Language in South Africa

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Author: Rajend Mesthrie

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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 List of contributors Acknowledgements List of phonetic symbols List of abbreviations Introduction

page viii ix xi xiii xv 1

Part I The main language groupings 1 South Africa: a sociolinguistic overview r. mesthrie

11

2 The Khoesan Languages a. traill

27

3 The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives robert k. herbert and richard bailey

50

4 Afrikaans: considering origins paul t. roberge

79

5 South African English roger lass

104

6 South African Sign Language: one language or many? debra aarons and philemon akach

127

7 German speakers in South Africa elizabeth de kadt

148

8 Language change, survival, decline: Indian languages in South Africa r. mesthrie

161

v

vi

Contents

Part II Language contact (A) Pidginisation, borrowing, switching and intercultural contact 9 Fanakalo: a pidgin in South Africa ralph adendorff 10 Mutual lexical borrowings among some languages of southern Africa: Xhosa, Afrikaans and English william branford and j. s. claughton

179

199

11 Code-switching, mixing and convergence in Cape Town k. m c cormick

216

12 Code-switching in South African townships s. slabbert and r. finlayson

235

13 Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa j. keith chick

258

(B) Gender, language change and shift 14 Women’s language of respect: isihlonipho sabafazi r. finlayson

279

15 The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu robert k. herbert

297

16 The political economy of language shift: language and gendered ethnicity in a Thonga community robert k. herbert

316

(C) New varieties of English 17 From second language to ﬁrst language: Indian South African English r. mesthrie 18 Black South African English vivian de klerk and david gough

339 356

(D) New urban codes 19 The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes of the working-class Afrikaans-speaking Cape Peninsula coloured community gerald l. stone 20 An Introduction to Flaaitaal (or Tsotsitaal) k. d. p. makhudu

381 398

Contents

21 Language and language practices in Soweto dumisani krushchev ntshangase

vii

407

Part III Language planning, policy and education 22 Language planning and language policy: past, present and future t. g. reagan 23 Language issues in South African education: an overview sarah murray

419 434

24 Recovering multilingualism: recent language-policy developments kathleen heugh

449

Index

476

Maps

1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 7.1 8.1 8.2 15.1 15.2 16.1 16.2 16.3a 16.3b 16.4 20.1

viii

Political map of South Africa of the late nineteenth century Provinces of South Africa 1910 –94 The provinces of present-day South Africa South Africa c.1960, showing places cited in chapter 2 Present-day range of Bantu languages Guthrie’s language ‘zones’ (1967–71) Distribution of African linguistic phyla Guthrie’s Eastern–Western Bantu division Sotho-Tswana and Nguni migrations South Africa, showing places cited in chapter 7 The languages and dialects of India Areas of origin of North Indian immigrants to Natal, and principal dialects Present distribution of Southern Bantu languages Map of Southern Africa showing the estimated admixture of Khoisan peoples by frequency of Gm Distribution of Tsonga-speaking peoples in South Africa Distribution of African languages, Ingwavuma district highlighted Domain of the Thonga language Domain of the Thonga language Fieldwork sites in the eastern Ingwavuma district Townships in the PWV (now Gauteng) area during the era of apartheid

19 20 21 28 51 52 53 58 64 149 162 167 298 304 317 318 322 323 327 400

Contributors

Debra Aarons Department of General Linguistics University of Stellenbosch

Vivian de Klerk Department of Linguistics Rhodes University

Ralph Adendorff Department of Linguistics University of Natal, Durban

Rosalie Finlayson Department of African Languages University of South Africa

Philemon Akach Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment University of the Free State

David Gough School of Languages Christchurch Polytechnic

Richard Bailey Department of Speech Therapy University of Durban-Westville

Robert K. Herbert Department of Anthropology State University of New York

William Branford c/o Department of Linguistics University of Cape Town

Kathleen Heugh Project for Alternative Education in South Africa University of Cape Town

J. Keith Chick Department of Linguistics University of Natal, Durban

Roger Lass Department of Linguistics University of Cape Town

John S. Claughton Department of African Languages Rhodes University

Khekheti D. Makhudu SABC Group Communications

Elizabeth de Kadt Department of Europe Studies University of Natal, Durban

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 language 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 modiﬁed 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 / // =| ! ’ ʔ x x kx c c q ŋ ʃ

dental click lateral click palatal click alveolar click (palato-alveolar/(pre-)palatal in Nguni) glottal stop (Khoesan) glottal stop (English) voiceless velar fricative (Khoesan) lateral click (Bantu; spelling form) voiceless velar affricate palatal stop (Khoesan) dental click (Bantu; spelling form) palatal click (Bantu; spelling form) velar nasal voiceless alveopalatal fricative voiced alveopalatal fricative voiceless alveopalatal affricate voiced alveopalatal affricate xiii

xiv

ɹ j θ ð

List of phonetic symbols

postalveolar approximant voiced glottal fricative voiced palatal fricative voiceless dental fricative voiced dental fricative (Because of the different traditions of scholarship some variation is unavoidable.)

3 Diacritics

: , . ∼ ´ `

centralised vowel (e.g. ¨i) long vowel (spelling form e.g. u¯ ) long vowel (e.g. u:) nasalised vowel (e.g. u˜ ) close vowel (e.g. u¸ ) retroﬂex consonant (spelling form, e.g. t.) voiceless segment (e.g. w ) velarised consonant (e.g. ) high tone (e.g. u´ ) low tone (e.g. u` ) rising tone (e.g. uˇ ) falling tone (e.g. uˆ )

4 Non-phonetic symbols ∗ → < > < > / / [ ] ()

proto form is rewritten as is derived from becomes spelling form phonemic form phonetic form optional element

Abbreviations

+A adj. adv. AE Afr. ANC APO ATR AusE AZAPO BSAE C CAUS CEPD cl. CM COMP CS CTOHP DACST DAT DEAFSA DEM DET DRC EL + EL2 ELT Eng. ESL ET ETEs

feature of standard Afrikaans adjective adverbial Afrikaans English Afrikaans African National Congress African People’s Organisation advanced tongue root Australian English Azanian People’s Organisation black South African English consonant causative Centre for Education Policy Development class code-mixing complementiser code-switching Cape Town Oral History Project Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology dative Deaf Association of South Africa demonstrative Department of Education and Training Dutch Reformed Church embedded language feature of other L2 varieties of English English language teaching English English second language extraterritorial extraterritorial Englishes xv

xvi

List of abbreviations

FT FUT FV GEAR HAT HG HSRC IMP INF IP ISAE KZNED L L1 L2 LANGTAG lit. LOC LWC MCE ML MLF Mod. MOI N (or n.) N. Ng. NED NEPI NGO NLP NP NS nsA nsE NZE ODA OE + OE ON PAC PANSALB

Flaaitaal future tense ﬁnal vowel Growth, Employment and Redistribution Verklarende handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal High German Human Sciences Research Council imperative inﬁnitive inﬂectional phrase Indian South African English KwaZulu-Natal Education Department low tone ﬁrst language second language Language Plan Task Group literally locative language of wider communication manually coded English matrix language matrix language frame modiﬁer medium of instruction noun Northern Nguni Natal Education Department National Education Policy Investigation non-governmental organisation National Language Project noun phrase/National Party Northern Sotho non-standard Afrikaans non-standard English New Zealand English Overseas Development Administration Old English feature of other L1 varieties of English Old Norse Pan Africanist Congress Pan-South African Language Board

List of abbreviations

PASS PB pl. PNK PRAESA PRES PRP PSB PSEB PWV RDP REL (or rel.) RO RP S SABh SAE SAG SB SBE sE SEB sg (or sg.) SS Sw. Tsw. UNISA USAID V v. v.i. VN v.t. VOC VP WSAE Xh Z ZE

passive Proto-Bantu plural Proto-Niger-Kordofanian Project for Alternative Education in South Africa present tense pre-preﬁx Proto-Southern Bantu Proto-South-eastern Bantu Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging Reconstruction and Development Programme relative rights and obligations received pronunciation sentence South African Bhojpuri South African English South African German Southern Bantu Southern British English standard English South-eastern Bantu singular Southern Sotho Swati Tswana University of South Africa United States Agency for International Development vowel verb intransitive verb verbal noun transitive verb (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie/Dutch East India Company) verb phrase white South African English Xhosa Zulu Zulu English

xvii

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 introductions 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 genocide 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 distribution, 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 descriptions 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 representative 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 intercultural communication norms and misconceptions; (b) language change and shifts from one language to another in some communities, 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 colonial 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 capitalisation for the term coloured (which were meant to signify opposition to the apartheid labels). For the sake of internal consistency and after much debate 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 university 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 circumspect ‘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 discussion. 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 enquiring 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 newspapers 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 denotations. 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 questions 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 outside 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 composite 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, anthropologists 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 languages, 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 preﬁxes (Zulu rather than isiZulu). (One exception is the spelling Iscamtho favoured by Ntshangase in this volume, for a variety that has not otherwise been committed 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, IndoEuropean 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 r r r

the Nguni cluster (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele); the Sotho cluster (North Sotho, South Sotho, Tswana); Tsonga; 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. (Twentythree-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 Swati Xhosa Zulu

586,961 1,013,193 7,196,118 9,200,144

1.5 2.5 17.9 22.9

Sotho languages North Sotho South Sotho Tswana

3,695,846 3,104,197 3,301,774

9.2 7.7 8.2

1,756,105 876,409 5,811,547 3,457,467 228,275 355,538 40,583,573

4.4 2.2 14.4 8.6 0.6 −

Tsonga Venda Afrikaans English other unspeciﬁed TOTAL

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 abbreviated 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 symbioses 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

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for three distinct families of languages within this traditional designation (see chap. 2, n. 2). Khoesan peoples may have originated further north – the archaeological 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 subservient) with the Bantu-speaking peoples (see Herbert, chap. 15, this volume). Relations with European settlers were less benign, leading to the ultimate destruction 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 written 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 published 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, without 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 missionary 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 urbanwise ‘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 dictionaries 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 newspaper 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 Fellowship 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 foundations 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 increasingly 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 nonracial 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 speakers 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 children 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 schoolchildren 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 language. 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 became 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 become 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 language 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 languages, 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.

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(2) Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages 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 being 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

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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 (including sociolinguists) enabling comprehensive consultations with different communities 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; education; 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 planning 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 dialect of the language. Nowadays the term ‘North Sotho’ is being increasingly used ofﬁcially. bibliography Census Database 1996. http://www.statssa.gov.za. Davids, A. 1990. ‘Words the slaves made: a socio-historical–linguistic study’. South African Journal of Linguistics, 8, 1: 1–24. 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.

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den Besten, H. 1989. ‘From Khoekhoe foreigner talk via Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans: the creation of a novel grammar’. In M. P¨utz and R. Dirven (eds.), Wheels Within Wheels. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 207–54. Doke, C. M. 1959. ‘Language pioneers of the nineteenth century’. African Studies, 18, 1: 1–27. Donnelly, S. 1999. ‘Southern Tekela Nguni is alive: reintroducing the Phuthi language’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 136: 97–120. Finlayson R. and S. Slabbert 1997. ‘ “We just mix” – codeswitching in a South African township’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 125: 65–98. Hartshorne, K. 1995. ‘Language policy in African education: a background to the future’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 306–18. Hattersley, A. F. 1940. Portrait of a Colony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lanham, L. 1978. ‘South African English’. In L. W. Lanham and K. P. Prinsloo (eds.), Language and Communication Studies in South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 138–65. Mesthrie, R. 1996. ‘Lessons in survival: 120 years of Makhuwa and Yao in South Africa’. Bua, 10, 2: 14–16. Mohamed, Y. 1997. The Teaching of Arabic in South Africa – History and Methodology. Cape Town: University of the Western Cape (Department of Arabic Studies). Parsons, N. 1982. A New History of Southern Africa. London: Macmillan. Population Census 1996. ‘The People of South Africa – Census in Brief’. Report No. 03-01-11. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Prinsloo, D. 1994. Afrikaners. In Saunders (ed.), pp. 7–11. Saunders, C. C. 1994 (ed.). An Illustrated Dictionary of South African History. Johannesburg: Ibis Books. UNESCO 1953. ‘The use of vernacular languages in education – a report’. Paris: UNESCO. van Rensburg, C. 1999. ‘Afrikaans in post-apartheid South Africa’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 136: 77–96. van Wyk, E. B. 1978. ‘Language contact and bilingualism’. In L. W. Lanham and K. P. Prinsloo (eds.), Language and Communication Studies in South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 29–52.

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 sociolinguistic reconstructions of the circumstances attending their death. However, there is not much of a sociolinguistic texture that can illuminate the well-known historical 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 speculate 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 K¨ohler (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 represented 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 immigrants) speakers. Until the 1950s children were monolingual in the language, 27

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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 disappearance will complete the extinction of the !Kwi group of Southern Bushman languages (K¨ohler 1981: 469). These Southern Bushman languages were once spoken over Bushmanland and the Karoo, from the Orange river in the west

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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 tendency 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 linguistic 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

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proliferation and reorganisation of the Xhosa phonological system (Harinck 1972: 150ff.; Herbert 1990a, 1990b; Lanham 1964; Louw 1974, 1977). A similar 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, envoys . . . 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 incoming 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’

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(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.

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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 evidence 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 language 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 policy 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 imitate 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. However, the language partly survived the assault, because sixty-four years later

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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 encroaching Basters who have been identiﬁed as the ‘alien elements . . . effecting the disintegration of the Khoi Khoin’ (Carstens 1966: 205) through their acquisition 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 missionary 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

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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 ofﬁcial 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 surviving as the last Khoekhoe language of South Africa. This will undoubtedly 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-adozen 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 supported 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 distinctive variety of Afrikaans. In the case of the Gri, the shift seems to have been

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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 missionary 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 dominant 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 primarily 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 noemenswaardige aantal sprekers gebruik is. Di´e form van Afrikaans is sterk beinvloed

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deur Hottentots. Talle sprekers van Oranjerivier Afrikaans vas vroe¨ers 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 KhoekhoeDutch 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; K¨ohler 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 exception 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 communities. 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 number 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).

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There can be little doubt that the ﬁrst Bushmen encountered in the southwestern 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 !G˜a !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

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/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 conditions 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 negroid 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 continual 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

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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). =| K´asin, 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

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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 language 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, !G˜a !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

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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 spoken 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 extent 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 besides 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 !G˜a !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 !G˜a !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 !G˜a !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 !G˜a !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

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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 attached 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 spoken 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 respectively.) 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

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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 probably 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 physical 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 dispersed. 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 obsolescence was well entrenched. It is interesting to read how both Maingard and Doke attributed phonetic imprecision, morphological variation and the stylistic impoverishment 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

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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, !X´oo˜ , 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 !X´oo˜ 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 =| Hu˜a 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 !X´oo˜ 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 ofﬁcial interest, language education policy, and the economic and social conditions of speakers. There is also wholesale bilingualism in local varieties of Tswana.

