
(iv) mother-tongue schooling for nearly all students in the country (status
planning);
(v) efforts to teach white schoolchildren African languages (status planning);
and
(vi) the creation of a core sign-language lexicon for use in schools for the deaf
by the South African National Council for the Deaf (both corpus and status
planning).
Each of these policies is a clear example of language planning, and each could
presumably be defended on a variety of linguistic, pedagogical and psycho-
logical grounds. Further, taken together they are an impressive demonstration
of the faith of the apartheid regime in language planning as an element of
social engineering. As Kloss (1978: 21) noted, ‘In South Africa, more qualified
scholars, White and Black, are working on this “linguistic engineering” than in
all the rest of Africa. Even Swahili is well behind the South African languages
in educational development, in spite of its easy lead in political status.’
Language policy, in short, remained an important concern throughout the
apartheid era. The policies identified here have all been discussed in con-
siderable detail elsewhere (Penn and Reagan 1990; Reagan 1987b, 1986b;
Reagan and Ntshoe 1987), and so our focus here will be only on the features
they shared as educational policies. The language policies of the apartheid
era were very questionable on ethical, normative and political grounds. The
policies were all characterised by the top-down nature in which they were for-
mulated and implemented. What tied the policies together was that each was
imposed on its target group, for the group’s perceived good as determined by
government bureaucrats. This approach to language policy was based on an es-
sentially technicist approach to the resolution of social problems, coupled with
an absurd reliance on ‘experts’ rather than on consultation with the individuals
and groups most directly affected by and concerned with the policies. As the
African National Congress asserted:
The languages of the people are not permitted to be developed by them in their own
way. Ignorant and officious White professors sit on education committees as arbiters
of African languages and books without consultation with the people concerned. The
grotesque spectacle is seen of the White government of South Africa posing as a
‘protector’ of so-called Bantu culture and traditions of which they know nothing. (Quoted
in Heugh 1987a: 210–11)

Further, the process by which these policies were determined, developed and
implemented was fundamentally undemocratic. In a society as highly politicised
 Language planning and language policy 425

as that of South Africa, such policies were doomed almost from the start. The
end result was that the polices – regardless of any objective merit – were either
accepted (as in the case of the first policy) or rejected (as in the other four cases)
largely on political and ideological grounds alone.
Notice that we have now, in essence, returned to our starting point: the im-
portant issue for language planning and language planners in South Africa
is ultimately how the planning is to be done, and by whom it is to be done.
Language planning is unlikely to be successful without the active support and
participation of the community towards which it is directed. This is why, in part,
the Afrikaans language movement (both in terms of status and corpus planning)
was so successful; it is also why efforts to plan and develop the African lan-
guages are likely to fail if (as in the past under National Party rule) they are met
by resistance from their own speakers.

5 ISSUES IN LANGUAGE POLICY IN CONTEMPORARY

SOUTH AFRICA

In the aftermath of the first democratic elections in South African history in

1994, debates about language policy have taken an interesting, and generally
unpredicted, turn. Although intriguing, the constitutional recognition of eleven
official languages raises a number of questions that remain to be answered in
the years ahead. In short, the challenges of language policy for South Africa
remain to be more fully resolved; the debates are by no means ended.
If we consider language policy on the macro-level, it is clear that there is
a limited number of policy options likely for the short- and intermediate-term
future in South Africa. These options, incidentally, all involve, initially, status-
planning alternatives, since status decisions will necessarily be reflected in
(and, indeed, will in large part determine, or at the very least set the agenda
for) corpus-planning decisions. Future language policy in South Africa will
have to reach some sort of balance among three sets of related concerns, which
will almost certainly conflict: (1) national/political concerns; (2) programmatic
(including pedagogical) concerns; and (3) concerns with issues of social justice
(see Alexander 1989; Schuring 1991).
National/political concerns are those issues and questions that have faced
nearly all emergent post-colonial societies: the selection of an official language
or languages, the role and place of both a language of wider communication
and vernacular languages, protections to be afforded minority languages, etc.
Programmatic concerns are those involved with the implementation of specific
language policies, and will be most difficult in the political, economic, and
especially educational spheres. Concerns with social justice relate primarily to
questions of how and by whom language policies are to be determined, whether
such policies are fair, just and equitable, and so on.
426 T. G. Reagan

As new language policies are developed in the South African context, such
policies will inevitably have to address a number of interrelated status- and
corpus-planning issues, among which are the role and place of English (status
planning), the role and place of Afrikaans (status planning), the role and place of
the various African languages (status planning), the need for lexical develop-
ment in specific languages (corpus planning) and the place of and limits on
‘mother-tongue’ programmes (status planning). Further, any policy adopted
should (at least ideally) be able to pass all four of the policy tests (desirability,
justness, effectiveness and tolerability) discussed above.
Finally, we come to current government language policy. The Government of
National Unity, as well as the new constitution, recognised eleven official lan-
guages, rejecting the historical bilingual policy which reflected only the linguis-
tic diversity of white South Africa with a multilingual policy more accurately
reflecting the reality of South African society. Further, the Reconstruction and
Development Programme of the ANC called for the development of ‘all South
African languages and particularly the historically neglected indigenous lan-
guages’ (African National Congress 1994: 71). This commitment to multilin-
gualism is commendable on a number of grounds, and meets all of Kerr’s policy
tests, with the possible exception of the tolerability test in so far as maintaining
all public and private sector services in all eleven official languages would be
almost certain to prove cost-prohibitive. However, this assumes that past models
of bilingualism are superimposed on current realities – that is, that the absolute
equality of English and Afrikaans sought by the apartheid regime (primarily
as a component of Afrikaner political ideology) is the same kind of equality
to be pursued by the democratic government of South Africa with respect to
all eleven official languages. This, of course, need not be the case, and in fact
is almost certainly not the case. The recognition of eleven official languages
in South Africa does not by any means necessarily imply that all public- and
private-sector services will inevitably be provided in all eleven languages; other,
more cost-sensitive, options and outcomes are possible.
In short, with the end of the apartheid era and the election of a democratic
government in South Africa, language policy in general, and in education
in particular, has received considerable attention as the institutions of South
African society are transformed. One powerful example of this concern with
language policy, especially in the educational sphere, is A Policy Framework
for Education and Training, which is a discussion document issued by the
Education Department of the African National Congress, which sets out pro-
posals related to issues of education and training (African National Congress
1995). Included in this document are four lessons that are identified as be-
ing of ‘the utmost importance’ in order that the ‘cycle of language oppression
be broken’ in South African society in general, and in education in particular
(African National Congress 1995: 62). These four lessons are:
 Language planning and language policy 427

(1) Language policy in education should be the subject of a nation-wide consultative

process, to ensure that proposed changes in policy have the broad consent of the
language communities that will be directly affected by them.
(2) No person or language community should be compelled to receive education through
a language of learning they do not want.
(3) No language community should have reason to fear that the education system will
be used to suppress its mother tongue.
(4) Language restrictions should not be used to exclude citizens from educational op-
portunities. (African National Congress 1995: 62)

In order to ensure that these lessons are reflected in any language policy to be
developed in South Africa, the African National Congress discussion document
goes on to identify three general principles upon which educational language
policy should be based. These principles are:
(1) The right of the individual to choose which language or languages to study and to
use as a language of learning (medium of instruction).
(2) The right of the individual to develop the linguistic skills, in the language or lan-
guages of his or her choice, which are necessary for full participation in national,
provincial, and local life.
(3) The necessity to promote and develop South African languages that were previously
disadvantaged and neglected. (African National Congress 1995: 63)

It seems clear that both the lessons to be learned from past experience and the
general principles upon which educational language policies are to be based
are reflective, in large part, of concerns about past practices in South Africa,
and are intended to be consistent with the goal of a democratic and non-racial
language policy – as well as with the constitutional recognition of the equality
of the eleven official languages of South Africa.
An excellent example of the sort of approach to language policy formula-
tion envisioned by the ANC is the National Education Policy Investigation’s
work on language (NEPI 1992, 1993). The National Education Policy Investiga-
tion (NEPI) was a project undertaken by the National Education Co-ordinating
Committee between 1990 and 1992, the purpose of which was to explore policy
options in the educational sphere ‘within a value framework derived from the
ideals of the broad democratic movement’ (NEPI 1992: vi). The NEPI was
intended, in short, to achieve three principal functions:
(1) the provision of information and a lens to focus on the values which underpin specific
policies;
(2) the stimulation of public debate on educational policy in all spheres of society;
(3) the development of capacity for policy analysis. (NEPI 1992: vi)

In other words, what the NEPI sought to accomplish was to set the stage for
ongoing, and indeed protracted and extensive, debates about educational policy
issues. The language component of the investigation was typical in this regard,
428 T. G. Reagan

and its conclusions provide at most very broad, general guidelines for future
policy development. This can clearly be seen in the final concluding paragraph
of the language report, which argues that
any [language policy] option that is chosen can have an empowering or a disempowering
effect on learners, depending on its suitability for the particular school’s context, on how
it is implemented, and on how it relates to the national language policy of the country.
There is no one policy that is ideal for all schools. Language policy for education needs,
therefore, to be flexible without being so laissez faire as to allow the perpetuation of
present discriminatory policies or ill-informed choices of alternatives to them. (NEPI
1992: 93)

Current efforts now under way in South Africa, whether knowingly or un-
knowingly, are in fact moving in accord with this advice, and as a result the
educational language policies that are in the process of being developed are far
more likely to receive broad popular support than have past policies. Perhaps
the most outstanding example of this has been the reception of the final report of
the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). This group was created in 1995
by Dr B. S. Ngubane, the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology,
with the explicit task of devising a national language plan for South Africa. The
final LANGTAG report, issued in August 1996, clearly attempted to achieve
the following objectives, which had been identified by Dr Ngubane:
(1) All South Africans should have access to all spheres of South African society by
developing and maintaining a level of spoken and written language which is appro-
priate for a range of contexts in the official language(s) of their choice.
(2) All South Africans should have access to the learning of languages other than their
mother tongue.
(3) The African languages, which have been disadvantaged by the linguicist policies of
the past, should be developed and maintained.
(4) Equitable and widespread language services should be established. (Language Plan
Task Group 1996: 7)

In short, what is occurring with respect to language policy in the contemporary

South African context is an ongoing effort both to democratise the language-
planning process and to ensure the protection of language rights for all South
Africans. The challenge facing the government has been, and continues to be,
to accomplish this in a way that meets all of Kerr’s policy tests (including, most
notably, that of tolerability).

6 THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNICITY

The central problem that South Africa faces in responding to the very real
fact of language diversity is the understandably close linkage in the minds of
 Language planning and language policy 429

many South Africans between ethnicity and apartheid. ‘Ethnicity’ in the South
African context is not merely a descriptive term, it is rather a normative term,
and to defend ethnicity as a legitimate manifestation of human experience and
awareness has for many become synonymous with defending apartheid. As
Heugh (1987: 208) noted before the 1994 election: ‘Ethnicity is regarded by
the government’s extra-parliamentary critics as a euphemism for racism and a
policy not only inimical to black unity but also part of the government’s grand
apartheid scheme of divide and rule.’
This need not be the case, though, and it is important that appropriate mani-
festations of ethnicity be recognised, as the new government has already shown
signs of doing. As Adam and Moodley argued in South Africa without Apartheid
(1986: 220):

Liberalism has for the most part failed to recognise the legitimate aspects of mobilized
ethnicity, by associating ethnicity solely with unfair advantage or the height of irrational-
ity. But insofar as ethnicity expresses cultural distinctiveness and the quest for individual
identity through group membership, it may fulfill desires that liberalism ignores. People
do not necessarily want to be the same . . . Cultural ethnicity only becomes problematic
if is transformed into economic and political ethnicity for the advantage of its members
at the expense of outsiders.

Closely related to the concept of ethnicity is that of ethnic or group rights,

which will almost certainly include a recognition of language rights. Although
the term ‘group rights’ is again a highly politicised and very controversial one
in the South African context, it is not without merit. As Degenaar (1987: 246)
argued with respect to the apartheid regime:

The South African government has interpreted the concept of group rights over a long
period of time to the advantage of whites. Yet such distortions of the concept of group
rights in favour of group privilege should not invalidate the concept. One should rather
introduce the principle of justice, to help evaluate the applications of the concept of
group rights.

The question of rights, and specifically of language rights, is a central one in

the development of language policies, and one that will have to be resolved
if language policy in South Africa is to play a positive role in the emergence
of a more just and humane society. The new constitution explicitly recognises
and protects both linguistic and cultural rights, although important questions
remain about the nature and limits of such rights. What remains to be clarified in
this regard is how such rights are to be understood and how, in actual practice,
they are to be protected – significant questions that are far from unique to
South Africa, as recent discussions on language rights internationally make
clear (see Coulombe 1993; Prinsloo et al. 1993).
430 T. G. Reagan

7 CONCLUSION

In concluding, I want to stress that my concern with language planning in South

Africa is its widespread past use to support undemocratic and untenable gov-
ernment policies. As Cluver has perceptively argued (1992: 105),‘Language
planning in South Africa has been characterized by the fact that the members
of one group (white South Africans and particularly the Afrikaans-speaking
group) have monopolized political power and therefore determined that their
cultural values and symbols (such as their languages) would be the national
symbols.’
As long as language planning and language-policy formulation is seen as
a top-down activity, removed from those whose lives it affects most closely,
and is perceived as an activity only for those with specialised expertise, it will
most probably continue to be generally ineffective. What is needed, instead,
is language policies devised in consultation with, and with the support and
involvement of, those they are intended to serve. This, in turn, requires that
ethnic, cultural and linguistic rights, whether conceived in individual or group
terms, will of necessity have to be protected, as will the political, social, edu-
cational and economic rights of all South Africans. Underlying this concern,
of course, is the point made so well by James Tollefson (1991: 167): ‘The
foundation for rights is power and . . . constant struggle is necessary to sustain
language rights.’ Two decades ago, Heinz Kloss, in a study of language pol-
icy in South Africa, commented (1978: 10): ‘When based on careful language
planning, language policy is more than a mere appurtenance to racial policy or
to any other dimension in the struggle for human rights, and may acquire, if
properly implemented, a dignity of its own.’
It is the challenge of making this true in the South African case that faces
applied linguists now. I believe that language planning can make an important
contribution to the creation of a better, more just and equitable South Africa,
but it if is to do so, those involved in language planning activities must approach
these activities in a less technicist, more democratic, way, for the good of all
South Africans.

