Can Indian languages have life again in South Africa?
I raise this question on the premise that in the current state of affairs, the fate of Indian languages either as cultural practice or at least as a modicum of a minority status has met stubborn resistance.
But before we touch on Indian languages, let us take stock of the overall language practices in South African society.
The constitution has conferred the status of official language on the following: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
It makes a special argument for the indigenous languages in that “the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages”.
The responsibility to do so is undertaken by both the national and provincial governments to ensure that at least two of these above listed languages are used as official languages.
In effect, the national government tended to use English and Afrikaans, whereas the provincial governments could promote the use of English/Afrikaans and the indigenous language spoken in the province.
The fate of the other minority languages - some of them indigenous (Khoi, Nama and San) and the others being foreign (including German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu) - is confined to the vagaries of the Pan SA Language Board that was established by national legislation.
Provision is also made for languages that are considered religiously significant - Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit.
Chapter 2.30-31 of the constitution recognises “the right to use the language and to participate in the cultural life of their choice” in a manner that is consistent with the provisions of the Bill of Rights.
Coming to the status of the Indian languages, since they are not specifically listed in the list of 1.6.1, the promotion and practice of these languages is left to the respective linguistic communities with the aid of the language board mentioned above.
Nearly a quarter of a century after the new democratic dispensation, we now know that neither the language board nor the community-based organisations have succeeded in making significant progress with regard to promoting minority languages such as the Indian languages.
Staying with Indian languages, we don’t need to perpetuate the old colonial narrative of how Indian languages fell by the wayside in the pursuit of economic and social progress.
Researchers in diaspora studies have long recognised that by the third generation of the immigrant community, the practice of the original home language is confined to a mere linguistic identity, other than some minimal role the language might play in the context of religious rituals.
While such is the case with the fate of Indian languages in South Africa, the question is whether there is hope for reviving these languages, if not in daily practice, at least in other practical ways - promotion of music, film and other cultural forms.
I think the present situation with regard to Indian languages is not all that bad.
In the last two decades, the frequency of Indian films and music and other art forms in South Africa has propelled the interest of young people in some of these languages.
The presence of a first-generation Indian community in South Africa in the last couple of decades has also offered opportunities to make these languages alive again.
What we need to do is to take advantage of these opportunities and ensure that young people in the Indian community are interested in their respective languages to begin with.
A more practical way to introduce language to youth is to increase the avenues to hear and speak the language, so that language acquisition can be more organically achieved.
Given the fact that many of these languages are not directly correlated to job markets, it is difficulty to encourage youth to undertake serious study of these languages.
But instead, if there were increased social avenues where these languages were practised and spoken or heard, then there would be a natural attraction to learn one's forgotten language.
Increased globalisation and our connection to India once again, and through it our contact with the languages, could trigger a new interest and appreciation among Indian youth in South Africa for their somewhat forgotten and ignored languages.
The most effective way to acquire language is to maintain contact with the community that speaks it. Fortunately that contact is now increasing.
* P Pratap Kumar is an Emeritus Professor of Hindu Studies and Indian Philosophy at UKZN.
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