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These languages are therefore threatened by pressures only slightly less dramatic, 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 convention 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’ languages; 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 northern 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 consists of about 1,200 speakers of Kxoe, a Khoe (Central family) language, and !X˜u (!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 !X˜u. This large number 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 understand 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

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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). bibliography Anders, H. 1934/5. ‘A note on a southeastern Bushman dialect’. Zeitschrift f¨ur Eingeborenen-Sprachen, 25: 81–9. Beach, D. M. 1938. The Phonetics of the Hottentot Language. Cambridge: Heffer. Bennie, J. 1823. Incwadi yokuqala ekuteteni gokwamaXosa. Grey Collection, South African Library, Cape Town. Bleek, D. F. 1927. ‘The distribution of the Bushman languages in South Africa’. In Festschrift Meinhof. Hamburg: Augustin, pp. 55–64. 1929. Comparative Vocabularies of Bushman Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1936. ‘Speech of animals and moon used by the /Xam Bushmen: notes on photographs’. Bantu Studies, 10: 163–203. 1937a. ‘Grammatical notes and texts in the /Auni language’. In J. D. Rheinallt Jones and C. M. Doke (eds.), Bushmen of the Southern Kalahari. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 195–200. 1937b. ‘/Auni vocabulary’. In J. D. Rheinallt Jones and C. M. Doke (eds.), Bushmen of the Southern Kalahari. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 201–20. 1942. ‘The Bushman tribes of southern Africa’. In A. M. Duggan-Cronin (ed.), The Bushman Tribes of Southern Africa. Kimberley: Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, pp. 1–14. 1956. A Bushman Dictionary. New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society. Bleek, W. H. I. 1873. Report of Dr. Bleek concerning his Researches into the Bushman Language and Customs, Presented to the Honourable the House of Assembly. Cape of Good Hope Ofﬁcial Publications A17-’83. 1875. Second Report concerning Bushman Researches by W. H. I. Bleek, Presented to the Houses of Parliament. Cape of Good Hope Ofﬁcial Publications G 54-’75. Bleek, W. H. I. and L. C. Lloyd 1911. Specimens of Bushman Folklore. London: Allen. Boekkooi, J. 1988. ‘Murdered: the last of the Mountain Bushmen’. Sunday Tribune, 4 December. Brenzinger, M. 1992. ‘Language shift in East Africa’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 287–303. Brenzinger, M., B. Heine and G. Sommer 1991. ‘Language death in Africa’. In R. H. Robins and E. M. Uhlenbeck (eds.), Endangered Languages. Oxford: Berg, pp. 19–44. Carstens, P. 1966. The Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

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Cluver, A. D. de V. n.d.a ‘Afrikaans as ’n nasionale taal van Namibi¨e: ’n studie in taalgeskiedenis en taalpolitiek’. Unpublished MS. n.d.b. ‘Changing language attitudes: the stigmatisation of Khoekhoegowab in Namibia’. Unpublished MS. Crawhall, N. 1997. ‘Results of consultations with San and Khoe communities in Gordonia, Namaqualand and Bushmanland’. South African San Institute’s Third Submission to the Pan South African Language Board. Unpublished MS. Deacon, J. 1986. ‘“My name is Bitterputs”: the home territory of Bleek and Lloyd’s /Xam San informants’. African Studies, 45: 135–55. 1996. ‘The /Xam informants’. In J. Deacon and T. A. Dowson (eds.), Voices from the Past. /Xam Bushmen and the Bleek and Lloyd Collection. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 11–39. Dimmendaal, G. J. 1989. ‘On language death in eastern Africa’. In Dorian (ed.), pp. 13–32. Doke, C. M. 1937. ‘An outline of =| Khomani Bushmen phonetics’. In J. D. Rheinallt Jones and C. M. Doke (eds.), Bushmen of the Southern Kalahari. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 61–88. Dorian, N. C. 1989 (ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. du Plessis, J. 1965. A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. Cape Town: Struik. Elphick, R. 1985. Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Elphick. R. and Malherbe, V. C. 1989. ‘The Khoesan to 1828’. In R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (eds.), The Shaping of South Africa. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, pp. 3–65. Haacke, W. H. G. 1989. ‘Nama: survival through standardization’. In I. Foder and C. Hag`ege (eds.), Language Reform: History and Future. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, pp. 397–429. Harinck, G. 1972. ‘Interaction between Xhosa and Khoe: emphasis on the period 1620–1750’. In I. Thompson (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa. London: Heinemann, pp. 145–69. Herbert, R. K. 1990a. ‘The relative markedness of click sounds: evidence from language change, acquisition and avoidance’. Anthropological Linguistics, 32, 1–2: 295–315. 1990b. ‘The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu’. Anthropological Linguistics, 32, 3–4: 120–38. [Revised version in this volume, chap. 15] How, M. W. 1962. The Mountain Bushmen of Basutoland. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Jolly, P. 1994. ‘Strangers to brothers: interaction between south-eastern San and Southern Nguni/Sotho’. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Cape Town. K¨ohler, O. 1981. ‘Les Langues Khoisan’. In G. Manessy (ed.), Les Langues de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientiﬁque, vol. III, pp. 459–615. Krauss, M. L. 1992. ‘The world’s languages in crisis’. Language, 68: 4–10. Kruger, B. 1966. The Pear Tree Blossoms: A History of the Moravian Mission Stations in South Africa 1737–1869. Genadendal: Moravian Book Depot. Lanham, L. W. 1964. ‘The proliferation and extension of Bantu phonemic systems inﬂuenced by Bushman and Hottentot’. In H. G. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 382–91.

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Lanham, L. W. and D. P. Hallowes 1956a. ‘An outline of the structure of Eastern Bushman’. African Studies, 15: 97–118. 1956b. ‘Linguistic relationships and contacts expressed in the vocabulary of Eastern Bushman’. African Studies, 15: 45–8. Links, T. H. 1989. So praat ons Namakwalanders. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Louw, J. A. 1974. ‘The inﬂuence of Khoi on the Xhosa language’. Limi, 2: 43–93. 1977. ‘The adaptation of non-click consonants in Xhosa’. In A. Traill (ed.), Khoisan Linguistic Studies. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, vol. III, pp. 74–92. 1979. ‘A preliminary survey of Khoi and San inﬂuence in Zulu’. In A. Traill (ed.), Khoisan Linguistic Studies. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, vol. VIII, pp. 8–21. Maingard, L. F. 1937. ‘The =| Khomani dialect of Bushman: its morphology and other characteristics’. In J. D. Rheinallt Jones and C. M. Doke (eds.), Bushmen of the Southern Kalahari. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 237–75. Marais, J. S. 1968. The Cape Coloured People 1652–1937. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Meinhof, C. 1928–9. ‘Versuch einer grammatischen Skizze einer Buschmannsprache’. Zeitschrift f¨ur Eingeborenensprachen, 19: 117–53. Mostert, N. 1992. Frontiers. London: Jonathan Cape. Nienaber, G. S. 1963. Hottentots. Pretoria: Van Schaik. 1990. ‘Khoekhoen: spelling, vorma, betekenis’. African Studies, 49, 2: 43–50. Nienaber, G. S. and P. Raper 1977. Toponymica Hottentotica. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Orpen, C. S. 1877. ‘A contribution from a Bushman’. Orange Free State Monthly Magazine, 1, 2: 83–5. Orpen, J. M. 1874. ‘A glimpse into the mythology of the Maluti Bushmen’. Cape Monthly Magazine, 9: 1–13. Penn, N. 1991. ‘The |Xam and the colony’. Paper presented to the Bleek and Lloyd 1870–1991 Conference, University of Cape Town, 1991. Potgieter, E. F. 1955. The Disappearing Bushmen of Lake Chrissie. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Rademeyer, J. H. 1938. Kleurling-Afrikaans: Die Taal van die Griekwas en Rehoboth Basters. Amsterdam: Swats & Zeitlinger. Raper, P. 1972. Streekname in Suid-Afrika en Suidwes. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Ross, R. 1976. Adam Kok’s Griquas. A Study in the Development of Stratiﬁcation in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sales, J. 1975. Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the Eastern Cape 1800–1852. Cape Town: Balkema. Scholtz, J. du P. 1940. Naamgewing aan Plante en Diere in Afrikaans. Elsies Rivier: Nasou. Story, R. 1937. Manuscript collections of the Ki|hazi Bushman language. MS. Strassberger, E. 1969. The Rhenish Mission Society in South Africa 1830–1950. Cape Town: C. Struik. Thomason, S. G. and T. Kaufman 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Treble Violl [pseud.] 1911. ‘Bushman hunting’. Cape Times Weekly Edition, 13 September.

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Tsitsipis, L. D. 1989. ‘Skewed performance and full performance in language obsolescence: the case of an Albanian variety’. In Dorian (ed.), pp. 117–37. van der Merwe, M. A. 1985. ‘Die Berlynse Sendelinge van Bethanie (Oranje-Vrystaat) en die Kora, 1834–1856’. South African Historical Journal, 17: 40–63. van Rensburg, M. C. J. 1984. ‘Finale verslag van ’n ondersoek na die Afrikaans van die Griekwas van die tagtiger jare’. Unpublished research report. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Westphal, E. O. J. 1971. ‘The click languages of southern and eastern Africa’. In J. Berry (ed.), Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Current Trends in Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, vol. VII, pp. 367–420. Wilson, M. 1969. ‘The hunters and herders’. In Wilson and Thompson (eds.), pp. 41–74. Wilson, M. and L. Thompson (eds.) 1969. The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Winter, J. C. 1981. ‘Die Khoisan familie’. In B. Heine, T. C. Schadeberg and E. Wolff (eds.), Die Sprache Afrikas. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, vol. IV, pp. 329–74. Wright, J. 1971. Bushman Raiders of the Drakensberg 1840–1870. Pietermartizburg: University of Natal Press.

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 distinguishing 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 particular attention to the Bantu languages. The term ‘Bantu’ (Bˆa-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 Bˆa-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 Bantuspeaking 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 Bantuspeaking groups who kept livestock and practised cultivation by at least 300 ad (Maggs 1991: 37). The precise relationship between these prehistoric groups 50

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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 displaced 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 associated 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. adjectives and verbs) with the nouns to which they respectively refer, and the

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A

E

E C

B

D F L

G

H L M K

P N

R

S

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 exhibiting marked similarity in structure and vocabulary, both of which are presumed 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

Be

53

rber

A

r

a

b

i

c Nubian

Ful

Beja

gay Son

Bamba ra

Hausa Kanuri Amharic Akan Yoruba

Igbo

Sango

Dinka

Zande

Oromo

Somali

Luo Lingala Kongo

Swahili

Luba

Bemba

Hadza Sandawe

Makua

Phyla Afroasiatic Nilo-Saharan Niger-Congo

Shona

Nama

Tswana

ho 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 language, 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

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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 hypothetical 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 subsistence 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, SubBantu, etc. have been used in the literature, though their theoretical status

The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives

55

Bantoid

Tikar

South

Mambiloid (Narrow) Bantu

Dakoid Jarawan Tivoid Beboid

North-west Other Bantu

Wide Grassfields 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 geographically 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 considerable 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

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within the Niger-Congo tree is generally not disputed, though see Bennett and Sterk (1977) for a contrasting view. Williamson and Blench (2000: 35) propose 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 recognise 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 contemporaries, 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 invaders 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 invading Bantu and replace it with another scenario. In this latter view, the spread of the Bantu languages was linked to the spread of metalworking, agriculture and village life, and (perhaps) the replacement of small-statured huntergatherers 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

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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 expansionist 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 divided 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 ceramic 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.

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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 expansion 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 relatives 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 differentiated 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

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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 languages is not tenable. Although much of Eastern Bantu, including the Southern Bantu languages, descends from an Early Iron Age nucleus in the interlacustrine area, migrations from the Western Bantu heartland during the Late Iron Age interrupted the southerly ﬂow of languages and produced Westernafﬁliated 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 linguistic 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 descendants of earlier Eastern migrants. The authors point to certain discontinuous 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 oppositions, 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 historical implications. The distinction between classiﬁcations with and without such implications depends on the type of classiﬁcatory scheme, but these have

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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 referential and genetic classiﬁcation, though both scholars admit to the use of geographic and linguistic criteria as well as arbitrariness in the choice of linguistic 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.20 Venda S.30 Sotho-Tswana

S.40 Nguni

S.11 Korekore S.12 Zezuru S.13a Manyika S.14 Karanga S.15 Ndau S.16 Kalanga S.21 Venda S.31 Tswana dialects S.32 Kutswe (Northern Sotho) S.32a Pedi S.33 Southern Sotho S.41 Xhosa S.42 Zulu S.43 Swati S.44 Ndebele

The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives S.50 Tsonga

S.60 Chopi

61

S.51 Tshwa (Mozambique) S.52 Gwamba S.53 Tsonga (Mozambique, South Africa) S.54 Ronga S.61 Chopi [Lenge] (Mozambique) S.62 giTonga (Mozambique)

The terms ‘South-eastern Bantu’ and ‘Southern Bantu’ are often used interchangeably 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 except N.41

P.10

S.10

S.20-60 and K.21

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/ -f´ala -f´ela leswaf´o lefele

/h/ -hala -hela hahu hele

/fh/ -fh´al´a -fh´el´a fhafh´u (bet´e)

/ph/ -ph´ala -ph´ela i´ıphaph´u i´ıphela

scrape to end (v.i.) lung 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 linguistic subgroup, or whether any shared similarities are due to shared inheritance, diffusion or other contact phenomena. In part, the answer depends on

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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 S.30 S.53 S.21

Nguni languages (Ndebele, Swati, Xhosa, Zulu) Sotho languages (Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tswana) Tsonga (classed with Tshwa, Ronga, etc. in Mozambique) Venda (isolate, though possibly linked to Shona in Zimbabwe)9

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

Nguni

Sotho

Venda

Zulu Xhosa Tekeza

Tsonga

Inhambane

Ronga Tonga Tswa

S Sotho N Sotho Tswana

Chopi giTonga

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 clusters 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 citation 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 -xoxa -qala -cela

Swati -coca -cala -cela

gloss chat begin ask for

(lateral click [||]) (prepalatal click [!]) (dental click [|])

The Bantu languages: sociohistorical perspectives

63

Doke’s (1967) representation of the relationship among the various Nguni languages 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 convincing evidence for a Proto-Southern Bantu (‘Proto-Zone S’) language from which the present-day languages descend. The demonstration of such a unit would depend 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

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WESTERN B ANTU HEA RTLAND

UR

KO

BL

AC

KB

MOLO

N

(S o

tho -Ts (Ng wana) uni)

Early Iron Age Nucleus

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 assert anything deﬁnitive regarding possible relations within the class of Southern Bantu (Zone S) languages. In part, the difﬁculty arises from language contact 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

Zulu

Tekeza

Xhosa

Tekeza

Hlubi

65

Phuti

Tsonga

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 factors 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 community (‘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 standard 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 relations among the various Bantu language clusters (Guthrie’s ‘groups’). To a

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large extent, linguistic subgrouping within these groups (e.g. within Nguni, or Sotho-Tswana, or Tsonga) has not progressed signiﬁcantly. Nicola¨ı (1998) provides 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 languages 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 inﬂuence 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 precluded 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

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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 severe 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 justiﬁcation 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 single 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 harmonisation 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.

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It is also an open question whether the existence of a written standard language can lead to the development of a new spoken language in any meaningful sense. As Hag`ege (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. greatgrandparents. Reactions to Doke’s uniﬁcation and the subsequent ‘spelling wars’ in (then-) Southern Rhodesia are described by Fortune (1993). The promotion 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 identiﬁed 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, standardisation 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

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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 k´amm´amos´o k´amos´o th´ata s´entle

N. Sotho kamosw´ane mosw´ana kud´u g´abots´e

-fetolela

-fetolela -g´ol´ofala

S. Sotho hosasa hoseng haholo hantle -phothatsa -phephetha -phetolla -kgolophala

Zulu k´usˆas´a e´ k´us´eni kakhˆulu kahl´e -ph´uth´aza -ph´eph´etha (-phendula) -kh´ul´uph´ala

gloss tomorrow in the morning a lot well (adv.) take something carelessly blow (as wind) translate, change 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 divergent 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.

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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’, sometimes 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 considerable evidence of contact from Nguni (perhaps North Nguni again) on the Sotho-Tswana group of languages as a whole. Laterals are absent from peripheral 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

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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. However, 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 historical 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 languages 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 /-vh´ulaha/. The form /-ponda/ L occurs in central Shona dialects with the specialised meaning ‘commit murder (by striking)’. Venda tradition holds that

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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 morphological 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 extensive 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 KwaZuluNatal 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.

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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 indigenous 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 represent a valid (higher level) linguistic subgroup. Indeed, the historical unity of the Southern Bantu languages (with or without Shona) remains an empirical 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 speechcommunity 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 consisted 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 historical 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

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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. 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 discriminatory 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- (< ProtoBantu *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 having 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. The other two co-ofﬁcial languages are the settler languages, Afrikaans and English. 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). 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). Depending on the inclusion of Madagascar within the African continent, a ﬁfth language 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

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10

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12

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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. 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’. 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. There are, however, interesting data here. For example, the Proto-Bantu form for ‘ear’, */-t´u/ or */-kut´u/, is not attested in the southern region. All of the Zone S languages have a form based on the root */-njeb´e/ (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. 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. There is some confusion surrounding the language name Ndebele, which is applied 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. 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. 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). 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.