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23 Language issues in South African education:
an overview

Sarah Murray

1 INTRODUCTION
South Africa is undergoing great change, not least in the areas of educa-
tional and language policy. We are moving away from policies that emphasised
strong boundaries between languages and people, towards those that encourage
people to learn and use many languages to communicate with each other. South
Africans – a descriptor which only now includes everyone in South Africa –
are urged to discard their old singular identities, rooted in an intimate bonding
of race, language and culture, in order to embrace a more complex sense of
self. This new South Africanism is dynamic: it is rooted in a previously unac-
knowledged commonality, forged through historic and economic processes, but
it also acknowledges and gives expression to different languages and cultures
(Alexander 1996).
Alexander – one of the main proponents of this view – argues that multilin-
gualism, which challenges the inseparability of language, culture and identity,
will play a large part in achieving this new identity. He sees education as an
important means through which South Africa’s multilingualism can be both
validated and developed (1996: 11).
In this dynamic view of language and culture, multilingualism is seen as a
resource to be drawn upon, in much the same way that Thornton (1988) views
culture. This more fluid notion of languages, which does not insist on their
separation or containment, is ever present in the educational language issues I
have chosen to discuss in this overview.
They are: the choice of languages to be used in school and for what purposes;
the issue of code-switching in the classroom; the question of literacy – a point
at which variety and standard often come into conflict; and the preparation of
teachers, both in terms of their own language proficiencies and their capacity
to teach linguistically diverse classes equitably.
To set the scene for this discussion, it is necessary first to look back briefly
in order to understand some of the perceptions and realities that remain with us
in the current education system.

434
 Language issues in South African education 435

2 A LOOK BACK TO THE PAST

It is a truism to say that policies of language and education are inherently
political, but nowhere more so than in South Africa where language has been
closely bound up in the system of ethnic and racial division. During the colonial
and apartheid periods, language was a defining characteristic of ethnicity and –
partly through the process of standardisation of African languages – was used to
set the boundaries of ethnic identities (Herbert 1992). At the height of apartheid,
these boundaries were also spatial: many people were removed to ethnic –
mainly rural – ‘homelands’, and urban townships were linguistically zoned.
A racially and ethnically segregated education system was central to the
maintenance of these boundaries. Separate white and coloured education de-
partments were further divided along linguistic lines, each with its own
Afrikaans- and English-medium schools and some that were dual or parallel
medium. Schools in the Department of Indian Education had English as their
medium of instruction. Black schools fell under several different departments:
those in areas administered by the apartheid government were the responsibil-
ity of the Department of Education and Training (DET); the rest fell under the
various ‘homeland’ education departments, though the DET maintained a de-
gree of control through its administration of the matric examination. From 1979
onwards, the language situation in all black schools was fairly uniform: chil-
dren were educated in an African language – in theory their ‘mother tongue’ –
for the first four years of schooling; thereafter English was the medium of
instruction. (For a more detailed account, see Hartshorne 1992, chap. 7.)
By the time of the first democratic elections in 1994, some of these bound-
aries were beginning to crumble (see Freer 1992), but – broadly speaking –
the situation in schools remained much as it had before. White, Indian and
coloured children were, in the main, being educated through their home lan-
guages (i.e. English or Afrikaans), though the latter group in particular might
encounter a different variety of their language at school. These home
languages – English and Afrikaans – were also the official languages of the
state, and the children learned the other official language as a second lan-
guage. Black children began their education in an African language; in the
case of children living in ‘homelands’ or other areas where one language was
dominant, such as Natal, this was generally their home language, although
children living in multilingual metropolitan areas were often sent to the near-
est school, regardless of whether the official language of instruction was one
they spoke in their (frequently multilingual) homes. Black children generally
began learning English in the second year of their education, and Afrikaans
in the fourth year. In their fifth year, English became the medium of instruc-
tion for most of these children. Despite the demands made on black children
436 S. Murray

in terms of language learning, their schools were deliberately underresourced

(see Donaldson 1992).
During the period immediately prior to the elections, there was some move-
ment of black children – speakers of African languages – into white, Indian and
coloured schools, especially those that were English medium. Schools, how-
ever, did not adjust their language policies in any way to assist these children,
and they often controlled admission by means of language tests.

3 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY

After the elections, the old separate departments of education fell away and all
government schools became the responsibility of provincial departments. The
separate legislative acts that had governed schooling were replaced, in 1996,
by the South African Schools Act, which provided a ‘uniform system for the
organisation, governance and funding of schools’ (South Africa 1996: 5).
The interim constitution – accepted in its final form by the Constitutional
Assembly in 1996 – declared eleven languages official: Pedi, Sotho, Tswana,
Swati, Venda, Tsonga, Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Xhosa and Zulu. It has
given every person the right to basic education in the language of his or her
choice where this is reasonably practicable. The various language boards, re-
sponsible in the past for the development and regulation of individual languages,
have been replaced by the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB).
This move was called for as early as 1992 by Neville Alexander (1992: 160–1),
who has been a driving force behind the board, and – until recently – its deputy
chairperson.
The specific form that educational language policy should take had been
vigorously debated since the early 1990s. Kathy Luckett (1992, 1993), a re-
searcher for the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI), had put the
notion of ‘national additive bilingualism’ firmly on the agenda, although her
ideas had not been unequivocally accepted by NEPI itself (Young 1993a). In
essence her position was that any policy involving a transition from home- to
second-language medium of instruction was ‘subtractive’; she argued for some
form of dual-medium policy. The ANC’s own Language Policy in Education
Working Group had supported Luckett’s position, arguing strongly for an
‘additive bilingual/multilingual approach’, and also for the recognition of multi-
lingualism as a ‘national resource’ and a move away from terms such as ‘medium
of instruction’ to ‘language(s) of learning’ (Centre for Education Policy Devel-
opment (CEPD) 1993). This position had been promoted and popularised by the
National Language Project (NLP) in its publication, Language Projects Review
(later renamed Bua!), and by the Project for the Study of Alternative Education
in South Africa – PRAESA – of which Alexander is director (see Heugh
et al. 1995).
 Language issues in South African education 437

The Department of Education had itself produced a discussion document in

1995, in which it had proposed ‘a multilingual policy’ in which ‘no language
should be introduced at the expense of another’ (Department of Education 1995:
25). However, in 1997, the Minister of Education announced a ‘new language
policy in general and further education’ with a more pragmatic flavour. In his
announcement, the minister gave support in principle, first, to multilingualism,
which he redefined as ‘the learning of more than one language rather than more
than two languages’ and second, to the maintenance ‘of home language(s) while
providing access to the effective acquisition of additional language(s)’ (Bengu
1997: 1). The choice of the language of learning and teaching, which they must
make when they apply to a particular school, now rests with learners. In terms
of the South African Schools Act (1996), if the school uses that language and
there is a place available, it must admit the child.
School governing bodies are recognised as ‘the key partner’ in pursuit of the
goal of multilingualism, and they are required under the Act ‘to announce the
school’s language policy, and to state how it will promote multilingualism
through a variety of measures’ (Bengu 1997: 2). In practice, this policy opens
the doors to multilingual approaches but choice and direction lie with parents
and schools. Aside from the fact that schools can no longer exclude children
on the grounds of inadequate language proficiency, they could carry on much
as they have done in the past. As one teacher, responding to the minister’s an-
nouncement, put it: ‘It still leaves schools with the option of offering English and
Afrikaans only, thus continuing with the marginalisation of African languages
as the medium of instruction’ (quoted in Shoai 1997).
An important development in South African education has been, in 1998, the
first phase of the introduction of a new outcomes-based curriculum (Department
of Education 1997). This will have many implications for the teaching of
languages in schools.

4 LANGUAGE-RELATED ISSUES IN SCHOOLS

4.1 The language(s) of learning and teaching

It seems obvious that a situation in which a minority of South Africans –
English and Afrikaans speakers, both black and white – are educated in their
home languages, whereas African-language speakers make an early transi-
tion to learning in another language disadvantages the latter (majority) group.
Research carried out in the late 1980s as part of the Threshold Project lent
support to the view that neither African children nor their teachers could
cope with a transition to English as the language of learning and teaching
in the fifth year of schooling (Macdonald 1990). More recently, many African
children are said to struggle – both linguistically and in terms of their cultural
438 S. Murray

identity – in previously white, coloured and Indian English-medium schools

(Young et al. 1995). Luckett, drawing on the work of Cummins and Swain
(1986), would argue that these are both forms of subtractive bilingualism
which occur when ‘a second language is learned at the expense of the first
language, which it gradually replaces’. She maintains that this happens when
‘the social conditions of learning devalue the child’s first language and asso-
ciated culture’ and that this may ‘impede cognitive and social development’
(1992: 46–7).
However, African students and their parents do not seem to favour a move
away from English as the language of learning and teaching. While maintaining
a strong allegiance to their home languages (Young et al. 1995: 63), students
seem to see them as just that – the languages of the home – whereas English is
perceived as the language of aspiration (Pather 1994). Similarly, many parents
believe that the home language is learnt quite adequately at home; it is the job
of the school to teach the language of wider communication. As a parent in
KwaZulu-Natal put it:
Izingane uma sizithumela esikoleni sisuke sibheke ukuthi zifunde izinto ezintsha. Isizulu
lesi ingane isuke isazi isikhipha ngamakhala, ngakho-ke asikho isidingo sokuba leyon-
gane ibelokhu isina ndawonye.
(When we send children to school we expect them to acquire new knowledge. By
school-going age a child is already a fluent speaker of Zulu . . . so there is no need for
that child to dance on one spot . . . that child must learn English and be taught in English.)
(Mhlanga 1995: 41–2)
The motivation to learn and use English is instrumental (Pather 1994; Mhlanga
1995); neither students nor parents wish to identify with English cultural values
and they seem to favour an African variety of English, especially with regard
to accent (Bosch and de Klerk 1996; Smit 1994).
African teachers are more aware than parents of the difficulties children
experience learning in a second language. In a survey carried out as part of
NEPI, over 70 per cent felt their students would do better if they could learn
through their home languages (Bot 1993). However, these same teachers were
against students using their own languages in the classroom or to answer tests
and examinations. They overwhelmingly supported English as the language of
learning and wanted to see it introduced earlier.
The reasons for this are not difficult to surmise. At the time of the survey
teachers were constrained by the current language policy, and although they
understood their students’ difficulties, they were also aware of the economic
power of English. The downward pressure of the matric examination and lan-
guage policies in colleges, technikons and universities also plays a part, and
although the National Commission on Higher Education (1996) has given lim-
ited support for multilingualism, it seems likely that the role of English will
become stronger rather than weaker in higher education.
 Language issues in South African education 439

Makoni provides an explanation for the pragmatism with which many

Africans accept the role of English in education. He has argued that in Africa
multilingualism is the norm and different languages are used alongside each
other to fulfil different roles; in such a situation second-language learning is
seen as one of the functions of education. He questions the adequacy of concepts
such as additive and subtractive bilingualism – originating in Western societies
where language loss occurs in the face of dominant languages – to ‘capture the
complexities of the African multilingual setting’ (1994: 22).
Acknowledging the complexities of our situation, Langhan (1996) suggests a
contextual approach to the choice of medium, in which one analyses the critical
conditions necessary for the success of a particular school language policy.
Given the highly differentiated system of education South Africa has inherited,
different policies are likely to work in different contexts. With the devolution of
language policymaking to the school level, work such as Langhan’s is important.
There is a danger that the concerns of educationists will be marginalised, and his
work bridges the gap between research and the practicalities of local decision
making (see also Roberts 1997).

4.2 Code-switching
Code-switching (CS) is a typical feature of multilingual societies such as South
Africa (see McCormick and Slabbert and Finlayson, chaps. 11 and 12, this
volume). However, previous educational language policies, which were
premised on strong boundaries between languages, viewed the practice un-
favourably. Nevertheless, it was widespread; in the NEPI survey a third of all
teachers interviewed said they used more than one language in the classroom
(Bot 1993). This was the case in primary schools where an African language
was the medium of instruction and in high schools where English was the
medium. Nomvete (1994: 13) quotes an experienced Grade 1 teacher from a
farm school in Bronkhorstspruit talking about her use of two closely related
Nguni languages under the old political dispensation: ‘Most of my learners are
Ndebele and the inspector insists that I teach them in isiZulu because that is the
official DET policy for that area, but I often use isiNdebele and only insist on
isiZulu for written work and tests and when I know the inspector is coming.’ In
the same study, a high school English teacher describes the difficulty of teaching
in English and the problematic consequences of CS when written assessment
is in that language:
My learners are mainly Zulu, Ndebele and North Sotho speaking. At school the policy
is that they learn all the subjects in English with the exception of isiZulu and Northern
Sotho as subjects. These children speak the three languages most of the time and English
only in class. These children are not exposed to English most of their time and yet they
are expected to learn in English in order to be successful in their lives. There are those
440 S. Murray

teachers who sometimes use isiZulu . . . even if a teacher can teach something in isiZulu
and those children understand him very well, he is going to test them in English since it
is not allowed to test in isiZulu. So those poor children are now going to find it difficult
to answer those questions even if they have understood their work. (Nomvete 1994: 13)

This poignant description encapsulates the tensions in educational language

policy: English is the language of power and therefore of choice, but there
is insufficient access to it, and the necessary compensatory strategy of CS has
predictable consequences. To borrow a phrase from de Kadt (1993), it illustrates
‘the dangerous power of English’.
In the new policy dispensation CS is viewed positively and seen as an edu-
cational resource. However, there is still considerable debate about the issue.
There are those who support it wholeheartedly (Peires 1994), those who argue
for a principled approach to CS (Adendorff 1992); and those who are against it
altogether (Kgomoeswana 1993).
Some commentators support CS in content subject classrooms where the goal
is communication, but would be more cautious about its use in the language
class where the goal is language learning and the boundaries between languages
need to be clearer. Both Gough (1993) and Langhan (1996) suggest that CS is a
characteristic of competent bilinguals rather than a good strategy for language
learning. Gough argues that the practice holds back learners’ development in
both languages involved because they are not ‘being challenged by the input
to learn the languages further’ (1993: 2). He maintains that ‘multilingualism
is a resource if you make it one’ (1993: 6), that is by enabling people to learn
several languages well.
An aspect of CS that is of particular concern in previously white and coloured
schools is its use by students to subvert the power of teachers. In my own
research, both students and teachers expressed concern about this (Murray 1998:
13). At a previously ‘coloured’ high school, an African student said, ‘Most of
the time students speak Zulu, Tswana or Sotho in class. Sometimes they swear
at teachers.’ Another expressed her unhappiness about this: ‘It’s a shame. These
people are talking rubbish and she doesn’t understand what it’s all about.’ In
some schools this has led to the reassertion of an English/Afrikaans only rule
in the classroom; it has also motivated teachers to enrol on African-language
courses!

