LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Judgment on language policy a violation of linguistic rights

SIR – I DISAGREE with the judgment that promotes English as sole medium of instruction at the University of the Free State.

This judgment promotes monolingualism, which is in fact an English immersion policy.

The suppression of Afrikaans as medium of instruction through this judgment is a violation of the linguistic rights of learners who prefer to be taught in Afrikaans.

Afrikaans is a well-developed language with the necessary resources such as lecturers and materials. There is therefore no reason why it cannot be maintained as a language of instruction.

Afrikaans as medium of instruction has a solid base at basic education level, and it can’t be that it should be phased out at university level.

We are living in a multilingual society where we need to protect and promote all our languages.

The perception that persists – that Afrikaans is a “white and oppressive” language – needs to be challenged. In the words of the late Neville Alexander: “Afrikaans belongs to all those who speak it and not necessarily to white people.”

We need to be proud of the fact that Afrikaans is amongst few languages internationally that is offered as medium of instruction at university level. We should rather have used the expertise of those who managed to develop Afrikaans to do the same with other African languages.

The solution is to develop other African languages and gradually work towards the establishment of Zulu and Sotho universities instead of having an English immersion policy.

We cannot tolerate an imposition of one particular language on the nation.

The notion that sees the offering of many languages as medium of instruction as a problem needs to be demystified. South Africa has a diverse language resource that needs to be developed through a political will.

This English immersion tendency seems to rear its ugly head across many facets of our society, and it is my view that this judgment perpetuates this suicidal tendency.

A dual-medium policy at the university was not properly considered and was bound to lead to conflict between students from diverse language backgrounds.

A dual-medium policy can only work under conditions where students in the same class as well as lecturers have a good command of both English and Afrikaans, which was not the case at Free State University.

A parallel medium, with an English and Afrikaans stream would have been the best option, instead of an English immersion policy.

ZOLILE PRUSENTE