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bibliography Alexander, Neville 1989. Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books. Arbousset, Thomas 1991 [1840]. Missionary Excursion into the Blue Mountains, ed. and trans. D. Ambrose and A. Brutsch. Morija, Lesotho: Morija Archives. Bailey, R. 1995a. ‘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. 1995b. ‘Sociolinguistic evidence of Nguni, Sotho, Tsonga and Venda origins’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 39–50. Baumbach, E. J. M. 1987. Analytical Tsonga Grammar. Pretoria: University of South Africa. Bennett, Patrick and Jan P. Sterk 1977. ‘South Central Niger-Congo: a reclassiﬁcation’. Studies in African Linguistics, 8: 241–73. Bleek, W. H. I. 1862. A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. Cape Town: J. C. Juta & Tr¨ubner. Blench, Roger 1997. ‘Language studies in Africa’. In J. O. Vogel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, pp. 90–100. Dahl, Otto C. 1954. ‘Le substrar bantou en malgache’. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, 17: 325–62. Doke, Clement M. 1931. Report on the Uniﬁcation of the Shona Dialects. Government Blue Book, Government of Southern Rhodesia. 1967. The Southern Bantu Languages. London: International African Institute. 1993 [1960]. ‘The growth of comparative Bantu philology’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Foundations in Southern African Linguistics. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 71–96. Donnelly, Simon 1999. ‘Southern Tekela Nguni is alive: reintroducing the Phuthi language’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 136: 97–120. Ehret, Christopher 1997. ‘African languages: a historical survey’. In J. O. Vogel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, pp. 159–66. 1999. ‘Subclassifying Bantu: the evidence of stem morpheme innovations’. In J. Hombert and L. M. Hyman (eds.), Bantu Historical Linguistics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives. Stanford: CSLI Publications, pp. 43–147. Fortune, George 1993. ‘The contribution of C. M. Doke to written Shona’. African Studies, 52: 103–29. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. The Languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University. Gregersen, Edgar A. 1977. Language in Africa: An Introductory Survey. New York: Gordon & Breach. Grimes, Barbara F. 1996 (ed.). Ethnologue, 13th edn. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Guthrie, Malcolm 1948. The Classiﬁcation of the Bantu Languages. London: Oxford University Press. 1967–71. Comparative Bantu: An Introduction to the Comparative Linguistics and Prehistory of the Bantu Languages, 4 vols. Farnborough: Gregg. Harries, Patrick 1988. ‘The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the politics of language construction in South-East Africa’. African Affairs, 87: 25–52.

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Herbert, Robert K. 1996. ‘Some problems of ethnonyms for non-Western peoples’. Namenforschung, 2: 1343–8. Handb¨ucher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Berlin: de Gruyter. Herbert, Robert K. and Thomas N. Huffman 1993. ‘A new perspective on Bantu expansion and classiﬁcation: linguistic and archaeological evidence ﬁfty years after Doke’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Not with One Mouth. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 53–76. Huffman, Thomas N. 1989. ‘Ceramics, settlements and Late Iron Age migrations’. The African Archaeological Review, 7: 155–182. 1996. Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Huffman, Thomas N. and Robert K. Herbert 1994–5. ‘New perspectives on Eastern Bantu’. Azania, 29–30: 27–36. Janson, Tore 1991/2. ‘Southern Bantu and Makua’. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 12/13: 63–106. 1995. ‘The status, history and future of Sekgalagadi’. In A. Traill, R. Vossen and M. Biesele (eds.), The Complete Linguist: Papers in Memory of Patrick J. Dickens. K¨oln: K¨oppe, pp. 399–406. Khuba, Asnath Elelwani 1993. ‘The Signiﬁcance of the Musanda Language in Venda: A Diglossia’. Unpublished D.Litt. et Phil. dissertation, University of South Africa. Khumalo, J. S. M. 1984. ‘A new term for “Bantu” in linguistics studies’. South African Journal of African Languages, supplement 1, 111–20. Kunene, D. P. 1958. ‘Notes on hlonepha among the Southern Sotho’. African Studies, 17: 159–82. Louw, J. A. 1983. ‘The development of Xhosa and Zulu as languages’. In I. Fodor and C. Hag`ege (eds.), Language Reform: History and Future. Hamburg: Buske Verlag, vol. II, pp. 371–92. Louw, J. A. and Rosalie Finlayson 1990. ‘Southern Bantu origins as represented by Xhosa and Tswana’. South African Journal of African Languages, 10: 401–10. Maggs, T. 1991. ‘The early history of the black people in southern Africa’. In T. Cameron and S. B. Spies (eds.), A New Illustrated History of South Africa, 2nd edn. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, pp. 37–43. Maho, Jouni 1999. A Comparative Study of Bantu Noun Classes. G¨oteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Msimang, Themba 1998. ‘The nature and history of harmonisation of South African languages’. In K. Kwai Prah (ed.), Between Distinction and Extinction: The Harmonisation and Standardisation of African Languages. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 165–72. Mzamane, Godfrey I. M. 1949. A Concise Treatise on Phuti with Special Reference to its Relationship with Nguni and Sotho. Fort Hare Papers 1(4). Fort Hare: Fort Hare University Press. Ngubane, Sihawukele 1992. ‘The Northern Zululand Dialects’. MA thesis, University of Natal, Durban. Nicola¨ı, Robert 1998. ‘Thoughts on a model for describing linguistic relationships’. In I. Maddieson and T. J. Hinnebusch (eds.), Language History and Language Description in Africa. Trenton, N. J.: Africa World Press, pp. 55–64. Nurse, Derek 1997. ‘Language of eastern and southern Africa in historical perspective’. In J. O. Vogel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, pp. 166–171.

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Oliver, Roland 1966. ‘The problem of the Bantu expansion’. Journal of African History, 7: 361–76. Phillipson, David W. 1977. ‘The chronology of the Iron Age in Bantu Africa’. Journal of African History, 16: 321–42. 1985. African Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piron, Pascale 1998. Classiﬁcation interne du groupe banto¨ıde, 3 vols. Munich: LINCOM Europa. Poulos, George 1990. A Linguistic Analysis of Venda. Pretoria: Via Afrika. Schapera, Isaac and D. F. van der Merwe 1943. ‘A Comparative Study of Kgalagadi, Kwena and other Sotho Dialects’. Communication No. 9, School of African Studies, University of Cape Town. Silverstein, R. O. 1993 [1968]. ‘A note on the term “Bantu” as ﬁrst used by W. H. I. Bleek’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Foundations in Southern African Linguistics. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 17–18. Vansina, Jan 1979. ‘Bantu in the crystal ball. Part 1’. History in Africa, 7: 287–333. 1980. ‘Bantu in the crystal ball. Part 2’. History in Africa, 8: 293–325. 1995. ‘New linguistic evidence and “the Bantu expansion”’. Journal of African History, 36: 173–95. van Warmelo, N. J. 1927. ‘Die Gleiderung der s¨udafrikanischen Bantusprachen’. Doctoral dissertation, Hamburg. (Published in Zeitschrift f¨ur Eingeborenensprachen, 18, 1: 1–54 and 18, 2: 81–127.) 1989. Venda Dictionary: Tshivenda–English. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik. 1974. ‘The classiﬁcation of the cultural groups’. In W. D. Hammond-Tooke (ed.), The Bantu-speaking People of Southern Africa, 2nd edn. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 56–85. Vogel, Joseph O. 1997. ‘Bantu expansion’. In J. O. Vogel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, pp. 435–8. Watters, John R. 1989. ‘Bantoid overview’. In J. T. Bendor-Samuel (ed.), The NigerCongo Languages. New York: University Press of America, pp. 401–20. Werner, Alice 1933. Myths and Legends of the Bantu. London: G. G. Harrap. Wilkes, A. 1999. ‘Language contact and language change – the case of Southern Transvaal Ndebele, a Nguni language spoken in the Republic of South Africa’. In P. F. A. Kotey (ed.), New Dimensions in African Linguistics and Languages. Trenton, N. J.: Africa World Press, pp. 243–51. Williamson, Kay 1971. ‘The Benue-Congo languages and Ijo’. In T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. IV: Sub-Saharan Africa. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 245–306. Williamson, Kay and Roger Blench 2000. ‘Niger-Congo’. In B. Heine and D. Nurse (eds.), African Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, pp. 11–42. Ziervogel, Derek 1959. A Grammar of Northern Transvaal Ndebele. Pretoria: van Schaik.

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 physical 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 Europeandominated 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

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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 unintelligible 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 southwestern 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 economic 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 exacerbated 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.

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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 Dutchspeaking 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 subcontinent, 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.

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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 communication 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 revealing 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 journal 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).

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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 community (see Davids 1991), even though the ﬁrst published text – the Bayˆanudˆın (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 unifying 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 AngloBoer 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 communities 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. Kotz´e 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 attributable 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

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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 disputed 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 transition 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/nˆoi ‘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-`a-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

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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 gesˆe dat sy mˆore 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 similar 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 proﬁle 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 resulted 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 unsystematic 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 linguistic 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

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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 formulations are translatable into terms of synchronic variation and selection, the variationist component of this hypothesis qualiﬁes mainly as a shift in perspective. 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 nonidentical 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 simpliﬁcation 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 creolisation. 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 generations acquiring Cape Dutch natively (as bilinguals for an indeterminate period of time). The contemporary Afrikaans of people of colour still bears the imprint 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; Kotz´e 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, multilingual 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

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as a lingua franca. Furthermore, the colony continually received new interlectal speakers. (2) There was no withdrawal of the superstrate language. Dutch continued as the ﬁrst language of a signiﬁcant portion of VOC personnel and of the free settler population. (3) There was a spectrum between ‘(spoken) matrilectal Dutch and . . . a whole range of interlectal varieties’. The interlectal codes within this continuum were characterized by varying degrees of substrate transfer, reduction, simpliﬁcation and overgeneralization, ‘depending on closeness of contact’ (1993: 30). (4) Afrikaans today exhibits many structural properties 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 substratum in the course of the eighteenth century, the result would have been indigenised varieties of Cape Dutch spoken natively and not a totally new language. 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, however, creolisation was only partial due to regular arrivals of VOC personnel and new immigrants from the Netherlands, and also to the conserving inﬂuence 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

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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 revisited 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 relations 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 HottentotsHollands 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)

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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 decreolisation 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 languages 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 communication. (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 sociohistorical 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 population 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 R´eunionnais 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

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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 slavelabour 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 formation 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 primary input for L1 acquisition; there was, after all, no actual withdrawal of the superstrate language. Furthermore, we ﬁnd no evidence whatsoever to substantiate 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 subsequent newcomers a greater exposure to the superstrate language than was available in slave-labour systems in other parts of the world. Thus, L2 versions 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 pidgin having existed to be rather small. To be sure, the degree to which

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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 cultural 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 distinctly 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

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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 acrolectal 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 additional pressure to bear on second- and third-person singular verb forms in -t and on the weak past participle (gewerk for gewerkt). However, cluster reduction 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 conjugation (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).

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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 jargonisation 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 illustrate 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 following 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 pasttense 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); k`o (recent past), k`e (remote past) (Hagman 1977: 62).

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As concerns modality, the Cape Dutch pidgin employed maskie, ‘never mind, perhaps, (even) if’ (Creole Portuguese maski, Portuguese mas que) to indicate 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 element 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

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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 kam¨uh, ‘lie’ (//kam¨uh or =| kam¨uh, according to Nienaber 1963: 373; cf. Nama =| h`omi, ‘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 degree 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

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active – knowledge of the Cape Dutch pidgin. Acrolectal Cape Dutch would have become more and more diluted with increasing social and geographic distance 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 language 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 features 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 meaning ‘truly’ (9a), kamma in colloquial Afrikaans bestows a nuance of pretence or ostensibility, as we see in (9)b:

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(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 gedˆod. (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 gedˆod. (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 lˆop sˆe 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 certainly continues the pattern (al ) gedaan in the Cape Dutch pidgin (cf. den Besten

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1989: 238). The development of a competitive alternate with parallel aspectual 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 peoples 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 proximity 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 communication innovated a means of expressing degrees of proximity drawing upon the resources of a fully developed superstrate language (speciﬁcally a pragmatically 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.)

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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. bibliography Armstrong, J. C. and N. A. Worden 1989. ‘The slaves, 1652–1834’. In Elphick and Giliomee (eds.), pp. 109–83. Baker, P. 1993. ‘Assessing the African contribution to French-based creoles’. In Salikoko S. Mufwene (ed.), Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. 123–55. Baker, P. and C. Corne 1982. Isle de France Creole: Afﬁnities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Barend-van Haeften, M. L. 1996 (ed.). Op reis met de VOC: De openhartige dagboeken van de zusters Lammens en Swellengrebel. Met medewerking van E. S. van Eyck van Heslinga. Zutphen: Walburg Pers. Bruyn, A. and T. Veenstra 1993. ‘The creolization of Dutch’. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 8: 29–80. Buccini, A. F. 1992. ‘The colonial Dutch dialects: new evidence for the origins of Afrikaans and the development of standard Dutch in seventeenth century Holland’. Paper presented to the Germanic Linguistics Roundtable, University of California at Berkeley, April 10–11, 1992. 1996. ‘New Netherland Dutch, Cape Dutch, Afrikaans’. Taal en Tongval, Themanummer 9: 35–51. C J 344 1739. Crimineele Justiti¨en (reports of the Criminal Court), Government Archive, Cape Town. Combrink, J. G. H. 1978. ‘Afrikaans: its origin and development’. In L. W. Lanham and K. P. Prinsloo (eds.), Language and Communication Studies in South Africa. Oxford and Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 69–95. Conradie, C. J. 1998. ‘Preteritumverlies in vroe¨e Afrikaans’. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 38: 6–20. Davids, A. 1991. ‘The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915’. MA thesis, University of Natal, Durban. den Besten, H. 1978. ‘Cases of possible syntactic interference in the development of Afrikaans’. In P. Muysken (ed.), Amsterdam Creole Studies II. Amsterdam: Instituut voor Algemene Taalwetenschap, Universiteit van Amsterdam, pp. 5–56.

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1985. ‘Die doppelte Negation im Afrikaans und ihre Herkunft’. In Norbert Boretzky, Werner Enninger and Thomas Stolz (eds.), Akten des l. Essener Kolloquiums u¨ ber ‘Kreolsprachen und Sprachkontakte’ vom 26.1.1985 an der Universit¨at Essen. Bochum: Studienverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, pp. 9–42. 1986. ‘Double negation and the genesis of Afrikaans’. In P. Muysken and N. Smith (eds.), Substrata versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 185–230. 1987. ‘Die niederl¨andischen Pidgins der alten Kapkolonie’. In N. Boretzky, W. Enninger and T. Stolz (eds.), Beitr¨age zum 3. Essener Kolloquium u¨ ber Sprachwandel und seine bestimmenden Faktoren. Bochum: Studienverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, pp. 9–40. 1988. ‘Universal-Grammatik und/oder Zweitsprachenerwerb: Der Fall Afrikaans’. In N. Boretzky, W. Enninger and T. Stolz (eds.), Beitr¨age zum 4. Essener Kolloquium u¨ ber ‘Sprachkontakt, Sprachwandel, Sprachwechsel, Sprachtod’. Bochum: Studienverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, pp. 11–44. 1989. ‘From Khoekhoe foreignertalk via Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans: the creation of a novel grammar’. In P¨utz and Dirven (eds.), pp. 207–49. 1997. ‘Kreolportugiesisch in S¨udafrika: Malaio- oder Indoportugiesisch?’ In R. Degenhardt, T. Stolz and H. Ulferts (eds.), Afrolusitanistik – eine vergessene Disziplin in Deutschland? Dokumentation des 2. Bremer Afro-Romania Kolloquiums vom 27.–29. Juni 1996. Bremen: University of Bremen, pp. 317–51. 2000. ‘The slaves’ languages in the Dutch Cape Colony and Afrikaans vir’. Linguistics, 38: 949–71. den Besten, H., C. Luijks and P. T. Roberge forthcoming. ‘Reduplication in Afrikaans’. In S. Kouwenberg (ed.), Twice as Meaningful: Reduplication in Pidgins and Creoles. London: Battlebridge. Deumert, A. 1999. ‘Variation and Standardisation: The Case of Afrikaans (1880–1922)’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town. Donaldson, B. C. 1993. A Grammar of Afrikaans. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Elphick, R. 1977. Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Elphick, R. and H. Giliomee 1989a. ‘The origins and entrenchment of European dominance at the Cape, 1652–c. 1840’. In Elphick and Giliomee (eds.), pp. 521–66. 1989b (eds.). The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840, 2nd edn. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Elphick, R. and V. C. Malherbe 1989. ‘The Khoisan to 1828’. In Elphick and Giliomee (eds.), pp. 3–65. Elphick, R. and R. Shell 1989. ‘Intergroup relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652–1795’. In Elphick and Giliomee (eds.), pp. 184–239. Franken, J. L. M. 1938 (ed.). Duminy-dagboeke. Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society. 1953. Taalhistoriese bydraes. Amsterdam and Cape Town: Balkema. Hagman, R. S. 1977. Nama Hottentot Grammar. Bloomington: Indiana University. Hesseling, D. C. 1899. Het Afrikaansch. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1923. Het Afrikaans, 2nd edn. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Holm, J. 1988–9. Pidgins and Creoles, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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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 intergroup 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

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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 sociolinguistic 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 differential 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 either 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.