4.3 The teaching of languages as subjects

In the past, each language was taught in isolation with different syllabuses
and methodologies for ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’ languages (Murray and
van der Mescht 1996). Although this was largely taken for granted, the or-
thodoxy was challenged in several ways. There was always a question mark
 Language issues in South African education 441

over the distinction between first and second language, particularly in relation
to English (Mawasha 1984). As Janks (1990: 243) put it, ‘subtle undertones of
“second-language, second-class” exist in the society’. This was not an issue in
relation to African languages, which were in any case not taught as second but
as third or foreign languages.
There was much debate, too, about the use of different varieties of languages
in the classroom, with calls for the Africanisation of English (Ndebele 1987). In
the case of African languages the debate centred around the issue of standardi-
sation and the work of the language boards. The standard languages prescribed
in the school syllabuses bore little relation to the varieties of those languages
spoken in students’ homes, particularly for those living in metropolitan areas
where varieties are characterised by high levels of CS (Botha 1994). Ntshangase
(chap. 21, this volume) describes a teacher who finds it necessary to switch to
Iscamtho to explain difficult things in a Zulu lesson. In the classroom, this was
exacerbated by the dry and formal way in which African languages were taught
(Nokaneng 1986), resulting in the claim by many African students that they
find it easier to study English as a subject than their home languages.
In recent debates the whole notion of a single home language or mother
tongue has been challenged, and it has been suggested that for many urban
children English is very much part of the home repertoire (Winkler 1997). This
raises questions regarding the choice of languages as subjects (and as languages
of learning) and the levels at which they should be taught and learned. In
considering the issue it is important to bear in mind that both parents and students
seem to be against the use of non-standard varieties of African languages for
educational purposes (Pather 1994; Ntshangase, chap. 21, this volume).
The new curriculum takes account of these concerns. There are no longer
separate syllabuses or, in fact, syllabuses at all; there is a ‘learning area’ called
‘Language, literacy and communication’ in which are described the common
‘outcomes’ for all languages. While learners are to be given access to standard
forms of a language where appropriate, acceptance of different varieties is en-
couraged. A distinction is made between ‘main’ and ‘additional’ languages, but
all learners will be expected to achieve the same outcomes, albeit at different
levels. Some questions have been raised about the appropriacy of a core cur-
riculum, which has been conceptualised in English and now applies to other
languages. Maclean (1997), for example, believes that common outcomes need
to be written at a sufficient level of generality to be inclusive of discursive dif-
ferences between languages; he believes that some in the new curriculum are
generic in this way, but others are not.
It has yet to be seen what all this will mean in practice. At the time of writing,
we are five months into the Grade 1 implementation. In the Eastern Cape,
with which I am familiar, things have got off to a rather slow start, especially
in rural schools, and there is a shortage of learning materials. The learning
442 S. Murray

programme for Grade 1 is holistic and integrated, and the language used for
different aspects of the curriculum seems to be determined by the language of
the learning materials delivered to the school. These materials, in any event,
have been conceptualised in English and translated into other languages.
In previously white schools, many of which now have large enrolments of
African children, English or Afrikaans are still the languages of learning and
teaching. However, in some schools Xhosa has been introduced as a subject,
and in multilingual classes – alongside their English- and Afrikaans-speaking
classmates – Xhosa-speaking children are being taught to say Molo, titshalakazi
(‘Hello, teacher’)! This, incidentally, has become a phenomenon higher up in
such schools, where Xhosa-speaking children study Xhosa as a third language.
There are exceptional schools. One such is Collegiate Junior School in Port
Elizabeth where all the children learn three languages – English, Xhosa and
Afrikaans. The school has employed Xhosa-speaking teachers and developed a
communicative methodology for teaching the language with the assistance of an
NGO called L-MAP (Language Methods and Programmes).1 This is no mean
feat in a time of financial stringency and teacher retrenchments. However, it is
worth noting that in a parent survey, less than half of the Xhosa-speaking parents
regarded first-language support for their children as important (Plüddemann
1995).

4.4 Literacy
Levels of literacy are a matter of concern in all schools where enliteration is
complicated by the language issue (Winkler 1997: 35), but especially in African
schools where this is compounded by a lack of resources (Ntete 1998).
The Molteno Project has researched and developed a programme – Break-
through – for enliterating children in African languages, over a period of more
than twenty years. Breakthrough is available in all eleven official languages;
it is a national programme in Botswana and has been developed in a number
of the languages of Namibia. Molteno has also developed Bridge to English,
a programme which systematically builds on the foundation of literacy in an
African language and transfers this to English. Evaluations of the project’s work
have been overwhelming positive, though it could be criticised on the grounds
that it is ‘subtractive’ – something which it is now remedying; it has also been
criticised for its instrumentality. (See also Walters 1996.)
The lack of reading materials in African schools is a serious problem; cur-
rently 80 per cent of schools do not have libraries (Garson 1998). An NGO
called READ has done much to remedy this by creating class libraries in the
form of book boxes, developing local reading materials and educating teachers
in their use. READ has been criticised for its overemphasis on developing a
reading culture in all contexts, both rural and urban, through books in English
 Language issues in South African education 443

(Garwen 1995). Alexander (1996: 11) has argued that ‘the lack of a reading
culture in the African languages in South Africa is the single most important
sociocultural factor that explains the continued low status of these languages’.
The Teacher, a monthly newspaper, has consistently advocated the use of
public libraries. However, the current crisis in funding places their very exis-
tence in jeopardy, and alongside the lack of money for school textbooks and
the consequent downsizing of educational publishing, this does not bode well
for the availability of books in future. This is particularly sad when one was
beginning to see reading material in African languages coming onto the market.
The issue of how children learn to read and write should be at the top of our
research agenda, but recently it seems to have been eclipsed by concerns about
multilingualism. And although literacy is foregrounded in the new curriculum,
reading and writing is subsumed under ‘literacies’ – language literacy, cultural
literacy, critical literacy, visual literacy, media literacy and computer literacy –
a move, incidentally, that carries the potential to create new boundaries (see
Street 1997). While it is important that a more sophisticated understanding of
the nature of literacy and literacy practices should inform our curriculum, it is
equally important that we should not lose sight of the important task of schools
to teach children to read and write. Researchers should, in particular, be con-
sidering the relationship between spoken and written varieties of languages in
multilingual communities and the implications of this for enliterating children.
There has been a wealth of research in South Africa in higher education,
as this is the point at which students’ poor levels of literacy become apparent.
This research focuses almost exclusively on academic literacy in English and
is widely reported in conference proceedings of the South African Association
for Academic Development (SAAAD) and the Southern African Applied
Linguistics Association (SAALA), and in journals such as the South African
Journal of Higher Education. Recently, too, there has been research into literacy
practices in the field of adult education (Prinsloo and Breier 1996).

4.5 Teacher education

A recurring theme in this overview has been the centrality of English in South
African education. This may lead one to believe that the only linguistic re-
quirement for teachers is a good command of that language, but this is not so.
In my own research, teachers in English-medium classes described how their
inability to speak an African language created a linguistic and social barrier
between themselves and their African students. The students felt it important
that their teachers speak an African language for emotional as much as educa-
tional reasons; one said, ‘We Africans, we actually feel if you can meet a person
who speaks your own home language, you actually feel comfortable, you feel
at home with that person’ (Murray 1998: 12).
444 S. Murray

The minimum language requirements for teaching in South Africa – known

as the language endorsement – currently require a teacher to be able to teach
proficiently in one official language and to be reasonably fluent in another.
In practice, this means English and an African language for African teachers,
and English and Afrikaans for other teachers. Young (1995: 108) suggests
this needs to be tightened up and ‘teachers should not qualify without being
rigorously trained and assessed as bilingual or trilingual’, the latter depending
on the context in which they are going to teach. This does not, however, solve
the problem of practising teachers who need in-service support for additional
language learning (see Johanson 1996).
Teachers also need strategies to teach inclusively in multilingual classrooms.
Young (1995: 109–11) has proposed a ‘core curriculum in language education
for teacher trainees’, which includes language proficiency, language awareness
and methodologies of teaching. Some institutions have begun to move in this di-
rection (Murray and Hendricks 1997), and an NGO called the English Teaching
Information Centre (ELTIC) has developed an in-service distance course for
teachers – Diteme Tsa Thuto: Multilingual Learning (ELTIC 1997). ELTIC has
also worked collaboratively in schools with another NGO – Transfer of African
Language Knowledge (TALK); TALK has provided teachers with the means to
learn an African language of their choice and ELTIC has helped them develop
strategies for teaching in multilingual classrooms (Johanson 1996).
A much-neglected area of teacher education is the training of teachers to teach
African languages and, as Dowling and Maseko (1995) point out, there is also
a need for improved teaching methodologies in this area. Teacher education is
currently under review in South Africa (Technical Committee for the Revision
of Norms and Standards 1997), and there is some likelihood that the concerns
raised here will be addressed.

5 CONCLUSION
The idealistic goals of South Africa’s multilingual language policy in education
are hard to take issue with, but difficult to achieve in practice. Outside the
classroom, people use their linguistic resources in flexible ways to achieve their
communicative purposes. Inside the classroom, however, the teacher is expected
to develop students’ linguistic abilities in particular languages in demonstrable
ways. To achieve this teachers must make endless decisions: how to ensure, for
example, in a multilingual class, that home-language speakers of, say, Xhosa are
sufficiently stretched in their Xhosa lessons. What to do about an essay written
in non-standard Zulu, and so on. In such situations, ‘standards’ in at least
two senses of the word become an issue. And for the teacher multilingualism
becomes not just a resource, but also a problem. (See Barkhuizen in Young et al
1995: 91.)
 Language issues in South African education 445

Ironically, the full development of multilingualism as a resource requires not

inconsiderable human and material resources. For example, at some schools it
requires the appointment of new teachers, the purchase of new textbooks and
library materials, and space for more languages in the timetable. In the current
economic climate of fiscal conservatism it is unlikely that these resources will
be made available.
Alongside this is the likelihood that, with language-policy decisions devolved
to the school, English will, in the short term, become even more pervasive
as the language of learning and teaching. There is a strong possibility that
multilingualism will be reduced to a set of language-awareness activities in
the English class, and the use of code-switching as an ‘educational resource’
in content subject classes. It would be sad, in my view, if this perception of
multilingualism in education were to distract us from the important task of
teaching all South Africa’s languages really well.

notes
1 This organisation used to be known as ELMAP (English Language Methods and
Programmes).

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24 Recovering multilingualism: recent
language-policy developments

Kathleen Heugh

1 BACKGROUND
Language-policy developments in South Africa have undergone dramatic
changes over the last decade. Explicit statements of policy have shifted away
from the segregationist mould of the previous apartheid government with the
widely divergent roles and functions it ascribed to the various languages of
the country. There is now a move towards principles that espouse the equal
status and functions of eleven of the country’s languages in addition to the
promotion of respect for, and use of, other languages. The extraordinary cir-
cumstances surrounding the political negotiations that led to a sharing of power
after the country’s first democratic elections of 1994 created the opportunity
for ‘proposals from below’ (from civil society), to take root in a manner which
has never before been possible in South Africa. Many of the proposals for new
language policy have been accepted on an official level and an encouraging,
optimistic environment seemed, in the early years of the new government of
national unity, to promise a vibrant future for language development and mul-
tilingualism. In the era of globalisation, however, there are larger structural
forces at play, which influence international and domestic economic and devel-
opment policies. These forces are generally antithetical to multilingualism. It
should therefore not be surprising that tensions in language-policy development
are beginning to manifest themselves. In part, these tensions are discernible in
other multilingual societies, particularly in Africa; in part they are peculiar to
South Africa. In this chapter, the emergence of a language policy based on the
multilingual reality of the country will be discussed against a background of
developments in other African countries as well as the impact of globalisation
and the Western political economy.
A conservative estimate of about five thousand languages used in about two
hundred countries indicates that multilingualism is a global reality. However, as
David Crystal (1987: 360) points out: ‘The widespread impression that multilin-
gualism is uncommon is promoted by government policies: less than a quarter
of the world’s nations give official recognition to two languages . . . and only
six recognise three or more.’ South Africa is thus in the pioneering position of

449
450 K. Heugh

now recognising eleven official languages, more than any other country; and its
new constitution (1996) together with the Pan South African Language Board
Act (1995) and a later amendment to this Act impel, in principle, the promotion
of respect for other languages as well as the promotion of multilingualism and
the development of languages. These impulses place the country at the cutting
edge of international language-policy development.
Ingrid Gogolin (1993) refers to the ‘monolingual habitus’1 in which the
general, Western perception about language resides. The South African govern-
ment, however, nurtured a public and bilingual ‘habitus’ during the half-century
of Afrikaner nationalist rule, and it has not, since Milner’s Anglicisation pol-
icy at the turn of the last century, projected a monolingual view of the world
through its language policy. Language policy under apartheid was driven by
a two-pronged logic: to counteract the hegemony of English foisted upon the
country under Milner and to pursue the principle of separate development.
This involved extensive modernisation of Afrikaans, in addition to limited and
separate language development in each of nine African languages/varieties of
languages. In this way, the social, educational and political segregation of the
users of the different languages was encouraged. Social stratification was fur-
thered through the application of this policy since the development of Afrikaans
was to ensure unrestricted functional use of the language, whereas the develop-
ment of African languages was only intended to occur for restricted purposes.
They were never intended for use in the upper levels of education, the economy
or political activity.
Despite conscious language-planning activities designed to limit the hege-
mony of English, the functional status of English increased, particularly in
the economically powerful, English-speaking private sector. The monolingual
habitus of English speakers seemed to be in conflict with the apartheid language
policy’s promotion of Afrikaans, giving the illusion that there was an overlap
of interests between the major opponents of apartheid and the proponents of
English in South Africa. This permitted, for a time, a faulty public percep-
tion that it was primarily the Afrikaans-speaking white community that was
responsible for the segregationist political and economic system in the country.
It hid the structural and economic support of the powerful corporations largely
owned by the English-speaking community. The emphasis given Afrikaans
in the secondary schools for African-language-speaking students until 1977
gave rise to a justifiable belief that the government was attempting to limit
access to English. Just as Milner’s Anglicisation policy engendered resistance
from those to whom it was primarily directed, so too did the National Party’s
attempt to foist Afrikaans upon African-language speakers spark resistance.
This culminated in the 1976 revolt of students led by the Black Consciousness
Movement in Soweto, which has been well documented elsewhere (for example,
Hartshorne 1992: 195–205). Thus, the majority of African-language speakers
 Recovering multilingualism 451

became neither willing champions of their own languages nor willing users of
Afrikaans. Instead they became committed to English for high-status commu-
nicative functions. In so doing they have, in effect, collaborated with the larger
political and economic interests of the West in the mistaken belief that access
to English will deliver power, both economic and political, to the majority.2
Developments during the 1990s have catapulted official statements on lan-
guage policy out of the domain of an official Afrikaans–English bilingualism,
with privileged status for two languages, to that of functional multilingualism.
Both the interim and final constitutions of 1993 and 1996 task government and
civil society with addressing a multilingual reality. This, however, needs to be
understood against the gathering momentum of an overwhelming drive toward
the monolingual habitus, and the dynamics of linguicism (linguistic racism).3
Language policies tend to reflect the interests of the ruling elite. But the
argument being made here is that the application of language policy is very
often a reflection of a more complicated set of relationships between overt
political ideology and the more covert aspects of the political economy. To
compound matters, it is not just the political economy of a particular country
that would affect that country’s language policy. The hegemony of the Western
free-market economy is such that it influences the economies of developing
countries. A Western economy is also very often accompanied by linguicism
which places high status on English, for example, and low status on other
languages. Western aid packages to the developing world have impacted, and
continue to impact upon, the implementation of language policy. It is important
to look at international trends in language policy, and their relation to political
ideology and free-enterprise economy, in order to assess the implications of
implementing new language-policy options for South Africa. Implicit in the
arguments of this chapter is the recognition that language policies are usually
arrived at by a top-down process which rarely accommodates the perspective
or needs of people from below.

