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Ever since parents started embracing and allowing children to attend multiracial schools, specifically schools that offered both English and Afrikaans as the main languages, the availability of indigenous languages has decreased in the upcoming generation.
According to the economics magazine there are approximately 7000 languages spoken all over the world and only a third of those language have about a thousand speakers. Because of this we can clearly see that most of these languages face extinction. there is only a number of 10 languages that appear on UNESCO’s atlas of the world’s languages in danger. This brings us to realise that in the recent years the Khoi and the San languages are highly in danger or extinct according to Lukas Ledwaba.
Compared to Afrikaans, indigenous languages have not shown much growth since 1948 despite them being declared official languages ten percept of South Africa’s population speak English as a first language.
2011 Data Statistics of South African Census
According to the 2011 census there has been a decline in six of the eleven official languages. The apparently goes against section (6) six of the constitution of South Africa which recognises that “the historical diminished use and status of the indigenous language of our people”. The Marxist base superstructure theory suggests that monitoring white population dominates the economic base in South Africa.
Further on the census established that languages are spoken as follows in South Africa:
· IsiZulu 22,7%
· Sesotho sa Leboa 9,1%
· Sesotho 7,6%
· Setswana 8%
· Sign Language 0,5%
· Isiswati 2,5%
· Tshivenda 2,4%
· Xitsonga 4,5%
· Afrikaans 13,5%
· English 9,6%
· Isindebele 2,19%
· Isixhosa 16%
· Other languages 1,6%
Maintaining Languages
On the list of languages that are in danger of death Latin is first on the list but in truth it has not died. Latin has been spoken since the Roman empire but transformed in 2000 years to Romanian, Italian, Latin, Swiss Romansch, French, Venetian, Portuguese and Spanish. Languages die when society stops teaching their children a certain language and prefer another one.
Revival
Only a few languages have been revived after it had completely disappeared. Hebrew is the only language that resurrected after disappearing for over two millennia. Locally in South Africa languages belonging to people such as Mpondo, Hlubi, Bhaoa, Northern Ndebele, Pulana, Lobedu and Nhlangwini that are threatened as part of languages such as isiXhosa, isiZulu and Sepedi. In recent years isiHlubi and Northern Ndebele had seen revival attempts in written format.
Every school in every province in South Africa has a specific language medium that they are required to study from primary school all the way up to high school. However, there are people who still prefer to study foreign languages such as French, Latin and Italian. Katlego Molaodi is a language major at the North West University in Mahikeng with the focus on French and Latin. It is apparent that Lexicology is not such a common course for many people and although to the students of Mahikeng who study Lexicology the course is fun and exciting with lots of theory work as expected by many students.
Katlego states that when she explains to people what her curse is and what it consists of many of the people who are close to her or know her are constantly shocked because of the languages she studies which include Latin and French. She has also admitted that the course does prove to be challenging depending on the languages you choose to major in. according to the languages she chose Katlego states that she could only learn one language fluently in a space of three years and even at that she still finds it hard to learn indigenous languages in addition to Afrikaans and English through which she is mostly fluent in Afrikaans.
“English is very important as it is mostly considered as a universal language for communication and as it breaches many gaps”, states Katlego. She further on goes to explain that apart from learning languages one does learn about translating and interpreting. English is used as an urban language of public life in businesses, government and media. It is approximated that 4.9 million South Africans speak English as a first language, a third are whites (33%), a quarter black (24%), 22% Indian and 19% coloured. Even with all these statistics English has been listed as the fifth most common language, globally.
2019 Stats South African General Household Survey
According to the statistics from the 2019 language statistics are as follows:
· 25,3% Zulu
· 14,8% IsiXhosa
· 12,2% Afrikaans
· 8,1% English
Finally, household English is the second most spoken language at 16,6% after Zulu at 25,1% then IsiXhosa at 12,8%. Most languages outside the household use have declined with exceptions of Isizulu and Setswana. Indian and Asian populations are monolingual with 92,1% speaking English at home while 20% use English. 61,2% of South Africans speak Afrikaans and 36,3% speak English.
Many cultures try to keep their indigenous languages available for the next generations to come and try by all means to prevent their language from being extinct. This has become harder as people from other cultures prefer speaking languages that belong to other cultures and this is confusing towards the cause of being able to communicate with people from other cultures.
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