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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 [¨a] or even raised [ε]. (3) Lengthening I. In this (seventeenth-century) southern change, /æ/ lengthened 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 [¨a:] 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.

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(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 postvocalic /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 bum, arse dustbin chemist silencer dinner-jacket

petrol bum, arse dustbin chemist silencer dinner-jacket

gas(oline) ass garbage-can drugstore mufﬂer 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

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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 returned 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 greatest concentration was in the western Cape. The ﬁrst major inﬂux of English speakers came after Britain, under pressure from recession and the loss of immigrants 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

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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 ‘hyperEnglish’ 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 heterogeneous 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 settlement 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. monophthongisation) 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 internal 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:

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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 correlation 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

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‘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 studies, 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 typical 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 associated with all other white standard speakers, e.g. Democratic Party and English-speaking National Party politicians, university lecturers, teachers, physicians, accountants, lawyers (attorneys and advocates 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 nonprofessional (‘blue-collar’) work, and the lower end of the ‘whitecollar’ 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’ communities (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

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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 sociophonetic 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 intelligent 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 literature 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 syllables 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

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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 centralized [¨i ] 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 complex) 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 → ¨i ↑

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

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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 characteristic 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 [¨i ]. (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

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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 nonConservative 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 [ ɒ]. ¨ Younger Cape Town and Natal Respectable speakers seem to be manifesting raising and further unrounding, giving a quality in the vicinity of a rather central [∧]. (2) strut. This is only weakly a social marker. Its values generally ﬂuctuate from low central to centralised front half-close, with the norm around central open [– a] to [¨a]. 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 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,

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that younger (especially female) Respectable speakers often have something 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 variation. 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. Conservative 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 sch¨on, 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 leading the change), it may be fully front [y:] (rounded fleece), with ‘compressed’ 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 (approaching [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 different 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 [ɑ:], ¨ in posher styles even central [– a:]; in

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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 a¨  ∧], 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 categories 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 however, 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 casual 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 second, 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

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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 unrounded 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, especially 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 confusions: I recall once hearing an English-speaking politician refer to what I was convinced was the turtle (total) onslaught.15 The monophthongisation 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 counterpart 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 simply, 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.

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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 speakers. 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 mergers 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) (b) (c) (d) (e)

stops: /p, b, t, d, k, '/ fricatives: /f, v θ, ð s, z ʃ, , x, h/ affricates: /tʃ, d/ nasals: /m, n, ŋ/ liquids: /r, l, j, w, (w )/

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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, conventionally 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 Conservative and Respectable contrast in all positions. However in Extreme (but less frequently than in Afrikaans English) the voice contrast in both stops and fricatives 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 commonly 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

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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 utterances 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 century, and is now generally recessive or lost except in parts of the USA and Scotland and Ireland. It is, however, quite commonly retained in Conservative 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 vowels, 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’

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linking /r/, which appears not after certain words, but after certain vowels, regardless of whether the word in question has a historical (orthographical) . 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 . 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 speakers, 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 positions, and is typically associated with Afrikaans English, though it occurs

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(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 motivation 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 morphosyntactic 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

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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 c`onf´ırm, c`omp´uter). Final stress in educ´ate 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).

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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 pioneering 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.

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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: Tr¨ubner. 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 recodiﬁcation 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 Conference 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 differential 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 degree 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

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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 distinguishing 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 ofﬁcial 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 language. 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.

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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 captured 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 recognised the language rights of their citizens and made provision for the development 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.

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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 common 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 colonisation (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 different churches. During the course of the twentieth century, schools were eligible for some state aid once they had been established and were functioning.

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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 different 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 Abb´e Charles-Michel de l’Ep´ee. 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 Conference 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.

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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 manualism 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 followed 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

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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 education 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 language practices even less communicatively accessible to the Deaf children.

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Later, English or Afrikaans was brought in as the ofﬁcial medium of instruction 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 residential 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 policy, 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 children 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 (TransOranje 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

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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 mixing 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 However, 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

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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 preand 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.

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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 structure. 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 different 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

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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 morphemes 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 depending 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

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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 instance, 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 different 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

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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 communicate 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 happens 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 statefunded 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.

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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 regionally 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 standardising 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 comprising 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 dependent 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

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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 simultaneous. 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

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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, irrespective 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

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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 communication 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 established 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.

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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 language’ 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 differences 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 linguistic 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).

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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 fortyseven 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 Theoretical 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 century 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 linguistically 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 continual 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 communities 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

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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 northern 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. However, the larger the settlement the lower the proportion of German speakers

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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 majority 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 immigrants, 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, cinemas, 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 consequences 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

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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 problems, 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

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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 mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Today there are a number of different branches of Lutheranism in KwaZulu-Natal, some of which cater largely or solely for nonwhite 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 intermarriage 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 KwaZuluNatal, 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.

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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 represents. This has recently been documented through a study of the community of Wartburg, near Pietermaritzburg (de Kadt 2000), which attempted to overcome 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

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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 Deutschst¨ammigkeit, ‘being of German stock’ (Forsythe 1989). It is selfperceptions 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 contribute substantially to the maintenance of churches and schools, and the communities 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 fundraising. (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 KwaZuluNatal 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

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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 characteristics. 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 pronunciation. 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 combinations 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 Germanspeaking communities in the United States and Canada. A considerable amount of data has been collected by Stielau (1980) and von Delft (1984); Gr¨uner (1979) has undertaken a study of customs and school-teaching with reference to language 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 lexicon 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’,

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‘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’; Kohlmine, ‘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) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Ich hoffe, sie wird ihm heiraten. (HG ihn) ‘I hope she will marry him.’ Die Katze beisst ihr. (HG sie) ‘The cat bites her.’ Frag ihr doch! (HG sie) ‘Do ask her!’ . . . meinen Dank an Ihnen richten (HG Sie) ‘to express my gratitude to you’ Er hat es f¨ur 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.

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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) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

bei die Kirche (HG der) ‘at the church’ mit viele Firmen (HG vielen) ‘with a lot of ﬁrms’ Er war auf die Stelle tot. (HG der) ‘He was dead immediately.’ Ich werde es Sie erkl¨aren. (HG Ihnen) ‘I will explain it to you.’ Ich gratuliere dich! (HG dir) ‘I congratulate you!’ Sie hilft die Studenten. (HG den) ‘She helps the students.’ 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 erz¨ahlt . . . (HG Ihm wurde erz¨ahlt) ‘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’; compare Afr., in Kaiser se drama. (17) Die Mutter ihre zweite schwere S¨unde (HG Die zweite schwere S¨unde 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

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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 experience of developments in Germany in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The present generation of young German-speaking adults is therefore challenging 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 further 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 communities. 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

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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 community; 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), N¨ockler (1963) and Gretschel (1984) concentrate on vocabulary, 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 S¨udafrika – gegenw¨artiger 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. ‘S¨udwester Deutsch – eine kritische Bilanz’. Logos, 4, 2: 38–44. Gr¨uner, R. 1979. ‘Brauchtum und Schulunterricht in deutschen Siedlungen mit besonderer Ber¨ucksichtigung der Verh¨altnisse in Kroondal bei Rustenburg’. In ¨ L. Auburger and H. Kloss (eds.), Deutsche Sprachkontakte im Ubersee. T¨ubingen: G¨unter Narr, pp. 15–40. Kleinz, N. 1981. Die drei germanischen Sprachen S¨udwestafrikas – Politische und soziologische 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.

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N¨ockler, H. C. 1963. Sprachmischung in S¨udwestafrika. 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’. Ver¨offentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft f¨ur S¨udwestafrika, 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 Uberlegungen zur Afrikaans-Deutschen Interferenz’. Deutschunterricht in S¨udafrika, 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 consequence 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 territories. 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

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Burushaski

KASHMIRI

Pa

SH

i gr Do

Majhi

ha

PU

TO

ri PANJABI

Hi

nd

us

Brahui

Lepcha

tan

i

WE

R

BALUCHI

r

Maithili

D

E

ES

M A SS A Naga

Garo Khasi

I

IN NH

BENGALI

ra pa Ti

Meithei

DI

Ku Mundari ru ki

Korku

Santali ORIYA Parji

Kolami MARATHI

Aka Dafia

Bhota Nepali

ARI BIH PURI) J (BHO

TE R

DI

Bh ili

j

N

HIN

I A N T H

GUJARATI

a

RN

I

S

H

ari Naw

E AS

H

J A

M

i ar arw

STE

A

SINDHI

Awadhi

Kui

Gondi

Ko ya

TELUGU KO

KANNADA

NK AN I lu

Tu

M ALA LAY MA

The languages and dialects of India

Kodagu

1. Language Families and Branches

TAMIL

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.

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The sociolinguistic milieu in which Indians found themselves was a particularly 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 languages. 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 workers 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 probably responsible for its stabilisation. A letter written on behalf of an indentured 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 secondgeneration Indian South Africans. Mahatma Gandhi (who played a central role in South African Indian politics between 1893 and 1913) argued that ‘almost all

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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 missionaries 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 compulsory 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

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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

Tamil Hindi Gujarati Urdu Telugu Other

1951 120,181 89,145 39,495 13,842 25,077 26,090

1960 141,977 126,067 53,910 35,789 34,483 2,053

1970 153,645 116,485 46,039 – 30,690 71,070

1980 24,720 25,900 25,120 13,280 4,000 –

1991 4,103 4,969 7,456 3,760 638 –

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

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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 languages, Bhojpuri, stressing South African sociolinguistic developments. Information 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 PAHARI

PERCENTAGE More than 5

TEHRI GARHWAL

GARHWAL

SHARANPUR

T

ARRAH, BARA BANKI, MONGHYR, BAHRAICH, SHAHABAD, JAIPUR, UNAO, KANPUR, FATEHPUR, MIRZAPUR, SARAN, BALLIA, HARDOI

AB KH RA

HARDOI

HAMIRPUR

FA TE

RAE BARELI

HP UR

JHANSI BANDA

FYZ AB AD SU LTA NP UR

GORAKHPUR

SARAN AZAMGARH B ALL IA

AD AB

PARTABGARH JAUNPUR AL GHAZIPUR LA D H BANARAS BA MIRZAPUR

PALAMAU RAIPUR, ARRAH, JAIPUR

Based on SIEGEL 1987: Pg. 144

A G

MAITHILI

MONGHYR PATNA

GAYA

0

BAGHELI NOT INDICATED

N

CH BASTI

AN

H

UNAO KANPUR

JALAUN

BUNDELI

BARABANKI

R PA AM

W NO CK

AD

KANAUJI

UP − Bihar border

BHOJPURI GONDA

LU

ALL OTHER DISTRICTS

AWADHI

UR NP KHERI HA JA AH

MAINPURI

ET AW A

Less than 1

A

HI

AH

SH

FA R

A UR TH

AGRA

GORAKHPUR, JAUNPUR, PARTABGARH, RAIPUR, BANARAS

1−2

SH

A

PATNA, GAYA, ALLAHABAH, RAI BARELI, LUCKNOW

2−3

H AIC HR BA

BRAJ M

GAZIPUR, SULTANPUR, FYZABAD

3−4

NAINITAL

PIL IB

BULANDSHAHR

MOR A

MEERUT

DA BA D

BIJNOR

RA MP BA RE UR IL LY

MUZAFFARNAGAR

BASTI, GONDA, AZAMGARH

4−5

DA RB HA N

KHARIBOLI

167

100

200 Kilometres

HAZARIBAGH

MAGAHI

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.aili¯, ‘I returned’ (see further 2.1 below). (b) (Optional) plural marker -j¯a, as in ham log dekhli-j¯a, ‘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) chokr¯ı ke c¯a¯ı ban¯awe ke par.¯ı. 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 boll¯i 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’).

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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 t¯u j¯a . . . kam khoj len¯a. 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, ham¯ar, ‘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. d¯u .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. t¯u 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 inﬂuences 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-l¯i ‘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 differentiates between third person singular and plural forms. However, the SABh ﬁrst person form derives from the more westerly varieties of Indian Bhojpuri

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(the easterly varieties having -li instead). On the other hand, the third person 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 features 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 accommodation 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 ‘accommodated 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 importance: 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 sociohistorical 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 discussion. 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 idiosyncratic 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

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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 ¯ rather than the usual -be; third person transitive past endings in -le or -lis, in -ba, rather than the usual -las or -lak, and the use of the endings -w¯a for the third person singular of past intransitive verbs. All of these forms show the marginalisation 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 M¨uhlh¨ausler (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 morphological way of signalling ‘respect’ in SABh. Power relations between interlocutors 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 a¯ pan, ‘self’, instead of t¯u; by borrowing the standard Hindi form ap, ¯ 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 features 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 a` vis equivalent structures in the other input varieties. These include the special negative form of the copula nahikh¯ı, naikh¯ı or naikhe (which is replaced by the analytic use of a negative particle nahi, plus the ordinary form of the copula, as in many of the input varieties). Likewise, the defective verb hokh- of Indian Bhojpuri, denoting a subjunctive use of ‘to become’,

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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.y¯a, ‘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: thagw¯a and luter¯a. 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 Kalkaty¯a, 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 Kalkaty¯a b¯at (‘Calcutta language’). In the same vein there arose new kinship terms such as jahaj¯ı bh¯a¯ı, ‘ship brother’ and jah¯aj¯ı 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 a¯ fkaran became the word for ‘twenty-ﬁve pence’ (from half-a-crown); d.amol¯a the word for ‘sugar mill’ (from Mauritian Bhojpuri spoken by some indentured workers and plantation owners in Natal, ultimately based on Creole d˜a mul˜e, from French dans le moulin). South African place names proved tongue-twisters to the ﬁrst generation, who modiﬁed them to suit the phonological and sometimes semantic structure of their own language. Thus the Afrikaans sufﬁx -burg, ¯ ‘town’, seems to have been identiﬁed with the Bhojpuri word for garden, bag (which is also a place-name sufﬁx in India). Hence ‘Johannesburg’ became Job¯ag (‘Joe’s garden’?) while ‘Pietermaritzburg’ became Mirichb¯ag, literally

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‘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 bag¯asha, ‘to visit’ (ultimately from Zulu ukuvakashela). Loanwords from other Indian languages encountered for the ﬁrst time in Natal are not very common, apart from some food terms from Tamil (e.g. poli¯, 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 numerous, and were adapted to the phonological structure of Bhojpuri: e.g. pila˜¯ k, ‘wood, plank’, shows the breaking up of the pl cluster of English, changing the [æ] vowel (non-existent in Bhojpuri) to a nasalised [˜a:] 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 torrent – 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 occupations 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.a¯ l, which in India still denotes a particular out-caste group. In South Africa it has become a swearword, an epithet for a ‘good-for-nothing’, ‘an upstart’, etc. Even the word for ‘caste’ itself, j¯at, 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 j¯at 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

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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’ (nawth¯a 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 specialised terms do not seem to have lasted beyond the ﬁrst generation of immigrants. 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 sw¯ıc on kar, ‘start’; of kar, ‘switch off’; p¯ak 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) communities 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 ancestral 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

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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 naks¯an, 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-`a-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.