2 LANGUAGE-POLICY PARADIGMS

For the purpose of identifying where the points of tension are to be found
in relation to language-policy developments in South Africa, the following is
presented as a frame of reference. Ruiz (1984) has articulated a way of viewing
language from three different theoretical positions: language as a problem;
language as a right; and language as a resource. A number of sociolinguists have
explored and found useful this avenue for understanding the origin of language
policies as well as their implementation strategies. (See, for example, Lo Bianco
1990, with regard to Australia and Akinnaso 1991, with regard to Nigeria.) An
analysis here of language policies and the language-planning mechanisms that
ensue, when viewed against the Ruiz typology, reveals the following:
452 K. Heugh

(1) Language is seen as a problem in societies where the ruling ideology is

segregation. The response to de facto multilingualism is to promote a lan-
guage policy based on monolingualism, i.e. the elevation of the language
of the ruling class. Restricted access to the language of the ruling class has
several effects:
r an artificial inequality among languages takes root and the gap between
the dominant language and the others widens;
r the ‘other languages’ (and consequently their speakers/users) are rendered
inferior in status and hence instrumentally of little value;
r the power base of the ruling class is bolstered in the process.
(2) Language is also seen as a problem in those societies where assimilation
is the dominant ideology. Assimilationists find diversity a problem which
needs to be eliminated; and all outsiders need to be brought into the domi-
nant group. The dominant group, however, is hierarchically configured so
that the newcomers are less equal than those who continue to enjoy political
and economic privileges. Language policy in this orientation is impelled
toward monolingualism and the language of the ruling class to the detri-
ment of other languages, which again are rendered instrumentally valueless.
The effects are almost identical to those that emerge from a segregationist
society. They are, however, better disguised.
(3) Language viewed as a right is consistent with those societies that place value
on the principles of social integration. However, it is difficult to implement
a language policy based only on the concept of rights. Contemporary so-
ciolinguistic case studies of language policies internationally demonstrate
that, even with the best of intentions, language-policy development left
in the paradigm of language as a right only is not implemented as such.4
An overwhelming dependence upon Western influences in the economic
structure, the education system and ruling class thought in general draws
the implementation of language policy inevitably towards monolingualism,
usually in the form of a dominant language (English, French and Portuguese
in Africa; Russian in the former Soviet Union). The implementation strate-
gies give way to a continuation of the unequal relationship between the
language of the ruling class/economic elite and the languages of those who
do not enjoy political or economic power. The result is very little differ-
ent from the implementation of plans in the orientation of language as a
problem where the impulse is overtly toward monolingualism.
(4) Language as a resource is consistent with the principle of interdependence,
where different communities/languages are seen to coexist in an interde-
pendent manner.5 Here each language and its community of speakers is
validated as part of the whole. Language as a resource includes the notion
of language as a right. Language-planning orientations that have language
as a resource as their fundamental principle are better able to ensure that the
 Recovering multilingualism 453

linguistic rights of communities are protected because, quite simply, value

is attached to each language, not only for sentimental6 reasons but also for
instrumental purposes, so that each is seen as part of the national assets,
which, in the interests of the national good, must be protected, nurtured and
harnessed (see Kelman 1975).7 The view that each language is a resource
to the nation carries with it the notion of the functional/instrumental uses
of languages, or functional multilingualism.

3 THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: AFRICA

Apartheid has obscured South Africa’s position in an international continuum

of overarching state ideology. There is a readily discernible process which has
shown a shift, in policy statements, from the principle of segregation through
assimilation or integration to multiculturalism during the twentieth century.
Sociopolitical theorists now argue that the free-market economy has often
been in conflict with this process, thus thwarting the implementation of pol-
icy. Analyses of aid packages to the Third World show conclusively that the
World Bank agenda sets specific criteria which recipients must meet (King
1993). In terms of education policy, for example, aid will be dispensed if the
recipient’s formulae match those of the World Bank. Since the World Bank’s
agenda is not necessarily in synchrony with the overt policy in Third World
countries there is a conflict of interests which is likely to undermine an indi-
vidual country’s policy. Alamin Mazrui (1997) in an analysis of the role of
the World Bank and its role in language in education practice on the continent
argues that despite the bank’s public support for local languages in education,
its continued advice to governments is to cut educational expenditure on local
languages in favour of an international language. Tollefson (1991), Phillipson
(1992) and Skutnabb-Kangas (2000), among many other critics, have pointed
to the larger structural forces within the Anglocentric and Western world, in
particular those emanating from the USA and Britain, as ones that promote
English as an instrument for maintaining an undereducated class for cheap
labour. This might very well explain why, despite the long history of recom-
mendations for the use of African languages in education,8 a practice giving
prominence to international languages has become entrenched. There would
also appear to be a correlation between World Bank criteria for aid and at
least two other major donors, the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) and the Overseas Development Administration (ODA). These, in
turn, often influence the type of programmes smaller funding agencies support
(King 1993).
Mazrui further suggests that the effect of World Bank–IMF intervention in
Africa, via its structural adjustment programmes, is advancing socio-economic
or class division on the continent – the use of the international languages in
454 K. Heugh

education effectively advantages the children of the ruling class and disadvan-
tages or marginalises the remainder of society.

The World Bank and the IMF have become the principal organisations through which the
capitalist West seeks to control the destiny of the rest of the world. In this respect,
the establishment and reconstitution of structural inequalities . . . and cultural inequali-
ties . . . between the imperial European languages and other languages becomes indis-
pensable strategies towards that attempted control. (Mazrui 1997: 43)

Jonathan Pool, in an article on linguistic exploitation, develops a theory about

the relationship between political power and language. He argues that there is
a particular dynamic which takes over once a group comes to political power.
The preservation of power becomes an overriding force, and language is used
as a tool to protect that power by keeping others from accessing some of it:
‘a difficult language of rule tells us that the popular pressure on the ruling class
for a share of the spoils must be great. And, heavy pressure to enter the ruling
class tells us that rulers must be enjoying great premiums in net wealth over the
subject class’ (Pool 1993: 53–4). Pierre Alexandre has earlier referred to the
way in which French and English have, in Africa, come to represent cultural
capital acquired only by a minority (1972: 86). If one accepts these arguments,
then one might understand the phenomenon of parents in sub-Saharan Africa
who use languages other than English, French and Portuguese, yet who insist
that their children study through the medium of the international language even
though the manner in which this is attempted may be at the expense of the home
language.9
Prominent educators and language planners on the continent have reiterated
their conviction that educational failure on the continent is linked to a system
where the home languages of the learners are seldom maintained beyond the
early years of school if they are used at all. Ayo Bamgbose (1996: 13) claims that
rather than reducing the number of primary school drop-outs and the figures
of those who never reach school, the continent is steadily moving toward a
situation where more than 50 per cent of children of schoolgoing age are not at
school. He attributes one of the causes of this situation to the inadequate use of
languages familiar to young school pupils.
Since the late 1980s, reports from Zambia, for example, have shown that
the use of English as the medium of instruction from the beginning has resulted
in:
r massive student drop-outs in the first years of school;
r a widening gap between those who are proficient in English and those who
are not; and
r a decreasing level of proficiency in English since independence (Tripathi
1990; Siachitema 1992).
 Recovering multilingualism 455

In the Zambian situation, English had been selected in the belief that it could
function as a neutral language to further the interests of national unity. The strat-
egy for implementing this policy was to select English as the primary language
of education, the results of which are reflected above. Thus the implementation
strategy failed to achieve what was intended by policy.
In other situations, even when African languages are used in the education
system, tensions arise between the language in education policy and national
policy. Akinnaso (1991) argues that the national (economic) plan subverts the
language-in-education plan in countries such as Nigeria and Tanzania where
the promotion of the use of African languages in education is neutralised by
an English-proficiency criterion to positions of national political and economic
power. Tripathi, Akinnaso and Siachitema all argue, therefore, that national
language-policy formulation and implementation need to be knitted into the
overall plan for national development, of which education is one domain. The
structural tensions discussed earlier contribute to the lack of synchrony between
language policy and effective implementation; or between a national develop-
ment plan and a language plan.
At another level, a number of sociolinguists extend this argument by exam-
ining the relationship between the failure of development programmes and the
failure of education on the continent to embrace the reality of multilingualism.
Paulin Djité, for example, argues that African development agencies need to
recognise the role of the larger indigenous languages ‘in a process of global and
integrated development’: ‘Reliance and dependency on superimposed interna-
tional languages to achieve development in Africa over the last three decades
have proven to be a failure. Instead of leading to national unity, this attitude
has significantly contributed to the socioeconomic and political instability of
most African countries’ (1993: 149). Djité’s argument is based on an analysis
of the use of lingua francas in West Africa particularly, which ease channels of
communication among people across national boundaries on a significant and
useful level. The use of the standard varieties of English, French and Portuguese
on the continent, however, are limited to the upper levels of government and
administration.

The masses have managed and developed these networks of communication over the
years . . . The linguae francae, because of these communicative and socioeconomic real-
ities, are progressively being perceived as neutral languages and are increasingly being
learned as second languages. They are, in the true sense, the de facto national and inter-
national mediums of communication, for they satisfy the criteria of efficiency, adequacy,
and acceptability (Haugen 1966: 61–3). (Djité 1993: 159)

In other words, despite what agencies such as the World Bank and other Western
interests would have Africans believe, the continent does not suffer from the
linguistic confusion of Babel. Furthermore, the role of the superimposed
456 K. Heugh

international languages has been overestimated in terms of serving the interests

of the majority on the continent.

4 THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THE DOMESTIC PERSPECTIVE

TO 1993

Towards the end of the period of multiparty negotiations that resulted in the
interim constitution of 1993, the various possibilities for a new language policy
for South Africa had become clearly distilled. The strong association between
language and cultural identity for white Afrikaans-speaking people sown during
the terminal stages of British colonial control of South Africa grew, during
National Party rule, into a defining characteristic of Afrikaner nationalism. The
Afrikaans language assumed such importance in the identity of this community
that it became one of a few major issues upon which the success or failure of the
constitutional negotiations hinged towards the end of 1993. At this point, the
multiparty negotiations were really being conducted between the two strongest
political forces, the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress
(ANC). The bottom line for the NP negotiators was that Afrikaans should not
lose its privileged status in the new dispensation; in other words, it had to retain
its official status. In contrast, the ANC did not attach a similar importance
to language issues. Much greater significance was placed on neutralising or
removing a wide range of symbols of apartheid, of which language policy
was only one. The official policy of the ANC was that all languages would be
regarded as equal, but that none should be accorded official status. The unofficial
conviction, however, was that English, for apparently pragmatic reasons, would
function as the official language of government. This view of English had
its origins in the early history of the ANC, when English had been regarded
as a language of liberation and a language through which opposition to the
Afrikaans-speaking government would be mediated. Additionally, many senior
members of the ANC had been exiled in English-speaking countries for many
years prior to 1990 and had therefore come to believe in the importance of
English as the lingua franca in the country.

4.1 Proposals from below

As a backdrop to this compromise, new language-policy proposals had been
generated from civil society structures, in the early 1980s, under the auspices
of the Education Co-ordinating Council of South Africa (ECCSA) and subse-
quently from within the National Language Project (NLP) from the mid-1980s.
These proposals were initiated by Neville Alexander, the director of the NLP
from 1986 until 1991 (see, for example, Alexander 1989). The NLP increasingly
promoted the rehabilitation of the status of African languages, particularly for
 Recovering multilingualism 457

literacy and educational purposes, in order to realise the democraticparticipation

of all linguistic communities in the transformation of the country. Alexander ar-
gued that language policy and planning proposals should emerge from ‘below’.
He referred to the work of other scholars on the continent, namely Beban
Chumbow (1987) and Ayo Bamgbose (1987), who said that language planning
in Africa was too top-down and hence too divorced from the real communicative
needs and practices of the majority of people (Alexander 1992a).
A further proposal from Alexander emerged from an analysis of the role
of language in the division of ethnic communities dating from the period of
missionary activity and exploited by the Nationalist government. In essence this
proposal has come to be known as the ‘harmonisation of the Nguni and Sotho
languages (respectively)’ (Alexander 1989, 1992b). The proposal concerned the
further standardisation of the written (not spoken) varieties within each of these
language clusters so that lexical, terminological and orthographic conventions
could proceed on a convergent path. This suggestion, coming at the end of the
structural pursuit of divide and rule, has been seen as controversial and has
often been misunderstood (see Msimang 1994, 1996; Alexander 1998). It is
at odds with a system that encouraged the establishment of language boards
for each of the nine officially recognised languages, whose raison d’être it
was to increase the division between these languages, and especially between
varieties of Nguni and Sotho. The issue nevertheless received attention at the
International Conference on Democratic Approaches to Language Planning and
Standardisation.10 The issue of harmonisation of languages across the continent
was revisited in 1996 at the Colloquium on Harmonising and Standardising
African Languages for Education and Development.11 It became evident at
this colloquium that while the proposal regarding South African languages has
not yet received significant support from within South Africa, the process is
proceeding in many other African countries where it is understood in the context
of widespread use of regional lingua francas which cross geographic boundaries
on the continent. (See also Djité 1993.)

4.2 The ANC’s position

During 1990, immediately after the unbanning of the liberation organisations,
the ANC revived its own internal debates about language policy, beginning with
a language workshop in Harare. This was followed by the establishment of a
language commission during 1991 whose role was both to inform and consult
with the public on language matters (Crawhall 1993: 20–3). The commission,
as a sub-structure of the ANC’s Department of Arts and Culture, released a
document, ‘African National Congress Policy Considerations’ (ANC 1992)
which includes the following:
458 K. Heugh

The ANC supports the deliberate fostering of multilingualism in schools, adult education
programmes, in the workplace and in all sectors of public life . . . Though language ex-
perts argue that initial education is best conducted through the ‘mother tongue’ . . . large
sections of black urban communities have already pressurised primary schools into
beginning with English as the medium of instruction from day one . . .
Any language policy must reflect the voice of the people and this voice is more
important that any model which emerges.

The ambiguities present in this document reflect precisely those current in the
broader context of South African society with regard to the weight given the
role of English vis-à-vis African languages. A significant contribution, from
within the ANC, but independently of the language commission, was made via
a submission to the constitutional committee by Zubeida Desai and Robin Trew.
They distinguished between passive and positive rights where, by adopting a
strong position on effecting rights (positive rights), citizens could be protected
from ‘exclusion from effective participation in public debate and the inequitable
enjoyment of public services, justice, education, power and economic advance-
ment’ (Desai and Trew 1992). Crawhall in analysing this contribution draws
attention to the importance of a comment included in Desai and Trew’s docu-
ment: ‘Language rights need to deal both with what Chinua Achebe has called
the unassailable position of English, and with the fact that African languages
are the primary linguistic resource of most South Africans’ (quoted in Crawhall
1993: 21). This contribution signalled a shift from an entirely rights-based po-
sition within the ANC to a stronger, more vigorous approach to rights that
acknowledges the view of language as a resource. Nevertheless, the position of
powerful forces within the ANC was more accurately captured by the ANC’s
‘Language Policy Considerations’.