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Regretfully for Indian languages in South Africa, the situation is much more complex (see Mesthrie 1995). There is an ongoing renegotiation and redeﬁnition 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). Furthermore, 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. bibliography Aziz, A. K. 1988. ‘An Investigation into the Factors Governing the Persistence of Urdu as a Minority Language in South Africa’. MA thesis, University of South Africa. Bhana, S. and J. B. Brain 1990. Setting Down Roots: Indian Migrants in South Africa, 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: Government of India. Grierson, A. G. 1903–28. Linguistic Survey of India, 11 vols. Calcutta: Government of India; repr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1967.

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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. M¨uhlh¨ausler, 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 language, 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 M¨uhlh¨ausler 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 subsequent 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

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3 DOMAINS IN WHICH FANAKALO IS USED

Elsewhere (Adendorff 1993) I have summarised what I see as the salient contextual 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 understanding 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 diminishing 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.

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Until richer linguistic descriptions are available, I believe Fanakalo is best understood 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 simplest 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 morphological 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 miningindustrial 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) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v)

pronoun proper N lo N mod1 (lo) N (lo) mod2 N

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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 modiﬁers (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.).

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The VPs in the following sentences demonstrate the ﬁve kinds of predicative types: simple verbs (7); serial verbs (8); khona (existence) (9); khona (attribution) (10); and enza (copula) (11). ‘Predicative’ is chosen as a superordinate 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 restricted 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

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Table 9.1 Summary of lexical sources and type–token information for three training-school informants (raw scores only) Informant A

Informant B

Sources of lexical items Zulu 141 English 51 Afrikaans 11 Portuguese 1 uncertain 11 names and dates 17 other 1

146 22 5 1 5 15 3

Type–token information types 233 tokens 1,446 type–token ratio 16.11

197 1,254 15.71

Occurrence of high-frequency morphemes lo 272 ka 114 yena 93 lapa 67

223 102 93 84

Informant C

104 2 0 1 1 8 8 124 549 22.59 93 51 90 24

Table 9.2 Percentage of total high-frequency morphemes (lo, ka, yena, lapa) to total tokens Informant A 546 1,446 = 37.76%

Informant B 502 1,254 = 40.03%

Informant C 258 549 = 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 different 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.

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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 lexical 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 existing 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 entail reconstituting lexical roots in order to yield new items. Such a principle underlies compounding, reduplication (an instance of compounding) and circumlocution. 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.

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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 bazal slalo

homestead parents 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, furthermore, of a restriction in the number of function words available to signal syntactic 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 morphological 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.

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The following items are highly productive inﬂectional afﬁxes in Fanakalo. But for the last one, all are sufﬁxal: (a) (b) (c) (d)

-ile: generalized past (dlala, ‘play’; dlalile, ‘have played’) -isa: causative ( funda, ‘learn’; fundisa, ‘cause to learn’) -wa: passive (peka, ‘cook’; pekiwa, ‘be cooked’) 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: 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

J:

188 J:

R. Adendorff (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) pauses exceeding 0.5 seconds – exact duration speciﬁed ( secs) [ 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 verbal 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 semantically 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 consideration 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:

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(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 reservation, 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 refuted 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 reﬂect an ‘alternative scenario’ (to use Siegel’s 1987 term): an indigenous language (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

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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 particular 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

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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 commitment 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.

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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 languageteaching 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 secondlanguage 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

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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 illustrated 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 elsewhere, 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

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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 assistant 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 another. 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.’

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.’

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.’

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

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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 reason 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

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drawing attention to what they share, is conveying solidarity with his audience. The interrogative mode of Hey wena? Ini wena buka? recalls the stereotypical 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 solidarity 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 unmarked 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.

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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. bibliography Adendorff, R. D. 1987. ‘The origin of Fanakalo’. Unpublished paper, Bloomington: Indiana University. 1993. ‘Ethnographic evidence of the social meaning of Fanakalo in South Africa’. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 8, 1: 1–27. 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. Brown, D. 1988. ‘The basements of Babylon: English literacy – and the division of labour on the South African gold mines’. Social Dynamics, 14: 46–56. Butler, F. G. and C. Mann 1979 (eds.). A New Book of South African Verse in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Callaway, H. 1868. Izinganekwane, Nensumansumane, Nezindaba Zabantu: Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus. London: Tr¨ubner. Chamber of Mines, Mine Safety Division 1982. Fest-Eyid ka lo Mayini. Johannesburg: Chamber of Mines. Cole, D. T. 1953. ‘Fanagalo and the Bantu languages in South Africa’. African Studies, 12: 1–9. Downes, W. 1984. Language and Society. London: Fontana. Gal, S. 1989. ‘Language and political economy’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 18: 345–67. Hancock, I. F. 1977. ‘Lexical expansion within a closed system’. In B. G. Blount and M. Sanches (eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Change. New York: Academic Press, pp. 161–71. Labov, W. 1972. ‘Rules for ritual insults’. In D. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction. New York: The Free Press, pp. 120–68. Mesthrie, R. 1989. ‘The origins of Fanagalo’. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 4, 2: 211–40. 1998. ‘Words across worlds: aspects of language contact and language learning in the eastern Cape: 1800–1850’. African Studies, 57, 1: 5–27.

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M¨uhlh¨ausler, P. 1986. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Radise, J., A. Wainwright and J. K. McNamara 1979. ‘The attitudes of black and white employees to the use of Fanakalo on gold mines’. Human Resources Laboratory Monitoring Report, 3, 2: 1–12. Ribbens, R. and T. Reagan 1991. ‘Trade, industry and the business community’. In V. N. Webb (ed.), Language in South Africa: An Input to Language Planning for a PostApartheid South Africa. The (Provisional) LiCCA (SA) Research Report. Pretoria: University of Pretoria, pp. 129–42. Romaine, S. 1988. Pidgin and Creole Languages. London: Longman. Siegel, J. 1987. Language Contact in a Plantation Environmment: A Sociolinguistic History of Fiji. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trapp, Brother O. O. 1908. ‘Die Isikula-Sprache in Natal, S¨udafrika’. Anthropos, 3: 508–11. Wessels, B. 1986. ‘Fanakalo: lingua franca of the mining community’. Mining Survey, 1: 26–35. Wilson-Moore, C. and A. P. Wilson-Moore 1890. Diggers Doggerell: Poems of the Veld and Mine. Cape Town: Argus Printing and Publishing Co.

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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, reconstituted 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

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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 Anglicised 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 representing that meaning are native’ (Appel and Muysken 1987: 15). It might be convenient to group loanwords and loanblends together as ‘adoptives’ (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 processes involved in lexical borrowing. Borrowing typically involves bilingualism (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 motivation 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 (‘confounded’) 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’;

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(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 languagecontact 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 language 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 corresponding proportion is about one-seventh (Bourquin 1935). Swati and Southern Sotho, on the other hand, contain far fewer click words. Nearly all the click

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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 occupied 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 parallel 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 appeased’. 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,

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colonists and missionaries, and fought long and hard for their lands and independence (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, domestic 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 pronunciation. Early borrowings show the /l/ replacing post-vocalic /r/, as Xhosa originally 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

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used to be largely English speaking, he found a large number of differences in the words used by Xhosa speakers. Middelburg Xhosa iplasi ipotloti ipiringi deka itaﬁle irum ikamire

Afrikaans plaas potlood piering dek die tafel room kamer

Cradock Xhosa ifama ipensile isosara leyisha itaﬁle ikhrim irum

English farm pencil saucer lay the table cream 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 circumlocution as in amashumi asixhenxe, ‘sixty’. Thus numerals above ﬁve in contemporary speech are typically expressed by loanwords: a case, probably, of borrowing for convenience. Borrowings in contemporary township Xhosa of course merit fuller investigation.

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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 become 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 r r r

selection of a variety for standardisation; codiﬁcation; elaboration of functions; 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 remarkable 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, subjugated Khoekhoe, people of mixed descent and French- and German-speaking settlers.

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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 piering, ‘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 numerous 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 language’: as Langenhoven put it in 1914, ‘die e´ e´ n 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 Oosgrensafrikaans, ‘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

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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, ‘government 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 technology and of specialised disciplines (for details see Morris 1985). By 1985, at least 250 technical dictionaries covering a wide range of ﬁelds had been produced (Morris 1985: 77). Language Services SADF (South African Defence Force) became an imperium in imperio, one of its achievements being the translation 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.

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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 Asi¨er 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 StandaardAfrikaans 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 codeswitchings 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’

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(‘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 beginning. 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 klˆogoed, ‘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 because they are almost ‘pathological in their lack of diversity’. Hudson seems to regret this, but greater diversity – such as the adoption, say, of klˆogoed 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

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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 intelligible to some users of English and opaque to others. An important range of vocabulary, 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 hollowedout 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 vocabulary 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.

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Table 10.1 Origins of SAE neologisms Languages of origin: per cent

Dutch-Afrikaans English Southern Bantu Other

Africanderisms (1913) 50 28 5 17

DSAE Hist (1988) 48 29 11 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 contraction 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, ‘castrated 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 sˆe is not like it was (Jiggs, i.e. Colin Smuts, in Chapman 1981: 358)

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Here ek sˆe, ‘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 sˆe. The newspaper vocabulary of political abuse of the Afrikaner establishment 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 terminology 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

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languages’ for their mother-tongue speakers ‘can be a refuge away from the manipulative impersonality associated with corporate English language acquisition’. 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 bibliography Appel, R. and P. Muysken 1987. Language Contact and Bilingualism. London: Edward Arnold. Baugh, A. C. 1959. A History of the English Language, 2nd edn. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bourquin, W. 1935. ‘Click words that Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho have in common.’ African Studies, 10: 59–81. Branford, J. 1978. A Dictionary of South African English, 1st edn. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 1988. ‘Adam’s dilemma: a note on the early naming of kinds at the Cape’. In E. J. Stanley, and T. F. Hoad (eds.), Words: For Robert Burchﬁeld’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 69–80. Branford, J. (with W. Branford) 1991. A Dictionary of South African English, 4th edn. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Branford, W. 1994. ‘English in South Africa’. In The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. V: English in Britain and Overseas, ed. R. Burchﬁeld. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 430–96. Brink, A. P. 1988. ‘Afrikaans en bevryding’. In van den Heever (ed.), pp. 23–41. Carstens, W. A. M. 1989. Norme vir Afrikaans. Pretoria: Academica. Chapman, M. 1981 (ed.). A Century of South African Poetry. Johannesburg and London: Ad Donker. Combrink, J. and J. Spies 1986. SARA: Sakboek van regte Afrikaans. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Donaldson, B. C. 1991. The Inﬂuence of English on Afrikaans. Pretoria: Academica. 1995. ‘Language contact and linguistic change: the inﬂuence of English on Afrikaans’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 222–9. Gerwel, J. 1988. ‘Alternatiewe Afrikaans op h¨oerskool’. In R. van den Heever (ed.), Afrikaans en bevryding. Kasselsvlei: Cape Professional Teachers’ Union, pp. 7–19.

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Goosen, J. 1990. Ons is nie almal so nie. Pretoria: HAUM Literer. Harinck, G. 1969. ‘Interaction between Xhosa and Khoe: emphasis on the period 1620–1750’. In L. Thompson (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa. London: Heinemann, pp. 145–70. Haugen, E. 1972 [1950]. ‘The analysis of linguistic borrowing’. In A. S. Dil (ed.), The Ecology of Language: Essays by Einar Haugen. Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 50–71. Hudson, R. A. 1980. Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kropf, A. 1915. A Kaﬁr–English Dictionary, ed. Robert Godfrey, 2nd edn. Lovedale: Lovedale Mission Press. Labov, W. 1963. ‘The social motivation of a sound change’. Word, 19: 273–309. Lanham, L. W. 1964. ‘The proliferation and extension of Bantu phonemic systems inﬂuenced by Bushman and Hottentot’. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics, Cambridge, Mass., 1962. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 382–91. Leech, G. 1974. Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Malan, R. [pseud. Rawbone Malong] 1972. Ah Big Yaws? Cape Town: David Philip. Mesthrie, R. 1992. A Lexicon of South African Indian English. Leeds: Peepal Tree. Morris, R. 1985. ‘Lexical development and language planning in South Africa’. In K. Prinsloo (ed.), Language Planning for South Africa. South African Journal of Linguistics, occasional papers no. 2. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 71–89. Ndebele, N. S. 1987. ‘The English language and social change in South Africa’. English Academy Review, 4: 1–16. Odendal F. F. 1983 (ed.). Verklarende handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal (HAT). Johannesburg: Perskor. Owen Lloyd, G. 1955. ‘A study of some Xhosa words of Afrikaans origin’. Reprint from South African Outlook, June: 90–3. Peires, J. 1981. The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Pettman, C. 1913. Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases and of Place and Other Names. London: Longmans Green. Prick van Wely, F. D. H. 1960. Cassell’s English–Dutch, Dutch–English Dictionary. London: Cassell. Raidt, E. 1976. Afrikaans en sy Europese verlede. Cape Town: Nasou. Silva, P. et al. 1996. A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steyn, H. A., H. G. Schulze and H. Gutsche 1925. Worterbuch: Deutch–Afrikanisch, Afrikanisch–Deutsch, Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik. Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (SAAWK) 1991. Afrikaanse woordelys en spelre¨els. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Trudgill, P. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. van den Heever, R. 1988 (ed.). Afrikaans en bevryding. Kasselsvlei: Kaaplandse Professionele Onderwysersunie. van der Merwe, H. J. J. M. 1951. An Introduction to Afrikaans. Cape Town: A. A. Balkema. 1966 (ed.). Inleiding tot die taalkunde. Pretoria: Van Schaik.

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1977. Die korrekte woord: Afrikaanse taalkwessies, 7th impression. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik. van Rensburg, C. 1993. ‘Die demokratisering van Afrikaans’. In Linguistica: Festschift E. B. van Wyk. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, pp. 141–53. Walker, E. A. 1928. A History of South Africa. London: Longmans Green. Wardhaugh, R. 1986. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Zietsman, P. N. 1992. Die taal is gans die volk. Pretoria: University of South Africa.

11

Code-switching, mixing and convergence in Cape Town K. McCormick

A child talking to herself . . . Ek het die colour, nou where’s it? (KM MI1)1

(‘I have this colour, now where’s it?’)

An old man reminiscing . . . It wasn’t a difference like it is today, nei of djy wit is of swart, djy’s one and the same. (CTOHP M Ab p. 16)

(‘. . . no, if you’re white or black, you’re one and the same.’)

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 elements 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 community, 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

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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

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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 nie gewerk nie – she was a housewife. (CTOHP G Hend p. 4)

(My mother didn’t work, my grandmother didn’t work . . . )

(2) Ou stock is lekkers wat gechip is af. (CTOHP P Mil p. 27)

(Old stock is sweets that have been 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 gewies nie, soos nou nie. Ons het gegaan groceries haal en they made a lovely parcel of brown paper. (CTOHP G Hend. p. 2)

(Now in those days there weren’t carriers like [there are] now. We went to fetch groceries and . . . )

Switching of this kind, between a mixed code and one of its constituent languages, 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 happens 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 regarded 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

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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 languages, language mixing may occur which results in a degree of phonological, morphological and/or syntactic convergence. Evidence of CS, language mixing 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 development of what Lesley Milroy describes as ‘multiplex networks’ (1980: 21). (These are networks whose members habitually interact in a number of different 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 another 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 District 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

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or not it approximated closely to standard European Dutch would have depended 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 generations) 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 policy 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 prominence 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 nonstandard 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 DutchAfrikaans. 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

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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 immigrants’ children became English speaking. The history of other immigrant communities 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 Englishdominant 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, religions, 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 prejudice. Their racially mixed ancestry was turned into a salient factor in excluding them from rights and privileges enjoyed by other English and Afrikaans speakers 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

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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 regarding 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 taperecordings of interviews, meetings, families at home and pre-school children playing and talking to one another and to me. (There are recordings of approximately 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, religious 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 surnames on street rolls gave some indication of home languages that might have been spoken in that street. Some street rolls and church records provided information 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

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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 ’

11.1 Schematic representation of the linguistic repertoire

‘broken English’

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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 supplemented 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 informal neighbourhood interaction. The use of the standard dialects of English or Afrikaans would be seen as an aberration or as unacceptably socially distancing. 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 sˆe vir hom, ‘Jong, jy moet nou reg praat!’

(Then I would say to him ‘Hey, you must talk properly now!’)

(5) They going to say Ja? What’s wrong with you? Keeping yourself high and mighty?

( . . . Yes?)

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 daggasmoking, 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 (6) A. I want proposals. I don’t want suggestions any more. J. Dis nie ’n suggestion nie! C. I don’t want any rank imperialism! J. Wat sˆe hulle van tien rand, dan bied ons more or less? A. Mr H– prop-, uh, suggested ten rand H. Vyf rand

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(It’s not a suggestion!) (What do they say about ten rand, then we offer more or less?) (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 educational, 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 particular codes. For example, interviewees report that technological topics are discussed 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 characteristic 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.)

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(8) M: Maar nou sy was sy was ook so gewees but now she can’t anymore. Now it makes her feel

(But now she was she was also like that . . . )

depr essed Depress, ja You see Because C: ja M: she like also – like you, she likes to visit in the afternoons C: M:

C: ja lekk er M: as sy nou klaar werk gedoen het in die C:

ogg ende ja man

dan lyk sy – 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 ek nie uitgaan uit my huis uit nie dan voel ek ook nie reg nie. I must have fresh air.

(Yes, nice if she had now ﬁnished working in the mor nings yes, man then she liked . . .)

M: O:

(Even she – if you don’t go – if I don’t go out of my house then I don’t feel right.)

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 recall 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 hulle wil ook ’n stukkie eet nou uh, the – I would have just made the curry. Hoeveel is sewentig twee rand? But nevertheless we can still work that out.

(. . . children come and they also want a bit to eat . . . ) (How much is seventy [times] two rand?)

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 (10) Die Slaams sˆe regtig, straight,seg hy, hy kan nie gaat baklei vir king and country nie. Hy moet baklei vir sy geloof.

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(The Muslim says straight. . . he says he can’t go ﬁght for king and country. He must ﬁght for his faith.)

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 elements 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 nou julle twee randjies, julle twee randjies julle pay.’

(Bring now your two rand, the two rand [that] you 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 Afrikaans but the predominant language is English.

(Some of the members speak Afrikaans . . . )

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

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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 surprising that local varieties of both languages display signs of linguistic convergence. 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 peculiarities 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

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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 tevrede met daai.

(That’s now what she aims for. She’s 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 situations 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

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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) (14b) (15a) (15b)

5.2.2

Ons moet altwee bestudeer. Ons moet study altwee. toe het hy na die prokureur gegaan toe hy het gegaan na die lawyer

(We must study both.) (then he went to the lawyer)

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 secondlanguage 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.

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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 reversal 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 wordﬁnal -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 singular 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 towards simpliﬁcation (moving towards having one verb form for both singular and plural subjects), and the other towards regularising ways of indicating 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 preﬁxed 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)

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(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 ﬁrstlanguage 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 idiomatically. 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 gesˆe.) 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 categorising 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

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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. bibliography Bynon, T. 1977. Historical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chana, U. and S. Romaine 1984. ‘Evaluative reactions to Panjabi/English codeswitching’. 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 classroom 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 Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–67. McCormick, K. 1989a. ‘Unﬁltered talk: a challenge to categories’. York Papers in Linguistics, 13: 203–14. 1989b. ‘English and Afrikaans in District Six: A Sociolinguistic Study’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town. Mesthrie, R. 1992. English in Language Shift – the History, Structure and Sociolinguistics of South African Indian English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999. ‘Fifty ways to say I do: tracing the origins of unstressed do in Cape Flats English’. South African Journal of Linguistics, 17, 1: 58–71. Milroy, L. 1980. Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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Nasson, B. 1988. ‘Oral history and the reconstruction of District Six’. Upstream Magazine, 6, 4: 12–19. Raidt, E. 1984. ‘Vrouetaal en taalverandering’. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 4, 4: 256–86. Romaine, S. 1989. Bilingualism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Ross, J. A. 1979. ‘Language and the mobilization of ethnic identity’. In H. Giles and B. Saint-Jacques (eds.), Language and Ethnic Relations. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Warren, D. 1985. ‘The early years of “District Six”: District Twelve in the eighteen-forties’. Cabo 3, 4: 13–18. Williams, J. 1987. ‘Non-native varieties of English: a special case of language acquisition’. English World-Wide, 8, 2: 161.

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 constituents 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 language, 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

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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 colonial 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 various 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 townships, 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

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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 languages), Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho and Tswana (the Sotho languages), together with Venda and Tsonga, and Afrikaans and English (the colonial languages). However, the range of languages that are involved in CS itself would depend on a number of factors such as the geographical area (which determines 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 accommodating 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’

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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 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) KRYile

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.

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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 r r r r r r

linguistic borrowing; standard versus non-standard language; applied commercial communication; sociology of language; interactional functions; structural constraints; 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 between 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 languages. Some later studies of contact between African and European languages still tended to follow a Eurocentric point of view. Koopman’s work, for example, 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

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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]odeswitching . . . 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

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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 dependency has developed between L1 English countries and ESL countries. According to Kachru, the term ‘language dependency’ presupposes the existence 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 language 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 varieties 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)

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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.

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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 between 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, especially 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-totwenty-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

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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 conversations 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 perspective 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, however, 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 apparent 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:

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(a) having an awareness of what the addressee prefers and switching accordingly; (b) establishing common ground, i.e. meeting the addressee halfway with language; (c) a willingness to learn and experiment with other languages in the communication 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 problems 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 driven 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’.

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(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 exchange. 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 tletˇse 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.)

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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 superimpose a message on the communicative act. Herbert (1997: 403) provides the example of a ‘conversation between a teacher (A), who has come to an education 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

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interaction between two strangers outside a city library. ‘A’ uses Sotho to identify 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

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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 oriented. 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 interactions. It implies further that certain interactions will be indeterminate with regard to markedness. In this case the question can be asked: if speakers consistently 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 dynamics of the larger social context and to a historical process. What is unexpected 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 between her and the secretary when it is clear that she should have made an

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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 indeed 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 unmarked 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 varieties – 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

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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 r r r

function in many languages; use complex CS patterns; adapt within the variety continuum of ‘deep’ versus ‘light’; 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 correlation 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 embedded 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.)

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(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-`a-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 1P-never it differs from one gang to another si-thi [a-ya-fan-a]4 ]3 [because it depends 1P-say 6-PRES1-like-FV because it depends which activity . . . ]6 ]5 [ukuthi le-ya i- INVOLVED ku 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 subscripts. 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 expos´e 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 example, 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.

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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 r r r

Four languages are involved in CS. The discourse is characterised by CS on a number of levels. The function of the switches is diverse. 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 relation 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

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bilingualism has given recognition to a common two-pronged teaching strategy 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, irrevocable 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 furthermore 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 multilingualism 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. bibliography Adendorff, R. 1993. ‘Teacher education: code-switching amongst Zulu-speaking pupils and their teachers’. South African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2, 1: 3–25. Brown, D. 1992. ‘Language and social history in South Africa: a task still to be undertaken’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press, pp. 71–92.

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Brownlee, W. T. 1975. Reminiscences of a Transkeian. Shuter & Shooter, Pietermaritzburg. Calteaux, K. 1992 (ed.). South African Journal for African Languages, 12, Supplement 1. 1994. ‘A Sociolinguistic Analysis of a Multilingual Community’. Ph.D. thesis, Rand Afrikaans University. Childs, G. Tucker 1996. ‘The status of Isicamtho, an Nguni-based urban variety of Soweto’. In A. Spears and D. Winford (eds.), Pidgins and Creoles: Structure and Status. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 1–27. Cole, D. T. 1990. ‘Old Tswana and new Latin’. South African Journal of African Languages, 10, 4: 345–53. Dittmar, N. 1976. Sociolinguistics. London. Edward Arnold. Finlayson, R. 1993. ‘The changing face of Xhosa’. In R. Hill, M. Muller, M. Trump (eds.), African Studies Forum, vol. II. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 175–94. Finlayson, R. and S. Slabbert 1997a. ‘“I’ll meet you halfway with language” – codeswitching within a South African urban context’. In Martin P¨utz (ed.), Language Choices: Conditions, Constraints, and Consequences. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 381–421. 1997b. ‘“We just mix”: code switching in a South African township’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 125: 65–98. 1997c. ‘“We just mix”: codeswitching functions within an urban context’. South African Journal of Linguistics, 15, 4: 123–34. Finlayson, R., K. Calteaux and C. Myers-Scotton 1998. ‘Orderly mixing: codeswitching and accommodation in South Africa’. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2, 3: 395– 420. Gumperz, J. J. 1974. ‘The Social Signiﬁcance of Conversational Codeswitching’. Working Paper 46. Berkeley, Calif.: Language Behavior Laboratory. Gxilishe, D. S. 1992. ‘Conversational code-switching’. South African Journal of African Languages, 12, 3: 93–7. Harrison, P., A. Todes and V. Watson 1997. ‘Transforming South Africa’s cities: prospects for the economic development of urban townships’. Development Southern Africa, 14, 1, February: 43–60. Herbert, R. K. 1997. ‘The meaning of language choices in South Africa’. In Robert K. Herbert (ed.), African Linguistics at the Crossroads. Cologne: R¨udiger K¨opper Verlag, pp. 395–415. Heugh, K., A. Siegr¨uhn and P. Pl¨uddeman 1995. Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann. Janson, T. 1984. ‘A language of Sophiatown, Alexandra, and Soweto’. In M. Sebba and L. Todd (eds.), York Papers in Linguistics. Papers from the York Creole Conference, September 24–27, 1983. Heslington: University of York, pp. 167–80. Kachru, B. B. 1978. ‘Toward structuring code-mixing: an Indian perspective’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 16: 27–47. Kamwangamalu, N. 1989. ‘Code-mixing across Languages: Structure, Functions, and Constraints’. D. Litt. et Phil. thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1994. ‘The siSwati–English code-switching: the matrix language principle and linguistic constraints.’ South African Journal of African Language, 12, 2: 72–7. 1996. ‘Sociolinguistic aspects of siSwati–English bilingualism.’ World Englishes, 15, 3: 295–305.

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1998. ‘We-codes, they-codes, and the codes-in-between: identities of English and codeswitching in post-apartheid South Africa’. In N. M. Kamwangamalu (ed.), Aspects of Multilingualism in Post-apartheid South Africa: A Special Issue of Multilingua 17, 2 & 3. Berlin and New York: Mouton, pp. 119–23. Kgomoeswana, B. N. 1993. ‘The case against codeswitching in multilingual classrooms’. ELTIC Reporter, 17, 2: 13–16. Khati, T. 1992. ‘Intra-lexical switching or nonce borrowing? Evidence from SeSotho– English performance’. In Robert K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press, pp. 181–96. Khumalo, J. S. M. 1984. ‘A preliminary survey of Zulu adoptives’. African Studies, 43, 2: 205–16. Koopman, A. 1994. ‘Lexical Adoptives in Zulu’. D Litt. et Phil. thesis, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. Luckett, K. 1993. ‘National additive bilingualism’ – a language plan for South African schools’. South African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2, 1: 28–38. Madiba, M. R. 1994. ‘A linguistic Survey of Adoptives in Venda’. MA thesis, University of South Africa. Makhudu, K. D. P. 1995. ‘An introduction to Flaaitaal’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 298–305. Malimabe, R. M. 1990. ‘The Inﬂuence of Non-standard Varieties on the Standard Setswana of High School Pupils’. MA thesis, Rand Afrikaans University. Mashamaite, K. J. 1992. ‘Standard and non-standard: towards ﬁnding a suitable teaching strategy’. South African Journal for African Languages, 12, Supplement 1: 47–56. Meyer, D. 1997. ‘The language of learning: current practice and its implication for language policy implementation’. Journal for Language Teaching, 31, 3: 226–37. Mfenyana, B. 1977. ‘Isi-khumsha nesiTsotsi: The Sociolinguistics of School and Town Sintu in South Africa (1945–1975)’. MA thesis, Boston University. Mfusi, M. 1990. ‘Soweto Zulu Slang: A Sociolinguistic Study of an Urban Vernacular in Soweto’. Mini-dissertation for BA Honours, University of South Africa. Msimang, T. 1987. ‘Impact of Zulu on Tsotsitaal’. South African Journal for African Languages, 7, 3: 82–6. Myers-Scotton, C. 1992. ‘Codeswitching in Africa: a model of the social functions of code selection’. In Robert K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg. Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 165–80. 1993a. Social Motivations for Codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993b. Duelling Languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ngwenya, A. 1992. ‘The static and dynamic elements of tsotsi language with special reference to Zulu – a sociolinguistic study’. South African Journal for African Languages, 12, Supplement 1: 97–103. Ntshangase, D. K. 1995. ‘Indaba yami i-straight: language and language practices in Soweto’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 291–7. Poplack, S. 1981. ‘Syntactic structure and the social function of code-switching’. In R. P. Duran (ed.), Latino Language and Communicative Behaviour. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Corporation, pp. 169–84.

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Sankoff, D. and S. Vanniarajan 1990. ‘The case of the nonce loan in Tamil’. Language Variation and Change, 2: 71–101. Schuring, G. K. 1985. Kosmopolitiese omgangstale. Die aard, oorsprong en funksies van Pretoria-Sotho en ander koine-tale. Pretoria: HSRC. 1983. ‘Flaaitaal’. In G. Claassen and C. van Rensburg (eds.), Taalverskeidenheid. Pretoria: Academica, pp. 116–33. Slabbert, S. 1994. ‘A re-evaluation of the sociology of Tsotsitaal’. South African Journal for Linguistics, 12, 1: 31–41. Slabbert, S. and R. Finlayson 2000. ‘“I’m a cleva!”: the linguistic make-up of identity in a South African urban environment’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 144: 119–35. Slabbert, S. and C. Myers-Scotton 1996. ‘The structure of Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho: code-switching and in-group identity in South African townships’. Linguistics, 34: 317–42. Slabbert, S. and I. van den Berg 1994. ‘Language study’. Management report, prepared for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Thipa, H. 1992. ‘The difference between rural and urban Xhosa varieties’. South African Journal for African Languages, 12, Supplement 1: 77–90. Thompson, J. B. 1991. ‘Introduction’. In P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. J. B. Thompson, trans. G. Raymond and M. Adamson. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 1–31. van Vuuren, D. and A. Maree 1994. ‘Language and broadcasting in South Africa: a research perspective’. SABC Broadcasting Research Unit. van Warmelo, N. J. 1927. ‘European and other inﬂuences in Sotho’. Bantu Studies, 3: 405–21.

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 miscommunication 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 intercultural encounters, and attend to whatever communication features are salient in them. 2 CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Among the communication features most extensively investigated crossculturally are speech acts. Researchers who investigate cross-cultural diversity in the rules for the performance of speech acts (refusals, promises, accusations) 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 contributed 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

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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 particular 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 unmarked 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 interlocutors 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 position. 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

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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 illustrate 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 performance relates to dominant ideologies. The ﬁrst of these studies is Herbert’s comparative study of patterns of compliment 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 sequences as they occurred spontaneously in public places on campus. He subsequently 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 conversational 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 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.

6.

7.

Qualification

C: Your report came out very well.

(agreeing)

R: But I need to redo some figures.

Praise downgrade

C: Super chip shot.

(disagreeing)

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

Disagreement

C: Your shirt is smashing. R: Oh, it's far too loud.

Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting 8.

9.

10.

Question

C: That's a pretty sweater.

(query or challenge)

R: Do you really think so?

Praise upgrade

C: I really like this soup.

(often sarcastic)

R: I'm a great cook.