4.3 A confluence of ideas

The NLP, until the establishment of PRAESA (the Project for Alternative
Education in South Africa), was the only non-governmental organisation in
the country to focus on language policy. It found the space to have its voice
heard in the challenge to the top-down approach to language planning. Its
ideas filtered into the discussions of many organisations, including the ANC
as well as the NP, which was rapidly having to rethink many of its positions.
By early 1992 Alexander advised the NLP to begin exploring possibilities
for multilingual education based on the principle of dual-medium schools.12
The promotion of multilingualism as a national resource, rather than as a
problem, for social and national development formed the basis of these propos-
als. The NLP, which had been following language policy and planning devel-
opments in India, Australia and Africa as well as the international discourse on
‘additive bilingualism’, responded with the identification of additive bilingual
 Recovering multilingualism 459

approaches to education as the cornerstone of a new language in education

policy.13
Through a parallel process, the National Education Policy Investigation
(NEPI), during 1992, undertook a large-scale study of education and policy
alternatives for a transforming society on behalf of the ANC. One of the NEPI
researcher’s, Kathy Luckett, in liaison with the NLP, arrived at similar con-
clusions for a new language-in-education model, and she formulated a bold
proposal for ‘national additive bilingualism’.14 PRAESA, under the director-
ship of Alexander, in co-operation with the NLP focused on detailed proposals
for multilingual schools and a new language-in-education policy between 1992
and 1995.15
Research conducted by the NLP into the role of language as a determining
factor in discriminatory health-care provision highlighted the need to address
language rights in the delivery of government services (Crawford 1994).
The ANC education desk in the meantime commissioned a working group,
attached to the Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD), to ‘arrive
at a model for language in education which will be based on the principles of
access, equity and empowerment’ (Constable and Musker 1993). The recom-
mendations of this working group and those that had emerged from the NLP
and PRAESA were similar and compatible, but they did not find favour with
the ANC education desk. English remained the preferred medium of education.
The NLP and PRAESA realised that no significant change to language-in-
education policy would occur unless broader policy on language altered. So they
embarked on a second strategy, and made joint submissions to the multiparty
constitutional negotiations, arguing that a strong functional approach to mul-
tilingualism and language as a resource ought to be foregrounded in the final
constitution (NLP and PRAESA 1995). They also urged that a body independent
of party-political allegiances and government, a national institute or council of
languages, be established for the purpose of developing language policy, plan-
ning and development programmes in the country. Such a body would include
the ‘voices from below’ in order that it might be able to reflect more accurately
the language needs and preferences of the majority, as well as avoid the paralysis
of centralised control and the potential this has for undemocratic practices.

4.4 The constitutional arrangement

The debates involving the direction of language policy and planning among
sociolinguists became increasingly vigorous during the early 1990s. However,
as the ANC geared itself towards becoming the majority party, language was
not regarded as an issue of priority. The NP and lobbyists for the Afrikaans lan-
guage began to reassess the position of Afrikaans vis-à-vis English. English re-
mained, and still is, the greatest threat to the status of Afrikaans as a language of
460 K. Heugh

vertical use. Apartheid language policy, which had partly been fuelled by a fear
of the international hegemony of English, had failed. The privileged position
of Afrikaans could certainly not continue if African languages remained weak
while English gained ground. English was being advanced by African-language
speakers who had lost confidence in the wider functionality of their languages.
Ironically, the Afrikaans-language lobbyists began to seek succour from the
proposals emanating from the NLP and PRAESA. The future of the Afrikaans
language would lie within a multilingual paradigm and a strengthening of the
functional use of African languages. The idea that languages could be viewed
as resources rather than as problems became increasingly attractive, and the
Afrikaans language lobby shifted from the segregationist position to a divided
commitment to language as a right, in order to protect its inevitable minority
situation in the future, and a tentative commitment to language as a resource.
A vigorous part of the Afrikaans lobby was spearheaded by the Stigting vir
Afrikaans, which saw the strategic value that resources, built up in the Afrikaans
language, might contribute to development in other languages. More conser-
vative elements within the white Afrikaans-speaking lobby threw their support
behind the notion of language as a right.
By early December 1993, the multiparty constitutional negotiations were
reaching closure. An eleventh-hour compromise was that there would be eleven
official languages. Afrikaans would not lose its official status, and the equal
status of eleven languages would be enshrined in the constitution. Additional
protection for Afrikaans was built into the interim constitution with what has
come to be known as the non-diminution clause:

3.(2) Rights relating to language and the status of languages existing at the commence-
ment of this Constitution shall not be diminished, and provision shall be made by an Act
of Parliament for rights relating to language and the status of languages existing only at
regional level, to be extended nationally. (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
Bill 1993)

This clause was intended to provide a psychological guarantee to the white

Afrikaans-speaking community, and to ease their acceptance of change. Not
only was Afrikaans to keep its status at national level, but its official status
would be restored in those former ‘bantustans’/homelands that had jettisoned
Afrikaans as an official language. However, no such act of parliament was
ever effected and the rights-based principle enshrined here was not or could
not be implemented. The other clauses in the constitution according official
and equal status to eleven languages were perhaps never intended, even during
the early hours of the morning on which they were drafted, to take real effect.
However, they set up a series of expectations which were bolstered by provisions
for the establishment of an independent Pan South African Language Board
(PANSALB) whose responsibility it would be to promote multilingualism,
 Recovering multilingualism 461

further the development of languages and protect the rights of each linguistic
community to use its language.

5 DEVELOPMENTS AFTER THE ELECTIONS OF 1994

The 1993 interim constitution took language from a segregationist perspective
and a view that it is a problem to that of language as a right, in synchrony with
the entire thrust of constitutional discourse. The powerful economic sector had
in the meantime shifted its thinking from segregation only as far as assimilation,
which assumes that the best answer to linguistic diversity is to leave ajar the
door to English, for the speakers of languages other than English. However,
what was expected from those language groups that had believed in the word
of the constitution was that government would make unequivocal statements
of a commitment to multilingualism and extrapolate the language clauses in
the constitution into a fully fledged language policy with guidelines for na-
tional and provincial governments and parastatal institutions. In the absence of
such policy, haphazard responses to the constitutional language provisions were
made. In most instances the previous practice of official bilingualism gave way
to a new monolingual practice of mainly using English, even in the national
parliament. Ideally, a national language policy would have been integrated with
the development of a strategic vision for the national and economic devel-
opment plan. This did not happen, and the Reconstruction and Development
Programme (RDP) of 1994, as well as its successor, the Growth, Employment
and Redistribution: A Macro-Economic Strategy (GEAR) of 1996 have neither
integrated nor included language policy and planning.
Given that South Africa is the first country to have identified as many as
eleven official languages, it was all the more important that guidelines be for-
mulated to show how government intended to give effect to the equal status
of these languages. A laissez-faire approach of leaving in abeyance coherent
policy guidelines would result in the neutralisation of language rights by the
hegemony of English. The de facto use of English became apparent in virtually
all government work, both in its internal communication and external commu-
nication. In general, the official bilingual practice of the past and steadfast use
of two languages both in the public and private sectors was replaced with a
practice of monolingualism, despite the constitution’s ‘non-diminution’ clause
and the official status of eleven languages.

6 CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA 1996:

IMPLICATIONS

A second round of constitutional negotiations within the Constitutional

Assembly followed the first democratic elections of 1994. These resulted in
462 K. Heugh

a final constitution which was eventually adopted in May 1996, and amended
on 11 October of that year. Again the language clauses could not be agreed
on until the final days of negotiations in October. The 1996 constitution sub-
stantively altered the language clauses and scaled down many of the earlier
provisions.
The expansive commitment to achieve the equal status of eleven languages
in the 1993 constitution has been de-emphasised, but the language clauses have
been tightened and should make it easier to develop an explicit national language
policy. It also makes clear the division of responsibility between government
and PANSALB (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996: clauses
6.(1) – (5)). These are summarised as follows:
Principles that are the responsibility of government
r There are now eleven official languages in the country.
r The state has a responsibility to elevate the status and practical usage of those
official languages that did not previously enjoy official status.
r National and provincial governments must use at least two official languages.
r National and provincial governments must regulate and monitor their equi-
table use of official languages.
Principles that are the responsibility of PANSALB
r PANSALB must promote, and create conditions for, the development and use
of all official languages, the Khoe and San languages, and South African Sign
Language.
r PANSALB must promote and ensure respect for all other languages used in
the country.
The interpretation here of the clauses contained in the 1996 constitution are
that the frequency of terms such as ‘status’, ‘use’ and ‘usage’ point clearly
towards a paradigm based on functional multilingualism. The state is charged
with the responsibility of giving effect to the official status of eleven languages.
PANSALB’s role is that of strengthening and initiating the establishment of civil
society structures which support the development of interlinguistic/multilingual
skills not only in the official languages but also other languages used in the
country.
While the second round of constitutional negotiations were in progress a
number of language-policy and planning developments in line with the 1993
constitution were begun. These are as follows:
r Responsibility for language was brought under the newly structured Ministry
and Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST).
r The Senate as custodian of the PANSALB initiated legislation for its estab-
lishment. (The Senate was replaced by the National Council of Provinces in
the 1996 constitution.)
 Recovering multilingualism 463
r The new Department of Education began to interpret the constitutional
implications for language in education.
r The Department of Defence began a lengthy process of defining a language
policy for itself.
(The first three of these will be discussed in more detail below. For a study of
language in the Defence Force see de Klerk and Barkhuizen (1998).)

6.1 Arts, culture, science and technology

The Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Ben Ngubane, commis-
sioned a Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG) in 1995. The group, chaired
by Neville Alexander, included a wide range of language workers and experts,
largely from outside government. It consulted as widely as possible over a six-
month period, from January to June 1996. The task was to define the outline
of a language plan, but it was not tasked with explicating policy. It therefore
delineated only the principles upon which such policy ought to be based. The
spectrum of domains covered by this group was broader in scope than any other
national planning activity undertaken either here or elsewhere, and credit needs
to be given to Ngubane both for the insight he demonstrated and the capacity to
decentralise control of this activity. This initiative demonstrated what had been
called for across Africa – the opportunity for voices from below to inform deci-
sion making. The final LANGTAG report, Towards a National Plan for South
Africa, was submitted to the minister on 8 August 1996. (Unfortunately, before
the minister could take this further he was replaced by Lionel Mtshali, whose
approach was different. For the next three years, there was very little progress
with regard to advancing the work of LANGTAG.) In terms of process, there had
been agreement that the LANGTAG process was to provide ‘an enabling frame-
work rather than to put forward a prescriptive blueprint’ (DACST 1996a: 8).
Attention was focused on the following areas:
r language equity;
r language development;
r language as an economic resource;
r language in education;
r literacy;
r language in the public service;
r heritage languages, Sign Language and augmentative communicative
systems; and
r equitable and widespread language services.

Of particular note is the prominence given to South African Sign Language in

the report, which is of significance locally and internationally.
464 K. Heugh

During the LANGTAG process it became clear that the private and public
sectors continued to view languages other than English as a problem and, at best,
from the perspective of language as a right. It is not surprising therefore that the
LANGTAG report recommended various strategies for raising public awareness
about the value of multilingualism. The report specifically drew attention to the
need to identify goals and timeframes for implementation programmes.
Other early initiatives specific to the work of the DACST in relation to ex-
tending language services, notably in the form of a proposed trial telephone
interpreting service for South Africa (TISSA), signalled important changes.
The telephone interpreting service, designed to facilitate access to emergency
services for persons who speak languages other than English and Afrikaans,
would have been a major advance in language planning for South Africa. The
DACST, on behalf of government, could have added other services to TISSA.
Difficulties under Mtshali’s term of office effectively placed TISSA on hold
for the next four years. The DACST also took the initiative, through its State
Language Services, now the National Language Services, to focus on the role of
language in the economy and has encouraged exploratory research in this area.
Particularly useful have been their explorations into the role of languages and
trade for South Africa with the rest of the continent (DACST 1997). After the
second general election in mid-1999, Ben Ngubane was returned as Minister
of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. Immediately the follow-up work
of LANGTAG was resumed vigorously by the department. Neville Alexander
was asked to convene the ministerial advisory body on language policy and
planning for the country. This advisory body was to oversee the drafting of
language legislation and define the regulations for language policy and plan-
ning. By 2001 the Cabinet of Ministers was presented with a final draft of
the South African Languages Bill and the Language Policy and Plan for South
Africa. Both of these documents concretise the clauses that give official status to
eleven languages and support multilingualism in the country at large. Whether
or not the national government will eventually have the Bill enacted is not yet
clear.

6.2 The establishment of PANSALB

Delays in establishing the Pan South African Language Board after the elec-
tion of 1994 resulted in an intervention by the Minister of Provincial Affairs
and Constitutional Development, Roelf Meyer. He intervened to fast-track the
establishment of PANSALB. Legislation for its establishment was enacted in
September 1995, and the members appointed in April 1996. The terms and ref-
erences of PANSALB include the language clauses of the 1993 constitution and
also the notion of language as a resource. PANSALB’s establishment was ac-
companied by many expectations from civil society as well as from government.
 Recovering multilingualism 465

The structural conditions, however, under which its legislation (and subsequent
amendments to its legislation in 1999) placed it, as well as political pressures
which threaten the independence of the board, have rendered the body instru-
mentally weak. It took the board two years to be given the go-ahead to establish
its full-time staff and gain access to funds allocated to it from central govern-
ment via the DACST. Under Mtshali, the DACST saw its role as overseeing
and issuing directives towards the work of the board, whereas the board’s view
was that it was established to advise and monitor government activities rather
than take on tasks that should be performed by government departments.
PANSALB was legislatively bound to establish subsidiary structures, some
of which are consistent with promoting multilingualism co-operatively, such
as the establishment of advisory Provincial Language Committees comprising
representatives from each of the languages/clusters of languages in the respec-
tive provinces. Other structures, namely, the national language bodies for four-
teen languages or categories of languages, could be undermined by lingering
separatist interests. These bodies may not synchronise with an interdependent
approach to language development.
The 1996 constitution substantively altered the language clauses, and this
necessitated amendments to the legislation under which PANSALB exists. The
DACST drove the amendment process without negotiating with the successor to
the Senate in terms of the 1996 constitution, the National Council of Provinces
(NCOP). The DACST also compromised heavily with regard to consultation
with PANSALB itself. The board objected to the tabling in parliament of the
Pan South African Language Board Amendment Bill in 1998 on the grounds
that it was not given an opportunity to make known its reservations concerning
the amendments. Essentially, the process that unfolded seriously undermined
the autonomy of the board. The first deputy chairperson of PANSALB, Neville
Alexander, resigned from the board in March 1998 as soon as it became clear that
its autonomy was under threat. Structural arrangements in terms of the amended
legislation in effect make the board a sub-department of the DACST. In partic-
ular, the department succeeded in relocating lexicography units for each of the
official languages under PANSALB. This involves the board in hands-on lan-
guage development, and thus compromises its monitoring function, as it could
not both undertake and monitor its own work. The board had not necessarily
prioritised the making of dictionaries as the most immediately urgent activity
in the area of language development. Comprehensive dictionaries take decades
to compile and edit, whereas there were a number of language-acquisition and
other corpus-planning activities which the board had prioritised. Such units, in
fact, fall directly under the state’s responsibility for effecting the equal status
of the official languages.
One of the most successful interventions from the board was the commission-
ing of a national sociolinguistic survey of the country (PANSALB 2000). This
466 K. Heugh

survey has provided a wealth of current data which is necessary for accurate and
appropriate language-planning ventures. The prognosis for PANSALB, how-
ever, is not at this stage promising. Whereas encouraging developments have
emerged from within the DACST’s own language-policy and planning processes
since the return of Minister Ngubane in late 1999, the same cannot be said for
PANSALB. Damage caused during Minister Mtshali’s three-year period (late
1996–mid-1999) has not been repaired. PANSALB has not been given suffi-
cient funds to successfully establish the national lexicography units, and by late
2000 Minister Ngubane was insisting that PANSALB sacrifice funds already
committed to specific PANSALB programmes, in order to subsidise language
projects under the control of the DACST. Although at the final joint meeting of
the board’s first membership in November 2000 a decision was taken to refuse
the minister’s request, the officials of the board subsequently acceded to politi-
cal pressure. The capacity of PANSALB to act as a watchdog on government’s
implementation of the language clauses of the constitution has thus been suc-
cessfully eroded. The first five-year term of office of the board members came
to an end in March 2001 and appointment to the second board had not by early
2002 been completed by the DACST.