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

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Table 13.1 Distribution of compliment-responses on New York and Witwatersrand campuses New York

Witwatersrand

#

%

Accepting 1. Appreciation token 2. Comment acceptance

312 70

29.4 6.6 36.0

162 213

32.9 43.2 76.1

Deﬂating, deﬂecting, rejecting 3. Reassignment 4. Return 5. Qualiﬁcation (agreeing) 6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 7. Disagreement

32 77 70 106 106

3.0 7.3 6.6 4.5 10.0 31.4

23 12 12 0 0

4.7 2.4 2.4 6.3 0.0 15.8

Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting 8. Question (query or challenge) 9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 10. Comment history 11. No acknowledgement 12. Request interpretation

53 4 205 54 31

5.0 0.4 19.3 5.1 2.9 32.7

9 2 24 1 4

1.8 0.2 4.9 0.2 0.8 7.9

1,062

100.1

492

99.8

Totals

#

%

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 between micro- and macro-phenomena. Not only do structural macro-phenomena such as ideologies determine patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour, these patterns 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

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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 opportunity presented by rapid societal change in South Africa to test the claim that dominant ideologies and the social relations associated with them determine patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour. In the decade since Herbert collected 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 generalised to South African society as a whole, I attempted to establish whether or not the experience of desegregation and disillusionment with apartheid ideology 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 diversity 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 recognised 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 nevertheless 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; because 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 interlocutors. By counting and aggregating tokens of each response type, as Herbert

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Table 13.2 Distribution of compliment-responses of white middle-class interlocutors on three campuses New York

Witwatersrand

Natal

#

%

#

%

#

%

Accepting 1. Appreciation token 2. Comment acceptance

312 70

29.4 6.6 36.0

162 213

32.9 43.2 76.1

48 10

33.0 6.9 39.9

Deﬂating, deﬂecting, rejecting 3. Reassignment 4. Return 5. Qualiﬁcation (agreeing) 6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 7. Disagreement

32 77 70 106 106

3.0 7.3 6.6 10.0 10.0 31.4

23 12 12 0 0

4.7 3.4 2.4 0.0 0.0 15.8

3 0 8 14 6

2.0 0.0 5.5 9.7 4.1 21.3

Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting 8. Question (query or challenge) 9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 10. Comment history 11. No acknowledgement 12. Request interpretation

53 4 205 54 31

5.0 0.4 19.3 5.1 2.9 32.7

9 2 24 1 4

1.8 0.2 4.9 0.2 0.8 7.9

19 5 13 17 2

13.1 3.4 9.0 11.7 1.4 38.6

1,062

100.1

492

99.8

145

100.0

Totals

did with his New York and Witwatersrand data, I gathered the additional information 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

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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 category 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 facethreatening, 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

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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 2. Comment acceptance

8 9

12.5 14.1 26.6

29 7

33.3 8.1 41.4

62 10

36.9 6.0 42.9

Deﬂating, deﬂecting, rejecting 3. Reassignment 4. Return 5. Qualiﬁcation (agreeing) 6. Praise downgrade (disagreeing) 7. Disagreement

3 1 2 3 2

4.7 1.6 3.1 4.7 3.1 17.2

3 1 4 5 9

3.5 1.2 4.6 5.8 10.4 25.5

4 0 8 15 6

2.4 0.0 4.8 8.9 3.6 19.7

10.9 7.8 3.1 32.8 1.6 56.2

9 6 2 10 1

10.4 6.9 2.4 11.5 1.2 32.4

23 5 13 18 2

13.7 4.2 7.7 10.7 1.2 37.5

100.0

87

99.3

Questioning, ignoring, reinterpreting 8. Question (query or challenge) 7 9. Praise upgrade (often sarcastic) 5 10. Comment history 2 11. No acknowledgement 21 12. Request interpretation 1 Totals

64

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?]

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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 example, 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 members 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 intercultural 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 speechact 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

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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 relevant to interpretation is available outside the communication process, and that context is part of what is communicated. In other words, they see context as mutually 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 ‘contextualization 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 expressions) 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 themselves to be engaged in (chatting about the weather; telling a joke; negotiating an increase, etc.); establish what their social relations are in that activity; predict 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 interpretative 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 understanding. 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.

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Turning to research methods, rather than abstracting particular linguistic features from a large number of interactions for subsequent categorisation and/or counting, interactional sociolinguists analyse a limited number of entire conversations, or substantial episodes within them, in ﬁne detail. They attempt to access the interpretative or inferential processes of the interlocutors by playing 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 activity 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 student, 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 performance, 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

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| [ ... underline

= = = =

latch mark indicating smooth turn change with no gap or overlap overlapping speech noticeable pause (+0.5 seconds) 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, according 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 repairs, 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: Student: Student:

|you mean you . . . you didn’t have the reading . . . [or you didn’t know what the reading was [(starts to speak) |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-onrecord’ 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:

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|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 Student:

See Chick (1990) for the full transcript. I also discovered that the interactional consequences of the choices of strategies for repairing face were different. By using ‘bald-on-record’ solidarity strategies 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 miscommunication 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

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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 communication 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 communication 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 register, 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 communication 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 restricted 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 equivalent 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 understanding 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.

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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 interpretations 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 circumstances 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 exploring the relationship between macro-structural phenomena and what occurs in the micro-contexts of conversational interactions. What I suggest is particularly 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 responses, type 5 (qualiﬁcation) even though the ﬁrst part of the response, if it had occurred 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.

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bibliography Beebe, L. M. and M. C. Cummings 1996. ‘Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data’. In S. M. Gass and J. Neu (eds.), Speech Acts across Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 65–86. Carbaugh, D. 1990. Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 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– 31. 1990. ‘The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa’. In Carbaugh (ed.), pp. 225–52. 1996. ‘English in interpersonal interaction in South Africa’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 269–84. Clyne, M. 1995. Inter-cultural Communication at Work: Cultural Values in Discourse. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, A. 1996. ‘Speech acts’. In S. Mackay and N. Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 383– 420. de Kadt, E. 1985. ‘The cross-cultural study of directives: Zulu as a non-typical language’. South African Journal of Linguistics, Supplement 27: 45–72. 1998. ‘The concept of face and its applicability to the Zulu language’. Journal of Pragmatics, 29: 173–91. de Klerk, V. 1996. Focus on: South Africa. Varieties of English around the world GS. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dore, J. and R. P. McDermott 1982. ‘Linguistic indeterminacy and social context in utterance interpretation’. Language, 58, 2: 374–98. Erickson, F. 1978. ‘Timing and context in everyday discourse: implications for the study of referential and social meaning’. Paper presented at a conference on children’s oral communication skills, University of Wisconsin. Erickson, F. and J. Shultz 1981. ‘When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence’. In J. L. Green and C. Wallet (eds.), Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings. Advances in discourse processes 5. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, pp. 147–60. Gumperz, J. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herbert, R. K. 1985. ‘Say “Thank you” – or something’. American Speech, 61: 76–88. 1989. ‘The ethnography of English compliments and compliment responses: a contrastive sketch’. In W. Olesky (ed.), Contrastive Pragmatics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Herbert, R. K. and H. S. Straight 1989. ‘Compliment-rejection versus complimentavoidance: listener-based versus speaker-based pragmatic strategies’. Language and Communication, 9, 1: 35–47. Kaschula, R. H. 1994. ‘Cross-cultural communication in a north eastern Cape farming community’. South African Journal of African Languages, 9, 3: 100–4. 1995. ‘Cross-cultural communication in Eastern Cape with particular reference to law courts’. South African Journal of African Languages, 15, 2: 9–15. Mehan, H. 1979. Learning Lessons. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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Pomerantz, A. 1978. ‘Compliment responses: notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints’. In J. Schenken (ed.), Studies in the Organisation of Conversational Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scollon, R. and S. Scollon 1981. Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Singh, R., J. Lele and G. Martohardjono 1988. ‘Communication in a multilingual society: some missed opportunities’. Language in Society, 17: 43–79. Thomas, J. 1983. ‘Cross-cultural pragmatic failure’. Applied Linguistics, 4, 2: 91–109.

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 urbanisation and modernisation at the expense of custom and tradition. The socially accepted form of behaviour in a community and the customs and beliefs being 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 concerns 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 phenomenon 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 sentence ‘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

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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 language 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 process 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 phenomenon. Herbert (1995: 61) notes that ‘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.’ 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

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being eroded and replaced by other forms of social behaviour. With regard to the Xhosa, Hoernl´e (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.

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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 negotiations 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-inlaw 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 dominance 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:

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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 practices 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 prohibitions 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

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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 ´ Nogogose: Uyaph´ osis’ ubh´eka nj’´umama, u´ khon’ u´ -´eleshe e´ khˆaya mn´ınz’ u´ kuf´a; u´ yav´ımba qh´a. Buziwe: O, undi-am´ısile k´e, molok´azana, nd´ıthi ndˆawukhul´uma n´omam’ ‘´akho ukhul´ume ng´olo hlobo; h´ayi undoy´ısile, molok´azan’ am. H´ayi ke, mkhˆozi, ndakukuhal´ela l´oo sh´ana gab´uka,

Xhosa ´ Uyax´ ok’ ub´ona nj’´umama, u´ khon’ u´ mb´ona e´ khˆaya mn´ınz’ u´ kufa; u´ yakuv´ımba nj´e. O, undincam´ısile k´e, molok´azana, nd´ıthi ndˆakuthˆetha n´omam’ a´ kho u´ theth´e ng´olo hlobo, h´ayi undoy´ısile molok´azan’ am. H´ayi ke, mkhˆozi, ndakukukh´elˆela l´oo ntw´ana ngˆomso nd´ınik´e l´e

English 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 ndinik´ezel´e l´e nt´ık´azana yam k´uthiw´a ng´uW´endile ´ıkuzis´el’ a´ pho l´oo t´ıya.

ntw´an´azana yam k´uthiw´a ng´uW´endile ´ıkuzis´el’ apho l´oo mbˆona.

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my little one to take it to you and say Wendile is bringing you 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-inlaw (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

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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 involved 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 indicated 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 investigation 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

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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 inlaws and the fact that these names were occurring in their vocabulary, the women maintained that nevertheless they were making use of the hlonipha vocabulary – Hayi, noko, siyahlonipha (‘No, nevertheless, we are respecting’), but the answer to Uhlonipha bani? (‘Whom are you respecting?’) was considered 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 food and eating ukumunda (15) isimundelo (7/8) inteleko (9/10) ihabathi (9/10) iwaku (5/6) isiqhusheko (7/8) utiya (1a/2a) intlumayo (9/10) izambane (5/6) ihlongozo (5/6) imheya (9) iwekete (9) amagqabi (6) impungo (9) imvotho (9) uhlaza (11) amagoboto (6) umolulo (3) animals inombe (9/10) uhuko (1a/2a) ibetha (9/10) iphala (5/6) ingulube (9/10)

Xhosa

English

ukutya (15) isitya (7/8) imbiza (9/10) imela (9/10) icephe (5/6) isonka (7/8) umbona (1a/2a) imbotyi (9/10) itapile (9/10) iqanda (5/6) inyama (9) iswekile (9) iti (9) ikofu (9) amanzi (6) ubisi (11) amasi (6) utywala (14)

food/to eat dish pot knife spoon bread mealies bean potato egg meat sugar tea coffee water milk sour milk beer

inkomo (9/10) ithole (5/6) inja (9/10) ihashe (5/6) ihagu (9/10)

cow calf dog horse pig

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people ityhagi (5/6) inikazi (9/10) incentsa (9/6) umnyepha (1/2) ityubuka (9/10) ikhitha (5/6) body parts iphoba (9/10) amagabuko (6) umnakazo (3/4) isinyamba (7/8) ikruqelo (5/6) umnabo (3/4) miscellaneous inkumba (9/10) umbaso (3) isilozelo (7/8) umgaqo (3/4) inkwezi (9/10) isotha (9/10) ihloma (5/6) isichopho (7/8) ubuyiso (11/10) amanyiso (6) ethameni (descrip.) -weke (qual.) ukunyambela (15) ukunoboka (15) ukunawuka (15) ukuhuka (15) ukukhuluma (15) ukumathela (15)

3.2

inkwenkwe (9/6) intombi (9/10) indoda (9/6) umlungu (1/2) usana (11/10) ixhego (5/6)

boy girl man white man baby old man

intloko (9/10) amehlo (6) ingalo (9/10) isifuba (7/8) idolo (5/6) umlenze (3/4)

head eyes arm chest knee leg

indlu (9/10) umlilo (3) isipili (7/8) indlela (9/10) inyanga (9/10) ilanga (9/10) izulu (5/6) isitulo (7/8) ucango (11/10) amabele (6) phandle (descrip.) -mhlophe (qual.) ukufaka (15) ukufa (15) ukuhamba (15) ukusenga (15) ukuthetha (15) ukubaleka (15)

house ﬁre mirror road moon sun heaven chair door udder outside white to put on to die to walk to milk to speak to run

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 umdyu (1/2) umju (1/2) ishwelo (9/10) idyekile (9/10)

Xhosa umntu (1/2)

English person

inqwelo (9/10) ibhekile (9/10)

wagon tin can

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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.) uku-ina (15) uku-ondela (15)

andifuni (pred.) ukuqina (15) ukusondela (15)

I do not want to tighten 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 uhlaza (11)

Xhosa ubisi (11)

English 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 iphoba (9/10) intlumayo (9/10)

Xhosa intloko (9/10) imbotyi (9/10)

English head 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 umbaso (3/4) impungo (9) amagabuko (6) umnabo (3/4)

Xhosa umlilo (3/4) ikofu (9) amehlo (6) umlenze (3/4)

English ﬁre coffee eyes leg

verb ukubasa ukuphunga ukugabuka ukunaba

Meaning to kindle to sip to clear up 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.

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Borrowings from Zulu also occur, for example: Traditional and core hlonipha izambane (5/6) ukukhuluma (15)

Xhosa itapile (9/10) ukuthetha (15)

Zulu izambane (5/6) ukukhuluma (15)

English potato 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 ukumunda (15) ukunawuka (15) umolulo (3) iwaku (5/6)

Xhosa ukutya (15) ukuhamba (15) utywala (15) icephe (5/6)

English food/to eat to walk beer 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 example, 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 certain 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

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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 legitimacy. 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 educated 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 urbanisation 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 inevitably 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

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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 become 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 Nominiti: Hˆe, ning´ath´ın´ı zen´ıb´uthum´e ng´enomb´e e´ nobokil´eyo? Nomisile: X´a ndihlanz´eka u´ ty´ena ndithi a´ b´andywana b´am b´ab´uthum´e b´enobok´ıle!

Xhosa Hˆe, ning´ath´ıni zen´ılal´e ng´enkom´o e´ f´ıl´eyo? X´a nd´ıbolek´a u´ mbˆona ndithi a´ b´antwana b´am balel´e bef´ıle!

English 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 Nominiti: Kal´oku, mkhˆozi, n´athi sinobokile, y´ındlala l´eyo siyix´elay´o, as´ınay´e nal´oo milisi, sinj´e ng´ezo mbacu z´ıng´enay´e nabˆani a´ pha kul´e plasi yeth´u. Ab´ats´ıbana ngˆaba kal´oku nˆezo tshelete bazapeyayo kwabo banyepha b´abo baz´ıtya a´ ba bhok´oxa, ak´ukho n´esh´ı e´ nye ngaph´andle kw´aba bhok´oxa, b´ab´am´unday´o, nˆezi dzotile; ezi shi zis´ezidzot´ıleni baseb´enzela zon´a kal´oku bon´a k´ul´o mnyepha wethu a´ ba nyana bam.

Kal´oku, mkhˆozi n´athi sif´ıle y´ındlala l´eyo siyix´elay´o as´ınay´e nal´oo mbˆona, sinj´e ng´ezo mbac´u zingenay´e nabˆani a´ pha kul´e fama yeth´u. Ab´af´ana ngˆaba kal´oku nˆezo mal´ı bazamk´elay´o kwˆabo belungu b´abo baz´ıtya la m´akhamba, ak´ukho n´ent´o e´ nye ngaph´andle kwal´a m´akhamba baw´atyay´o, nˆezi bh´otile; e´ zi nt´o zis´ezibhotileni basebenzela zon´a kal´oku bon´a k´ul´o mlungu weth´u a´ ba nyana bam.