6.3 Department of Education

The Department of Education commissioned a working group from the NGO
sector to draft a working document for a new language-in-education policy, and
this draft was circulated for comment towards the end of 1995. This department
sought advice from civil society and involved Neville Alexander in the finali-
sation of this policy. A language-in-education policy, based on the principle of
additive bilingualism was announced on 14 July 1997. Of particular note is that
South African Sign Language is treated as a twelfth official language for the
purpose of education. This is one of the most positive and encouraging devel-
opments of international significance. In essence, the policy promotes the use
of the home language in addition to a second language (which for most students
will mean English). In other words the policy is, by implication, geared towards
the promotion of African languages alongside English throughout schooling.
An implementation plan for establishing this was completed by 1999, but never
implemented. On the other hand, a parallel but almost separate process of im-
plementing a new curriculum, undergirded by the premise that English would
be the main language of education, is under way. Only in the final stages of
drafting a new curriculum, Curriculum 2005 (Department of Education 1997a),
was the new language-in-education policy tacked on. Language-in-education
issues were confined for the most part to a single area, that of languages as
subjects, during the curriculum-planning process. Curriculum 2005 failed to
take cognisance of the ninety years of commissions and reports in Africa which
 Recovering multilingualism 467

confirm the relationship between language, learning and failure. Subsequent

revision of the new curriculum during 2000 and 2001 continued to confine the
matter of language to the teaching and learning of languages part of the curricu-
lum. The question of language medium across the curriculum for the more than
90 per cent of school pupils whose mother tongue is not English was ignored yet
again (details can be traced in Heugh 2000). This is a clear example of structural
forces supporting the language(s) of rule. The prospects of an effective imple-
mentation of the new curriculum and language-in-education policy, which have
not been conceived of simultaneously and are not integrated, are not promising.
Furthermore, given the examples of Nigeria and Tanzania, it is clear that unless
the language-in-education policy is supported in other sectors, particularly in
relation to a national and economic development plan, a policy which promotes
African languages will be undermined by the monolingual habitus and drive
toward English in both the public and private sectors.

7 FURTHER OBSTACLES

7.1 The commission

The 1996 constitution also makes provision for the establishment of a commis-
sion for the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious and
linguistic communities. From a structural perspective, should this commission
actually become a reality, it may present a number of difficulties. First, there
is a potential overlap of functions between PANSALB and the commission.
The commission might further undermine the work of the PANSALB precisely
because its point of departure is from a different paradigm. Skutnabb-Kangas
and Cummins (1988b: 394) astutely remark that ‘social justice is not a question
of “equality of opportunity” – which is the liberal view – but of “equality of
outcome”, and beyond’. An earlier argument in this chapter has pointed to the
failure of language policies left within the liberal, rights-based paradigm to
effect equality of outcomes.
The raison d’être of the commission is to support ethnic or separatist ten-
dencies which would give ethnic groups the opportunity to set themselves up in
conflictual relationships among themselves, in competition for resources and
privileges. By default, the effect of the commission would be to undermine the
principle of the interdependence of communities and their languages. It would
only be able to reinforce an unequal set of relationships. Skutnabb-Kangas and
Cummins (1988b: 394) crystallise the purposes behind language-policy choice
as follows: ‘An emphasis on . . . mother tongues can thus be for “exclusion”, for
“pacification” or for “empowerment”.’
The commission is only able to promise pacification, although several ana-
lysts, Neville Alexander included, fear that in the long term it will feed ethnic
468 K. Heugh

ferment and competition for scarce resources. Alexander (1998: 3) alludes to

the danger of tiny splinter groups emerging, each claiming a separatist identity,
and claiming the right to resources. Since the interdependence of languages
and their communities receives scant recognition within the rights paradigm,
the potential for conflict and adversarial relationships to thrive among linguistic
groups is considerable.

7.2 Divide and rule – a legacy

The residue of apartheid policies will bedevil South African society for gener-
ations to come. One of the most successful manifestations of apartheid was the
ways in which people were drawn into a separatist view of society, so much
so that communities were driven apart by various mechanisms, one of which
was the artificial conceptualisation of the different language boards. That they
have become organisationally dysfunctional under the new political agreement
does not mean that their proponents have changed their thinking. On the con-
trary, those who remain committed to linguistic separatism are likely to carry
this commitment into the new structures. Without strong signals from either
government or PANSALB and many vigorous and serious public debates and
exchanges, new language bodies are likely to revert to old practices.
Another remnant of apartheid that is difficult to shed is the patriarchal control
that took root in the absence of a democratic culture. Very often, people with
the very best of intentions believe that tight control has to be kept of every de-
velopment, initiative and organisation, so that despite policy statements to the
contrary, there is a systemically determined reluctance to decentralise power. In
the area of language policy and planning, this has already led to an unhealthy at-
tempt to centralise control, which, as everywhere else, has led to comprehensive
failure.

8 A NOTE OF OPTIMISM: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

LANGUAGE AND THE ECONOMY

If it were possible to address the following question, an opportunity would

present itself for devising a strategy to move beyond the constraints delineated
above. The question is: ‘How do we rehabilitate the functional status, use and
value of African languages in South Africa and on the continent?’ The an-
swer does not lie in South Africa alone, but in co-operation with initiatives in
neighbouring countries.
Appealing to, or relying on, governments to take appropriate action to validate
the use of the languages of the majority in education and beyond, for sentimen-
tal or ethical reasons, will have little success. There have been no examples of
the successful implementation of a rights-based language policy. The failure
 Recovering multilingualism 469

of any government of Africa to implement the OAU’s 1986 Language Plan for
Africa is one of many examples of educational policies of good intent which
have never been effected. Since only a handful of sociolinguists or language
planners are presently committed to a resource-based approach, the more pow-
erful structural forces will undermine even the rights-based approach in South
Africa. There have to be instrumental or functional reasons why there should
be a paradigm shift towards harnessing the resources that African languages
offer. Unless the economic advantages of harnessing the languages of a country
in its economic development can be demonstrated unequivocally, the drive to-
wards monolingualism and the closure of access to power for the majority will
proceed unchecked. The economic benefits that local languages bring to small,
medium and micro-enterprises, as well as the degree to which use of local
languages might save time and costs in the activities of large corporations need
to be demonstrated.
Francois Grin, the most prolific of the writers on the relationship between
language and the economy or the economics of language has this to offer:
‘Economics can provide some of the essential ingredients to build a con-
vincing case to the effect that minority language promotion could deserve
state support – not for moral, political or cultural reasons, but for economic
reasons’ (1996: 16). Grin goes on to argue that there has to be an underlying
demand for language maintenance if language promotion is to have success:
‘The strategic implication is that demand must be strengthened, supported or
created prior to any other form of action. I consider this to be one of the very
few general results to hold in all minority language situations’ (1996: 16).
The key issue is thus, in his view, to establish the tangible value in linguistic
diversity/plurality. Grin’s argument is equally valid here where our concern in
Africa is in fact with indigenous languages, many of which are languages of
the majority.
A related matter which needs further cost–benefit analysis is the financial im-
plication of delivering educational resources and materials in local languages.
Surprisingly, World Bank researchers have provided evidence that the increased
cost of such materials has been exaggerated in the past. The viability of edu-
cational materials production in local languages would increase, however, under
the following conditions which take into account languages shared across
national boundaries: ‘A strategy for cost-efficient production of learning and
teaching materials would be to develop a unified curriculum and manufacture
books for target groups that encompass language groups beyond the boundaries
of one country’ (Vawda and Patrinos 1998: 24).
Ironically, of course, under apartheid, even though government provided
meagre financial support for the education of African children, schoolbooks in
several African languages for the first eight years of schooling were published,
and cost was clearly not an impediment then.
470 K. Heugh

8.1 Moving in from the periphery

Given that there are many shared languages and lingua francas in Africa, cross-
border initiatives need to be nurtured. The functional use of African languages
will never be fully realised while a colonised consciousness prevails and until
their potential in economic terms is unmasked. No proponent of multilingualism
or local languages has ever suggested jettisoning either the use of an interna-
tional language or an international curriculum from the education or economic
systems of Africa. However, a reconceptualisation (or recovery) of what works
well in Africa in terms of the following needs to be integrated into both the edu-
cation and economic systems which also provide access to the outside world:
r effective channels of communication;
r useful knowledge;
r well-established activities in small local as well as regional economies.

Language policy and planning activities cannot be left divorced from the full
spectrum of economic activities and these, in turn, are related to areas of knowl-
edge and expertise. Thus if governments do not have the capacity to link the
domains and activities, smaller projects initiated from civil society need to do
this. If they were able to demonstrate how small systems which tap into local
expertise and knowledge are able to contribute to local and regional economies,
then eventually the prevalent consciousness might be altered. Maurice Goula
(1998) refers to this as a ‘rediscovery of Africa’s (Bio)diversity and endoge-
nous knowledge as a basis for social advancement’. It is a matter of reclaiming
a vast store of knowledge, indigenous to Africa. The new political space cre-
ated in South Africa during the 1990s provided an opportunity during which,
if it were possible for government to resist the structural pressures alluded to
by Pool, Tollefson, Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson, as discussed earlier, a
radical reconceptualisation of language policy and planning would have taken
root. That the South African government, despite arguably the most enabling
constitution in the world, has been floundering with regard to an unambiguous
definition of and commitment to a new language policy is sufficient warning to
language planners and service providers elsewhere on this continent not to wait
for transformation. The way forward now in South Africa is via the setting up,
and strengthening, of existing networks of experimental developmental projects
which, for the time being, have to be independent of the national system.

notes
1 Gogolin (1993: 3) defines this term as follows: ‘It is the basic and deep-seated ob-
session that monolingualism in a society, and particularly in schools, is the one and
only, overall, forever and always valid normality . . . The “monolingual habitus” is an
intrinsic characteristic of the classical national state.’
 Recovering multilingualism 471

2 Sarah Murray (chap. 23, this volume) delineates a number of the tensions, paradoxes
and complexities of attitudes toward languages in education which bedevil the South
African school system.
3 See for example Skutnabb-Kangas 1988: 10: ‘Is monolingualism in fact a reflection
of an ideology, akin to racism, namely “linguicism”, the domination of one language
at the expense of others . . . ?’ (See also Phillipson 1992: 50–7.)
4 Michael MacMillan (1986) gives a detailed analysis of the tensions that which arise
between individual, group and collective language rights. Ultimately, in the absence
of highly regulatory legislation, the guarantee of language rights is difficult to meet.
5 Josef Schmied (1991) reminds us that in multilingual societies speakers of one lan-
guage incorporate elements of other languages into their language and vice versa.
6 This includes cultural and religious attachments.
7 ‘A sense of national identity is more likely to develop out of functional relationships
within a society than out of deliberate attempts to promote it’ (Kelman quoted in
Alexander 1989: 52).
8 Many of the influences on the South African education system reflect not only forces
peculiar to the country but ones that have had, and continue to have, their effect on the
rest of the continent. The history of the relationship between language in education, in
Africa, during the twentieth century, is one of repeated commissions of enquiry that
result in recommendations based on the centrality of indigenous languages as initial
languages of literacy and languages of learning. There are literally dozens of major
reports attesting to this particular issue; the following have been selected purely
for illustrative purposes: Phelps-Stokes Commissions of the 1920s; UNESCO’s
Report on the Use of the Vernacular Languages in Education 1953; the Lagos
Conference of Education Ministers of African Member States 1976 – which, ac-
cording to Bamgbose, recommended that ‘democratization, national character,
authenticity and modernization of education’ could only be achieved if national
languages are restored as national languages of instruction (Bamgbose 1996: 9)
(the Lagos conference also advocated the use of indigenous languages as the vehi-
cles for scientific and technical progress); the Harare Declaration by Ministers of
Education of African Member States linked education in African languages to socio-
economic development (UNESCO 1982); OAU (1986); the Pan African Colloquium
on Educational Innovation in Post Colonial Africa, Cape Town 1994.
9 There is a vast body of evidence, seldom made available in accessible form to parents,
which demonstrates that in the majority of situations, young learners in subtractive
bilingual programmes (i.e. those where the home language is not maintained and
extended for the duration of schooling) achieve poor academic results. Furthermore,
they fail to become proficient in English, and are only able to use the home language
for a limited range of communicative functions. (See, for example, Ramirez et al.
1991; Thomas and Collier 1997; Christian et al. 1997.)
10 The conference was held by the NLP at the University of Cape Town in 1991. It
was the first occasion when scholars from across the continent were able to attend
a sociolinguistic conference in South Africa after a lengthy period of academic and
other boycotts directed against the government. An important result of this event was
that valuable contacts in relation to language-policy developments in other African
countries were established.
11 This colloquium was co-ordinated by Professor Kwesi Prah of the University of the
Western Cape, but held at the University of Cape Town, 11–14 July.
472 K. Heugh

12 There had been very successful examples of dual-medium (Afrikaans–English)

schools in South Africa in the 1930s and 1940s, which had fallen into disfavour
when the NP came to power.
13 In particular, the work of the following authors influenced the NLP: Agnihotri
1992; Baker 1988; Cummins 1988; Liddicoat 1991; Lo Bianco 1990; Rado
1991; Skutnabb-Kangas 1988; Smolicz 1990. The NLP’s proposal for a new
language-in-education model based on additive bilingualism was first made at the
SAALA conference, in July 1992 (Heugh 1992a, 1992b).
14 Luckett 1992, and see also Sarah Murray’s chapter in this volume (chap. 23). Luckett
had hoped to present her proposal in public at the SAALA conference in July 1992,
but was unable to do so at that point, and instead presented it as a document for
consideration by NEPI.
15 See Heugh et al. 1995.

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 Index

names
Aarons, D. 143 Buccini, A. F. 79, 85, 86
Achebe, C. 458 Bullivant, B. 423
Adendorff, R. 163, 399, 440 Bundy, C. 409
Alexander, N. 22f., 67, 425, 434, 436, Buthelezi, Chief M. G. 325
443, 456, 457, 463, 465, 467, 468 Buthelezi, Q. 357
Alexandre, P. 454 Bynon, T. 229
Allison, A. A. 324
Anders, H. 37, 41 Callaway, H. 190
Anderson, R. 349 Calteaux, K. 6, 244, 245, 251
Anthonissen, C. 421 Carbaugh, D. 258
Appel, R. 200 Carstens, P. 33, 205
Arbousset, T. 40, 69 Chick, K. 365
Armstrong, J. C. 89 Cluver, A. D. de V. 35, 36, 430
Ashforth, A. 414 Clyne, M. 232
Cobbing, J. 16
Bailey, R. 70, 71 Cole, D. 163, 188, 189, 199, 240
Baker, P. 89 Combrink, J. G. H. 86, 98, 208
Bamgbose, A. 454, 457 Comrie, B. 420
Barkhuizen, G. 24, 359, 463 Conradie, C. J. 85
Baumbach, E. J. M. 64, 71 Constable, P. 459
Beach, D. M. 34, 35, 313 Cooper, R. 419, 420
Bengu, S. 437 Corne, C. 89
Bennett, P. 56 Crawhall, N. 12, 22, 28, 365, 457–9
Bennie, J. 16, 31 Crystal, D. 449
Bhana, S. 161 Cummins, J. 438, 467
Bleek, D. F. 27, 36, 37, 39, 41, 43, 44 Cupido 40
Bleek, W. H. I. 27, 36, 38–40, 43, 50, 51,
297 Davids, A. 17, 83
Blench, R. 55–7 Deacon, J. 39
Bokamba, E. G. 365 de Kadt, E. 153, 373, 440
Bonner, P. 409 de Klerk, V. 6, 24, 263, 359, 365, 374,
Boonzaaier, E. 34 438, 463
Bot, M. 438 de la Bat, J. 131
Boyce, W. 16, 31 Delbridge, A. 110
Brain, J. B. 161 Delius, P. 409
Branford, W. 172 den Besten, H. 14, 82, 85, 88–90, 94, 95,
Brink, A. P. 208, 209 97, 98
Brown, D. 180 Desai, Z. 164, 457, 458
Bruyn, A. 87 Deumert, A. 83, 98
Bryant, A. T. 62, 300, 320 de Villiers Pienaar, P. 34

476
 Index 477

Dimendaal, G. J. 27 Herbert, R. K. 2, 6, 30, 56, 59, 65, 70,

Dittmar, N. 236 247–9, 260, 261, 263, 279, 282–4,
Doke, C. M. 16, 37, 43, 60, 63, 68, 290–2, 303, 306, 331, 369, 435
71 Hernandez-Chavéz, E. 227
Donaldson, B. C. 97 Hesseling, D. C. 87, 88
Donnelly, S. S. 11, 66, 72 Heugh, K. 253, 423, 429, 436
Dorian, N. 27, 173 Heyd, U. 420
Dowling, T. 282, 286, 291, 444 Hill, C. P. 420
Downes, W. 194 Holm, J. 87
du Plessis, J. 32, 35, 38 Hudson, R. A. 205, 209
Huffman, T. N. 59, 63
Eastman, C. 420 Hundleby, C. E. 360, 361
Edwards, J. 7, 38 Hunter, M. 281, 282, 286
Ehret, C. 58, 61 Hymes, D. 2
Elphick, R. 29, 31, 32, 79–82
Erikson, F. 268 Jacobs, M. 360
Evans, M. S. 398 Jacotett, E. 307
Jakobson, R. 302
Faye, C. U. 302, 306 Janson, T. 63, 69, 400
Felgate, W. 319, 324 Junod, H. A. 316, 319, 320, 324, 325
Finlayson, R. 23, 63, 65, 244, 245, 249,
250, 253, 281, 292, 308 Kamwangamulu, N. 241
Forsythe, D. 154 Kannemeyer, H. D. 164
Fortune, G. 68 Kaschula, R. 271, 272, 421
Franken, J. L. M. 87, 88 Kasper, G. 366
French, E. 422 Kaufman, T. 84, 85, 87
Kerr, D. 420, 426
Gal, S. 195 Keswa, E. R. G. 409
Gambhir, S. K. 168, 170 Khathi, T. 240
Gandhi, M. 163, 164 Khumalo, J. S. M. 240
Gerwel, J. 209 Kicherer, J. J. 38
Gogolin, I. 450 Kichlu, C. P. 164
Goldswain, J. 114 Kloeke, G. G. 79
Goosen, J. 208 Kloss, H. 84, 424, 430
Gough, D. 2, 357, 358, 363, 365, 440 Köhler, O. 28, 36
Greenberg, J. 53, 54 Koopman, A. 239, 240
Grimes, B. 53 Kopf, A. 204
Grobbler, E. K. 319 Kotzé, E. F. 83, 86
Grosvenor, G. 166 Kroenlein, J. G. 93
Gumperz, J. J. 227, 241, 268 Kroes, H. 422
Guthrie, M. 51, 57, 60, 65, 289, 316 Kruger, B. 33
Kruger, P. 206
Haacke, W. H. G. 33 Kulik, D. 321
Hagège, C. 68, 302 Kunene, D. P. 69, 292, 308
Halliday, M. A. K. 384, 389, 402, 403
Hallowes, D. P. 37, 42 Labov, W. 196, 200
Hancock, I. F. 185 Langhan, D. 439, 440
Hani, C. 402 Lanham, L. W. 16–18, 30, 37, 42, 108–10,
Harinck, G. 29, 30, 201, 202, 300 121, 201, 299, 302, 308, 361
Harries, P. 71, 73, 316 Lass, R. 109, 113, 114, 120, 123
Hartshorne, K. 19, 423, 450 Levin, R. 291
Hattersley, A. F. 16 Lévi-Strauss, C. 391
Haudricourt, A. 302 Lichtenstein, H. 93
Haugen, E. 200, 454 Links, T. H. 34, 83
Heap, M. 130 Lloyd, L. 27, 38, 43, 203
478 Index

Lo Bianco, J. 451 Ntshangase, D. K. 244, 401, 441

Louw, J. A. 30, 63, 65, 66, 300, 301, Ntshoe, I. 424
303 Nurse, D. 54, 305
Luckett, K. 436, 438
Ogilvy-Foreman, D. C. 143
Mabinda, J. 42, 44 Oliver, R. 56
Macdonald, C. A. 108–10, 437 Orpen, J. 39–41
Madiba, M. R. 240 Ownby, C. P. 300
Maggs, T. 50
Maho, J. 55 Pakendorf, G. 153, 154
Maingard, L. F. 43 Parkington, J. 6
Makhudu, D. P. 87, 244, 400, 403 Parsons, N. 17, 18
Makoni, S. 439 Pather, E. 438, 441
Malan, R. 117, 118, 212 Pauw, B. A. 286, 291
Malherbe, E. 422 Pauwels, J. L. H. 85
Mandela, N. 402 Peirce, B. N. 371
Marais, J. S. 29, 33, 35, 38, 207 Peires, J. 203, 365, 367, 440
Markey, T. L. 87 Penn, N. 37, 38, 135, 140, 141, 143, 421, 424
Marks, S. 300 Pennycook, A. 359, 419
Mattera, D. 401 Pheiffer, R. H. 85
Mawasha, A. L. 357, 441 Phillipson, D. W. 56, 57
Mazrui, A. 453, 454 Phillipson, R. 359, 372, 419, 453, 470
McCormick, K. 111, 123, 232 Polome, E. C. 420
Meinhof, C. 95 Pomerantz, A. 260
Mentzel, O. F. 91 Ponelis, F. A. 79, 86, 87, 89, 90
Mesthrie, R. 111, 123, 163, 180, 181, 189 Pool, J. 454, 470
Mfenyane, B. 408 Potgieter, E. F. 41, 42, 422
Mfusi, M. J. H. 401 Poulos, G. 72
Milner, A. 18 Prabhakaran, V. 163
Milroy, L. 219 Pringle, T. 31
Mitchell, A. G. 110 Prinsloo, K. Y. 429
Mohamed, Y. 12 Puddu, M. 82
Morgan, R. 143
Moshoeshoe, King 69 Rademeyer, J. H. 32, 83, 97
Mostert, N. 31 Radise, J. A. 180
Msimang, T. 67 Raidt, E. 82–4, 205, 207
Mtshali, L. 463–6 Ramaphosa, C. 402
Mtuze, P. 203 Reagan, T. G. 141, 143, 421, 424
Mülhäusler, P. 170, 179 Reinecke, J. E. 398
Mutolase, M. 401 Roberge, P. 6, 83, 96, 98
Muysken, P. 300 Romaine, S. 179, 185, 216
Myers-Scotton, C. 235, 244–6, 250, 251, Ross, R. 40
369, 371, 410, 411 Ruitz, R. 451
Mzamane, G. I. M. 66, 283, 308
Sachs, A. 359
Nasson, B. 221 Sales, J. 30, 31, 40
Ndebele, N. S. 212, 213, 441 Samarin, W. J. 169
Nel, B. F. 422 Schapera, I. 69
Ngubane, B. 426, 463, 464 Schlebush, A.
Ngubane, H. 319, 331 Schmied, J. 360, 365
Ngubane, S. 72 Scholtz, J. du P. 33, 79
Nhlapo, J. 22 Schulz, J. 268
Nicolaı̈, R. 66 Schuring, G. K. 399, 401, 425
Nienaber, G. S. 29, 32, 33, 95, 98 Shaka, King 279, 308
Nokaneng, M. 441 Shell, R. C.-H. 79, 81, 82
 Index 479

Shoai, C. 437 van Rensburg, M. C. J. 83, 86, 87, 93, 96,

Shoshangane, Chief 71 398, 424
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 452, 467, 470 van Riebeeck, J. 31, 80
Slabbert, S. 23, 244, 249, 250, 253, 399, van Selms, A. 83
400, 410, 411 Vansina, J. 57, 58
Small, A. 97 van Warmelo, N. J. 63, 70, 72, 240, 307,
Smit, S. 82 318, 321, 325
Sparrman, A. 94 van Zijl, J. 423
Steenkamp, A. 17 Veenstra, T. 87
Sterk, J. P. 56 Vogel, J. O. 57
Steyn, J. C. 422, 424
Stone, G. 402 Wade, R. 357, 370
Stopa, R. 297 Walker, E. A. 201, 203
Story, R. 37 Wardhaugh, R. 200
Straight, H. S. 261 Watters, J. R. 55
Strassberger, E. 33 Webb, V. N. 86, 372
Street, B. 373, 433 Webster, D. 324, 326, 330, 331
Swain, M. 438 Weinreich, U. 302
Swanepoel, C. B. 422 Wells, J. C. 105, 112, 114, 116
Swellengrebel, H. 82 Werner, A. 56, 300
Wessels, B. 180
Thomason, S. G. 30, 84, 85, 87 West, P. 123
Thompson, L. 29, 37, 249 Westphal, E. O. J. 27, 303
Tinker, H. 171 Whiteley, W. H. 420
Tollefson, J. 420, 430, 453, 470 Wilkes, A. 66
Traill, A. 6, 13 Williams, J. 228
Trapp, O. O. 181 Williamson, K. 54–6
Trew, R. 457, 458 Wilson, M. 29, 32, 37, 38, 303, 307
Trudgill, P. 2, 169, 201 Winter, J. C. 27, 36, 42
Tutu, D. 401 Wissing, R. J. 367, 368
Worden, N. 81, 89, 91
Uys, J. 41 Wright, J. 36, 41
Wright, L. 357, 358, 372
Valkhoff, M. F. 82, 84, 88 Wright, S. M. 109, 113, 114, 120,
van der Merwe, H. J. J. M. 205, 123
207, 208
van der Merwe, M. A. 35, 69 Young, D. 436, 438, 444
van Ginneken, J. 297
van Haeften, B. 82 Ziervogel, D. 305
van Rensburg, C. 7, 35 Zietsman, P. N. 205, 206

languages
/Xam 27, 36–40 Afrikaans 1, 5, 15, 17–19, 29, 31, 32, 34,
/’Auni 27, 28, 36, 42, 44 41–4, 79–99, 106–9, 113, 120, 122, 134,
/’Auo 43, 44 136, 144, 150, 155, 157, 164, 181,
//Ku//e 37, 40 199–213, 216, 221, 223, 224, 228–31,
//Ng !k’e 37, 40, 41 237–9, 292, 358, 381–96, 398, 401, 402,
//Xegwi 37, 41, 42 404, 408, 410, 411, 420–4, 435–7, 440,
=| Khomani 27, 28, 36, 42–4 442, 444, 450, 456, 459, 460
!Gã !ne 37, 41 Cape Afrikaans 87
!Xóõ 44 Dutch-Afrikaans 209, 220
!Kwi 28, 36, 39–44 Eastern Cape Afrikaans 83
Hollands 80
Aarschot dialect 85 Khoekhoe Afrikaans 32, 33, 35
480 Index

Afrikaans (Cont.) ethnic varieties 19

Orange River Afrikaans 35, 36, 83, 89, Natal 18
93, 96, 97 New Zealand 106, 112
Arabic 12, 17, 162, 382, 421 received pronunciation (RP) 110, 121
Awadhi 161, 166, 167 Scots 106, 109, 120
influences on SAE 104–26
Bantu (language group) 3, 11, 15, 50–78, 134, Southern British 105
235, 243, 299, 301, 307–9, 398, 404, 410 Southern hemisphere Englishes 109–10
‘Narrow’ Bantu 54–5 Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) 107
‘Wide’ Bantu 54–5 see also South African English (SAE)
Bengali 161, 166
Benue-Congo 53–5, 58 Fanakalo 12, 17, 18, 163, 172, 179–98,
Bhaca 64, 305 339, 399
Bhojpuri 161, 163, 166, 170, 173, 317 Garden 181, 187f., 190
South African Bhojpuri (SABh) 166–71 Mine 180, 181, 185, 186
Bihari 167 Flaaitaal 12, 209, 244, 385, 386, 398–405,
Brabant dialect 85 407, 409, 411
Braj 161, 166 Flemish 85
Bushman languages see Khoesan; San French 12, 79, 398, 402, 452, 454, 455

Cantonese 12 German 3, 106, 148–60

Cape Dutch 83, 87, 92, 98, 99, 206 Low 155ff.
acrolectal Cape Dutch 95–8 Standard High 155ff.
Cape Dutch pidgin 90, 91, 93–8 GiTonga 60
Chainou 31 Gondzze 71
Chewa 11, 63 Gorachou 31
Chinese 12 Greek 12
Chopi 60 Gri 33, 34
Cocho 31 Gujarati 11, 162, 165

Dravidian 163 Hadza 14

Dutch 6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 29–32, 38, 39, 41, Hakka 12
79, 80, 85, 91–3, 99, 106, 108, 109, 189, Hamito-Semitic 6
190, 199, 200, 205, 210, 219, 220, 398 Hebrew 420, 421
Dutch creole 89 Hindi 11, 161, 163–8
Early Modern Dutch 84 Hlubi 305
Hottentot Dutch 88
Khoe-Dutch 32, 33, 35 Indian languages 3, 11, 161–77, 458
pidgin Dutch 88 Indo-European 11, 163, 398
see also Cape Dutch Iscamtho 12, 244, 407–13, 441
Dyirbal 1 Italian 12, 402

English 1, 2, 15, 17–19, 29, 31, 32, 34, 41–4, Japanese 137
79–99, 106–9, 113, 122, 134, 136, 144, Ju/wasi 6
150, 155, 157, 164, 181, 199–213, 216,
221, 223, 237–9, 241, 292, 358, 381–96, Kalanga 11
398, 401–4, 410, 412, 421, 422, 424, Kanauji 161, 167
435–44, 450, 452, 454–6, 458–61 Kannada 161
Afrikaans/Afrikaner 122f. Kashmiri 166
American 106–7 Kgatla 52, 69
Australian 106, 112 Khoekhoe (also Khoe) 29–36, 63, 79,
British 106 84, 93–5, 97, 98, 306
Canadian 106 Khoesan 1–3, 11, 27–49, 53, 54, 297,
Cape 18 301, 303, 306, 308, 398
Cape Flats 123 Konkani 11, 162
 Index 481

Kora 33–5, 95 British 128, 129

Korekore 68 Namibian 128
Ku/haasi 43 South African 127–47, 463
Swedish 128
Latin 12 Thai 128
Sotho 2, 11, 23, 42, 60, 62, 63, 66–70, 72,
Magahi 161 133, 238, 240, 242–4, 246–8, 299,
Makua 63 302, 360, 407, 408, 440, 457
Malagasy 12 South African English (SAE) 7, 104–26, 421
Malay 12, 81, 84, 88, 91, 98, 206, 382 black (BSAE) 356–75
Malayalam 161 coloured 216–34
Malxas 43 Conservative 110, 113, 115ff.
Mandarin 12 Extreme 110, 113, 116
Indian (ISAE) 116ff., 339–54
Nama 14, 27, 28, 33, 34, 43, 44, 93, 95 Respectable 110, 113, 115ff.
Ndebele 1, 11, 15, 62, 66–8, 237, 305, 436 Southern Bantu 64, 65, 297–313
Nguni 4, 11, 23, 41, 60, 62–6, 71, 72, 200, South(ern) Sotho 1, 11, 23, 52, 62, 68–70, 133,
237, 238, 244, 279, 299, 300, 302, 305–7, 201, 237, 238, 243, 253, 279, 307, 309, 436
309, 360, 408, 439, 457 Swahili 420, 423
Niger-Congo 5, 6, 11, 53 Swati 1, 11, 64, 66–8, 201, 237, 251, 305,
Nilo-Saharan 6, 53 307, 319, 436
North(ern) Sotho (Pedi) 1, 11, 50, 62, 68–71,
133, 237, 243, 402, 436 Tamil 12, 161, 163–5, 172, 173, 339
Tekela/Tekeza 62, 65
Okavango 305, 307 Telugu 161, 165, 173
Thonga 316, 318–34
Panjabi 166 Tok Pisin 95
Phuthi 11, 64, 66, 72, 299 Tsolo 41
Polish 12 Tsonga 1, 2, 11, 42, 50, 60, 62, 65–8, 70,
Polynesian 12 71, 133, 237, 308, 316, 317, 322, 436
Pondo 305 Tsotsitaal 12, 238, 244, 398–405
Portuguese 11, 14, 91, 181, 321, 402, 452, Tswana 1, 11, 23, 44, 52, 62, 67–70, 79, 133,
454, 455 238, 243, 244, 253, 305, 398, 436, 440
Cape 90
Creole 81, 84, 88 Urdu 11, 161, 164, 165
‘proto-Afrikaans’ 88
Proto-Bantu 52, 57, 58, 63, 302, 308 Venda 1, 2, 11, 60, 62, 66, 67, 71–2, 237, 246,
Proto-Nguni 64, 310 247, 436

Rajasthani 161, 162, 166 Xatia 37, 42

Ronga 71, 317 Xhosa 1, 2, 11, 23, 24, 29, 30, 62–8, 199–213,
Russian 452 237, 240, 242–4, 247, 268, 272, 279–94,
299, 301, 303, 305, 307, 308, 358, 383,
San 6, 36–44, 63, 297, 307 389, 398, 408, 436, 442, 444
Sandawe 14
Sanskrit 12, 162, 210, 421 Yiddish 106, 221, 398
Scots Gaelic 173
Sekgalagadi 52, 69, 305 Zeeuws dialect 85
Sena 63 Zulu 1, 2, 11, 17, 23, 29, 42, 50, 62–9, 136,
Seroa 40, 41 155, 156, 161, 163, 172, 180, 181, 185,
Shalambombo 398, 409 189, 190, 237, 243, 244, 248, 252, 253,
Shona 11, 60, 63, 65, 71–3, 303 259, 266, 268, 269, 299, 301, 302, 305,
Union 68 307, 308, 319–21, 324–7, 330, 358, 361,
Sign Language 3, 135, 423, 463 370, 383, 389, 398, 404, 407–10, 412,
American 128, 129 413, 436, 438–41, 444
482 Index

subjects
academic literacy 443 capitalism 18, 454
acrolect 91f., 96, 343ff. Centre for Education Policy Development
additive bilingualism 253, 439, 458 (CEPD) 436
Africanisation of English 440 chain shifts (in SAE) 113f.
African National Congress (ANC) 22, 402, China 12
423, 426, 427, 436, 456–9 Ciskei 13, 291
Afrikaans, codification of 206, 207 click consonants 29–31, 34, 62, 297–313
Afrikaners 15–18 cluster reduction (in Dutch) 92
Amsterdam 79 code-mixing 3, 216–33, 235
Anglicisation policy 450 code-switching 3, 16, 86, 216–33, 235–54,
Angola 11, 57 369f., 411, 434, 439, 440
anti-language 393, 402 conversational 225–8
apartheid 3–5, 18, 19, 141, 144, 340, 357, 374, conversational vs. situational 218f.
402, 412, 421–3, 426, 429, 435, 449, 453, markedness model of 245ff.
459, 468 matrix language frame model 251ff.
assimilation policies 452, 461 situational 224–5
attitudes codification 206–7
to BSAE 370ff. compliment-response studies 260–7
gender 327ff. compliment-response types 261
to Iscamtho 412f. constitution of South Africa 23–5, 450,
Australasia 106 460–7
Australia 1, 107, 458 contextualisation cues 268
convergence 96, 216–33
Bantu Education 18, 19, 357 corpus planning 420, 424, 465
basilect 343ff., 347ff., 351, 407 creolisation 85ff., 343, 351
basilectisation 98, 99 creolist hypothesis 87–92
Basters 33, 35, 37, 42, 81, 95 cross-cultural communication 258ff.
Basuto 17 Curriculum 2005 467
Basutoland 41
Bechuana 17 Delhi 166
Bhaca people 41 Democratic Party 111, 376
Bihar 166, 172 Department of Arts, Culture, Science and
bilingualism 13, 37, 43, 44, 87, 120, 200, 239, Technology 25, 72, 462–6
326, 372–3, 421, 422 Department of Bantu Education 19
Black Consciousness Movement 450 Department of Education 437, 463, 466, 467
Bophuthatswana 13 Department of Education and Training 358,
borrowing 3, 16, 84, 199–213, 217, 239–41, 435
293, 308, 310 dialect 105
Botswana 14, 44, 69, 307, 442 Dictionary of South African Signs 135, 140ff.
Britain 1, 17, 108 District Six 216, 217, 219–22, 228
Dutch East India Company 79, 81, 107
calques 200, 232
Cameroon 53, 55, 57 East Africa 57
Canada 1, 7 Eastern Cape 358, 441
Cape 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 27, 29, 31–3, education 18, 22, 24, 28, 104, 129, 164, 253,
36, 37, 50, 88, 89, 91, 108, 149, 254, 340, 356–9, 373, 374, 421, 423, 427,
210 434–45, 453–5, 457, 459, 466, 467
eastern 11, 15, 16, 18, 24, 108, 189 elite closure 371
northern 27 embedded language 411
western 31–3 England 104
Cape Colony 79, 80, 86, 87, 89 extraterritorial varieties of English 106f.
Cape Flats 382
Cape Khoekhoe 27–9 Fingo 17
Cape Peninsula 381 France 128
 Index 483

Free State 152 Khoesan people 1–3, 11, 27–45, 53, 54

function, elaboration of 207–8 Kimberley 17, 34
functional multilingualism 1, 452f. koineisation 86, 166, 169–71
Korana 18, 34, 35, 387
Gauteng 12, 243, 358 KwaZulu-Natal 71, 72, 83, 149ff., 317, 339,
Gazankulu 317 358
Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners 83
Germans in South Africa 148–60 Land Act 18
Germany 79 language and economy 468f.
East 148 language and identity 221ff.
West 148 language boards 66, 73, 457, 468
globalisation 449 language cluster 11
Gonaqua 29–31 language death 27, 37, 44, 422
Gorachouqua 34 language demographics (South Africa) 11
Gqunukwebe 29 language genocide 1
Griqua 18, 34, 35, 81, 398 language loss 373, 374
Griqualand 40 language maintenance 38, 39, 43, 153–5, 339,
Group Areas Act 18, 401 373, 469
Growth, Employment and Redistribution language planning 24f., 419–30, 452, 454,
(GEAR) 461 457, 470
definitions 420
haplotypes 303 see also corpus planning; status planning
harmonisation 67, 68, 457 language policy 23ff., 253f., 419–30, 434, 436,
higher education 443 437, 449–70
hlonipha – see isihlonipho sabafazi language rights 429, 430, 461, 468
Holland 79, 108 of Deaf people 145
homeland, linguistic 54, 58 language shift 2, 30, 31, 33, 34, 39–41, 44, 86,
homeland, political 67, 435, 460 87, 104, 173, 316–34, 339, 340, 411
hostels 412 language spread 57, 422
Huguenot 80 Language Task Group (LANGTAG) 24f., 174,
hybridisation 98 359, 428, 463, 464
language of wider communication (LWC) 421,
illiteracy 2 438
illocution 258f. languages of learning 436
India 14, 17, 81, 162, 164 Lesotho 11, 29, 40, 41, 69, 72, 409
Indonesia 81 liberalism 429
interactional sociolinguistics 267–9 lingua franca 12, 81, 87, 89, 163, 219, 243,
intercultural communication 258–73 324, 358f., 455, 456, 470
interdependence principle 452 linguicism 451
interference 98 linguistic diversity 81, 421f., 469
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) xiii linguistic repertoire 223f.
Ireland 104, 106 literacy 66, 129, 372f., 421, 434, 442f., 457,
Iscamtho speech networks 412 463
isihlonipho sabafazi 279–94, 305–10 loanwords 171f., 200–13, 240
rules of 284–5 in Afrikaans 205–9, 212
in English 209–12
Johannesburg 18, 151, 154, 326, 399, 408, in South African Bhojpuri 171f.
411 in Xhosa 201–4, 240

Kalahari desert 69 Madagascar 14, 81

Kalahari Gemsbok Park 36, 37 Maputoland 317, 321
Karoo 28 Martindale 408
Kenya 245 Matabili 17
Khoe 6, 11, 300 matrix language 410, 411
Khoekhoe 31, 80, 82–4, 88, 90, 91, 93, 201f. Mauritius 164
484 Index

medium of instruction 19, 24, 131, 151, pidginisation 85

164, 207, 220, 253f., 357f., 373, 374,
411, 420–2, 427, 435–9, 443, 454,
459
mesolect 343ff., 350f., 361
metaphor (in Flaaitaal) 390, 403ff.
Mfecane 15, 65, 71, 202
Mfengu 15
minority languages 425
missionaries 15, 16, 33, 35, 38, 40, 66, 70,
190ff., 322, 339, 340
monolingual habitus 450, 467
Mozambique 11, 12, 14, 63, 64, 70, 71, 81,
220, 316, 317, 319, 320, 325, 326
Mpondomise people 41
Mpumalanga 70, 317, 358
multiculturalism 258n., 423
multilingualism 1, 165, 243, 434, 436, 437,
439, 440, 445, 449–70
Namaqualand 28
Namibia 14, 28, 34, 44, 57, 81, 83, 307,
442
Natal 15–18, 36, 40, 136, 161, 164–8, 170–2,
174, 189, 192, 220, 228, 325, 339, 383,
435
National Education Policy Investigation
(NEPI) 427, 436, 438, 439, 459
National Language Project (NLP) 436, 456,
459
Nationalists, National Party 70, 111, 132, 357,
374, 425, 456, 457, 459
Netherlands 80
New Zealand 107
Nigeria 455
non-rhotic 107, 124
Northern Cape 27
Northern Province 237, 317
North West 70
official languages 18, 22, 23, 425, 426, 444,
450, 456, 459
Orange Free State 17, 29, 35, 40, 84, 109, 189,
409
Organisation of African Unity 469
overlexicalisation 393, 402f.
Paarl 17, 83, 382
Paget–Gorman system 133, 134, 139, 140
Pan South African Language Board
(PANSALB) 24f., 72, 359, 436, 450, 460,
462–7
pass laws 18
passive bilinguals 173
phonology of South African English 112ff.
Pondo 17
praise names 326
Pretoria 134, 151, 154
prison lexis 383f., 389f., 409
Project for the Study of Alternative
Education in South Africa (PRAESA)
436, 459
Qacha’s Nek 41
Reconstruction and Development Programme
(RDP) 426, 461
reduplication 404
Rehoboth 81
relexicalisation 393, 402ff.
rhoticity (in SAE) 121
schools 15, 17–19, 23f, 129–34, 150–3, 164–6,
220, 341, 357f., 373, 426–7, 435–45,
450
second-language acquisition 90, 339ff.,
357ff.
semi-speakers 173f.
Shona 68
signed languages 3, 25, 127–9
grammar 131
history 137
slaves 14f., 79, 81, 82, 88ff., 91, 93, 96, 219
Sophiatown 399, 408
sound correspondences 61, 69, 71
South African Applied Linguistics Association
443
South African Broadcasting Corporation
(SABC) 108, 111, 242, 243
South African Schools Act 436
Southern Rhodesia 68
Soviet Union 452
Soweto 22, 237, 244, 357, 370, 399, 407–14,
450
uprising 22, 244, 357, 450
standardisation 65, 66
of African languages 435
of Afrikaans 205ff.
standard languages 63, 65, 68–70, 72, 73, 241,
441
standard lexical sets 105
status planning 420, 424, 449, 456, 459
Stellenbosch 83, 207, 382
Stigting vir Afrikaans 460
subtractive bilingualism 438f.
superstratist hypothesis 83–5
Swaziland 36, 66, 70, 325
syntactic variation 181ff., 229ff., 345ff.,
362ff., 410
 Index 485

Taiwan 12 vowels, English 105

Tanzania 14, 455 BSAE 360
Tembisa 243–5, 252 SAE 112ff.
Tembu 17
terminal speakers 42 Wales 104
Transkei 13, 41, 286, 291 Western aid packages: impact on language
Transvaal 17, 41, 84, 109, 189, 316, 317, policy 451
408 Western Cape 358

Ulundi 326 Xhosa people 16, 38, 108, 201, 279–94, 299,
‘unassailable position of English’ 458 300, 383
Union of South Africa 18, 108
United States of America 1, 106–8 Zambia 454f.
urbanisation 16, 279 Zimbabwe 15, 63, 71, 72, 319, 326–8, 330–2
Uttar Pradesh 165, 172 zones of convergence (SAE) 114
Zulu people 15, 17, 190f., 320, 324–6, 409,
variationist / interlectalist hypothesis 85–7 412
Venda 1, 2, 11, 50, 62 Zululand 15, 17