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We also are dying of hunger as we tell you. We have not got maize, we are like those destitute people [squatters] with no one to help us on this farm of ours. These young men are those who spend the money they earn from the whites on cartons [of beer], there is nothing else they think about except the cartons they eat, and the bottles; our sons in fact spend the wages they earn from our white man on the contents of the bottle.

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 conversation, i.e. Loanword umilisi (1a) iplasi (9/10) itshelete (9) ukupeya (15) idzotile (9/10)

Source language Afrikaans Afrikaans Afrikaans English English

Source word mielies plaas geld pay bottle

Meaning maize farm money earn 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.,

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Name

Gloss

Xhosa equivalent

Nominiti Nowanithi Noﬁnishi Nonayisi

minute want it ﬁnish nice

umzuzu (3/4) ukufuna (15) ukugqiba (15) -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 considered 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.

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bibliography Dewar, D., A. Todes and V. Watson 1982. ‘Theories of urbanization and national settlement strategy in South Africa’. University of Cape Town, Urban Problems Research Unit, May, Working Paper No. 21. Dowling, T. 1988. ‘Isihlonipho Sabafazi – the Xhosa Women’s Language of Respect. A Sociolinguistic Exploration’. MA thesis, University of Cape Town. Finlayson, R. 1978. ‘A preliminary survey of hlonipha among the Xhosa’. Taalfasette, 24, 2: 48–63. 1982. ‘Hlonipha – the women’s language of avoidance among the Xhosa’. South African Journal of African Languages, 1, 1, Supplement: 35–60. 1984a. ‘The changing nature of isihlonipho sabafazi’. African Studies, 43, 2: 137–46. 1984c. ‘English and Afrikaans in hlonipha’. Unpublished paper presented at the African Language Association of Southern Africa Seminar, Windhoek. 1986. ‘Linguistic terms of respect among the Xhosa’. In P. E. Raper (ed.), Names 1983. Proceedings of the Second Southern African Names Congress: Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 128–38. 1993. ‘The changing face of Xhosa’. In R. Hill, M. Muller and M. Trump (eds.), African Studies Forum, vol. II. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 175–194. 1998. ‘The linguistic implications of the Xhosa Initiation Schools’. Language Matters, 29: 101–16. Guthrie, M. 1970. Comparative Bantu. London: Gregg Press. Herbert, R. K. 1990. ‘Hlonipha and the ambiguous woman’. Anthropos, 85: 455–73. 1995. ‘The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 51– 67. Hoernl´e, A. W. 1946. ‘Social organisation’. In I. Schapera (ed.), The Bantu-speaking Tribes of South Africa. Cape Town: Maskew Miller, pp 67–94. Hunter, M. 1961. Reaction to Conquest. London: Oxford University Press. Jonas, P. J. 1972. ‘Die veranderende posisie van die vrou in die huwelik en gesin by die stedelike Xhosa van Oos-Londen, met besondere verwysing na die dorp Mdantsane’. MA thesis, University of South Africa. Kropf, A. and R. Godfrey 1915. A Kaﬁr–English Dictionary. Lovedale: Mission Press. Kunene, D. P. 1958. ‘Notes on hlonipha among the Southern Sotho’. African Studies, 17: 159–82. Kuper, H. 1982. Wives for Cattle: Bridewealth and Marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Levin, R. 1946. ‘Marriage in Langa Native Location’. MA thesis, University of Cape Town. Mayaba, P. M. 1972. ‘A discussion of the hlonipha language among the Xhosa’. BA Hons. article, University of South Africa. Mqotsi, L. 1957. ‘A Study of Ukuthwasa’. MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Myburgh, A. C. 1942. ‘EzakwaZulu, ‘n Volkekundige beskrywing van die Zoeloe in die volkstaal’. Unpublished paper.

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Mzamane, G. I. M. 1962. ‘A Comparative Phonetic and Morphological Study of the Dialects of Southern Nguni including the Lexical Inﬂuences of the Non-Bantu Languages’. Ph.D. thesis, University of South Africa. Pauw, B. A. 1976. The Second Generation. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Schapera, I. 1946. ‘Cultural changes in tribal life’. In I. Schapera (ed.), The Bantuspeaking Tribes of South Africa. Cape Town: Maskew Miller, pp. 357–87. Stewart, J. 1940. ‘Marriage and ukulobola’. The South African Outlook, 1 October: 193–6.

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 explorers 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 recognised 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

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15.1 Present distribution of Southern Bantu languages

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southern Africa. Within the Bantu languages, clicks have been most widely incorporated 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 inventories include [/, !, //], [/, !] and [!]; such distributional considerations dictate a relative markedness of clicks within Bantu: lateral → dental → palatal.1 In addition 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 exhibit 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 twentyone 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 phonological 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 explanation 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 relationship 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 phonological inﬂuence observed. The major thesis of this chapter, however, is that a

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sociolinguistic avoidance custom provided the major impetus for click incorporation 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 elaborate 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 assimilation 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, offered 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)

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In addition to the inaccuracy and racism of the sketched relationship, this linguistic 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 languages 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 twentyone (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 impression of acoustic similarity, Xhosa incorporates ﬁfteen distinct click sounds. The mere receptivity of a language to such unusual sound types requires explanation, 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 borrowed into any Bantu language. Further, there is no inﬂuence of Khoesan on canonical Bantu phonotactics; for example, sequential vowels, a common feature in Khoesan, are disallowed in Southern Bantu. Word-ﬁnal consonants, another pervasive Khoesan trait, are not incorporated into Bantu; ﬁnal consonants 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 distinctive Bantu morphological and morphosyntactic systems, although a few Khoe morphemes are incorporated in Xhosa.4 Louw (1976) attributes, for example,

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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 internal 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 meanings, 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. Hag`ege and Haudricourt (1978: 112) suggest that phonetic inventories are increased through language contact whenever a borrowed word fails to undergo loan phonology: ‘Les phon`emes, e´ trangers a` la langue emprunteuse, qui peuvent faire partie du signiﬁant des mots emprunt´es, s’y introduisent tout naturellement en mˆeme temps que ces mots’ (sounds that are foreign to the borrowing language but part of the phonetic form of borrowed words are introduced 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 phonological borrowing.6 It is precisely the peculiar distributional fact of Southern Bantu borrowing effects that requires explanation.

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I have argued elsewhere that the extent of Khoesan linguistic inﬂuence was greater still and that contact accounts for the Southern Bantu opposition of aspiration 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 inventory 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 intermarriage 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 historical 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.

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15.2 Map of southern Africa showing the estimated admixture of Khoesan peoples by frequency of Gm1,13,17 (source: Nurse et al. 1985)

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Several important points require mention in this context. First, there is no direct relationship between linguistic borrowing effects and admixture. For example, the Okavango group of Bantu languages show no admixture, but these same languages have acquired clicks and some vocabulary from the neighboring 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 considerably 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 fusions 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 percentage 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

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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 essential 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 inventories 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 precontact 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 purpose 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 seemingly 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 coexistence of both forms – with a semantic differentiation – is more common.

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The role of hlonipha in such developments is well established; the postulation 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 extensiveness 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 consonants). 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 linguistic 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 mari´ee, elle ne doit e´ galement pas prononcer le nom du p`ere de son mari . . . C’est l`a une coutume d’origine cafre [Xhosa–Zulu] qui est, depuis quelques ann´ees, entr´ee 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

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practised in those Southern Bantu languages that show limited click incorporation, such as Tsonga, which shows clicks only in Zulu borrowings and in ideophones. The connection between hlonipha and consonant incorporation in Bantu languages 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 consonants 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 proposals 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 inherited 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 questions. 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 instructed 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

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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

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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 vocabularies 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 parallel 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 Ngunispeaking 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

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3

4

5

6

7

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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. Such considerations of relative markedness within the class of click consonants are discussed in Herbert (1990b). 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). 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). The stability of the Bantu noun classes and, especially, the system of concordial agreement 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). As noted above, the most common lexical context for clicks is in borrowed vocabulary, 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-kh˜a-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 -nˆı, -nyˆı. 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. Hag`ege and Haudricourt (1978) do cite these considerations elsewhere. Their examples (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. ‘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). The clicks in Ndebele are generally thought to have been lost through extensive contact with Tswana and other non-Nguni groups.

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9 Linguistic avoidances are also practised by men towards the names of their mothersin-law and, occasionally, other persons. Hlonipha refers generally to ‘name avoidance’: it is usually accomplished by some lexical substitution. What distinguishes women’s language behaviour vis-`a-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 importance 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 relatively 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 differentiation 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 nearuniversal 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

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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).

bibliography Beach, D. M. 1938. The Phonetics of the Hottentot Language. Cambridge: W. Heffers & Sons. Bourquin, W. 1951. ‘Click words which Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho have in common’. African Studies, 10: 59–81. Bryant, A. T. 1929. Olden Times in Zululand and Natal. London: Longmans. Faye, C. U. 1923–5. ‘The inﬂuence of “hlonipa” on the Zulu clicks’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 3: 757–82. Finlayson, R. 1982. ‘Hlonipha – the women’s language of avoidance among the Xhosa’. South African Journal of African Languages, Supplement: 35–60. 1984. ‘The changing nature of isihlonipho sabafazi’. African Studies, 43: 137–46. Hag`ege, C. and A. Haudricourt 1978. La Phonologie panchronique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Harinck, G. 1969. ‘Interaction between Xhosa and Khoi: emphasis on the period 1620– 1750’. In L. Thompson (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa. New York: Praeger, pp. 145–69. Herbert, R. K. 1985. ‘Gender systems and semanticity: two case histories from Bantu’. In J. Fisiak (ed.), Historical Semantics/Historical Word-Formation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 171–97. 1987. ‘Articulatory modes and typological universals: the puzzle of Bantu ejectives and aspirates’. In L. Shockey and R. Channon (eds.), Festschrift for Ilse Lehiste. Dordrecht: Foris, pp. 401–13. 1990a. ‘Hlonipha and the ambiguous woman’. Anthropos, 85: 455–73. 1990b. ‘The relative markedness of click sounds’. Anthropological Linguistics, 32, 1–2: 295–315. 1990c. ‘The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu’. Anthropological Linguistics, 32, 3–4: 120–38. 1995. ‘The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 51–67. J. de N.R. 1899/1900. ‘Een week in Kafferland.’ Ons Tijdschrift (February): 441–8. Jacottet, E. 1896. ‘Moeurs, coutumes et superstitions des Ba-Souto’. Bulletin de la Soci´et´e Neuchˆateloise de G´eographie, 9: 107–51. Kunene, D. P. 1958. ‘Notes on hlonepha among the Southern Sotho’. African Studies, 17: 159–82. Lanham, L. W. 1964. ‘The proliferation and extension of Bantu phonemic systems inﬂuenced by Bushman and Hottentot’. Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 382–91. ¨ Louw, J. A. 1962. ‘The segmental phonemes of Zulu’. Afrika und Ubersee, 46: 43–93.

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1976. ‘The inﬂuence of Khoi on Xhosa morphology’. In W. J. de Klerk and F. A. Ponelis (eds.), Gedenkbundel H. J. J. M. van der Merwe. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, pp. 87–95. 1977. ‘The linguistic prehistory of the Xhosa’. In W. J. G. M¨ohlig, F. Rotland and B. Heine (eds.), Zur Sprachgeschichte und Ethnohistorie in Afrika. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, pp. 127–51. 1979. A Preliminary Survey Of Khoi and San Inﬂuence in Zulu. Khoesan Linguistic Studies 5, Series ed. A. Traill. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. 1986. ‘Some linguistic inﬂuence of Khoi and San in the prehistory of the Nguni’. In R. Vossen and K. Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary Studies in Khoesan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske, pp. 141–68. Marks, S. 1969. ‘The traditions of the Natal “Nguni”: a second look at the work of A. T. Bryant’. In L. Thompson (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa. New York: Praeger, pp. 126–44. Meinhof, C. 1932. Introduction to the Phonology of the Bantu Languages. Berlin: Reimer/Vohsen. Mncube, F. S. M. 1949. ‘Hlonipha language as found among the Zulu–Xhosa women’. MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Moravcsik, E. 1978. ‘Language contact’. In J. H. Greenberg et al., (eds.), Universals of Human Language, vol. I: Method and Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 93–122. Mzamane, G. I. M. 1949. ‘A concise treatise on Phuti with special reference to its relationship with Nguni and Sotho’. Fort Hare Papers, 1, 4: 121–249. 1962. ‘A Comparative Phonetic and Morphological Study of the Dialects of Southern Nguni including the Lexical Inﬂuences of the Non-Bantu Languages’. D.Litt. and D.Phil. thesis, University of South Africa. Nurse, G. T., J. S. Weiner and T. Jenkins 1985. The Peoples of Southern Africa and their Afﬁnities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ownby, C. P. 1981. ‘Early Nguni history: linguistic suggestions’. South African Journal of African Languages, Supplement: 60–81. 1985. ‘Early Nguni History: The Linguistic Evidence and its Correlation with Archaeology and Oral Tradition’. Ph.D. thesis, University of California (Los Angeles). Raum, O. F. 1973. The Social Functions of Avoidances and Taboos among the Zulu. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Soga, J. H. 1932. The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs. Lovedale: Lovedale Press. Stopa, R. 1935. Die Schnalze, ihre Natur, Entwicklung und Ursprung. Krak´ow: Polska Akademja Umiej¸etno´sci, Prace Komisiji J¸ezykowej, nr. 23. 1979. Clicks: Their Form, Function and their Transformation, or how our Ancestors were Gesticulating, Clicking and Crying. Krak´ow: Uniwersytet Jagiello´nski, Prace J¸ezykoznawcze, z. 68. Theal, G. M. 1910. The Yellow and Dark-Skinned People of Africa South of the Zambesi. London: Swan Sonnenschein. Tobias, P. V. 1974. ‘The biology of the Southern African Negro’. In W. D. HammondTooke (ed.), The Bantu-speaking People of Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 3–45. Traill, A. T. 1986. ‘Click replacement in Khoe’. In R. Vossen and K. Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary Studies on Khoesan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske, pp. 301–20.

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van Ginneken, J. 1911. ‘Sprachwissenschaftliche Chronik’. Anthropos, 6: 345–65. 1938. ‘Les clics, les consonnes et les voyelles dans l’histoire de l’humanit´e’. Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Ghent: University of Ghent, pp. 321–6. van Warmelo, N. J. 1974. ‘The classiﬁcation of cultural groups’. In W. D. HammondTooke (ed.), The Bantu-speaking People of Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 56–85. Werner, A. 1902. ‘Note on clicks in the Bantu languages’. Journal of the African Society, 2: 416–21. 1905. ‘The custom of “hlonipa” in its inﬂuence on language’. African Affairs, 4: 346–56. Westphal, E. O. J. 1963. ‘The linguistic prehistory of southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot and Bantu linguistic relationships’. Africa, 33: 237–65. Wilson, M. 1969. ‘Changes in social structure in southern Africa’. In Wilson and Thompson (eds.), pp. 71–85. Wilson, M. L. 1986. ‘Khoisanosis: the question of separate identities for Khoi and San.’ In R. Singer and J. K. Lundy (eds.), Variation, Culture and Evolution in African Populations. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 13–25. Wilson, M. L. and L. Thompson 1969 (eds.). The Oxford History of South Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ziervogel, D. 1959. A Grammar of Northern Transvaal Ndebele. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.

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 government. However, even early analysts noted that the only basis for classifying the Tsonga-speaking peoples was shared linguistic features and that there was neither 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 a` disparaˆıtre. La seule chose qu’ils poss`edent en propre, c’est un langage bien caract´eristique, antique, riche. L’unit´e 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

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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 included 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

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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 district highlighted

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The current linguistic situation is this area is complex. For longstanding political 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 admixture 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 endonymous 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 probably 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:

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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 earlier 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 interm´ediaire 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, empirical research into the shift from Thonga to Zulu is interesting since the two languages share many striking features, especially at the morpho-syntactic

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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 structure 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 depended on census data, questionnaires and surveys to address this topic. However, 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 profession 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 reports 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 ‘Tsongaspeaking’, with a mixed Zulu–Tsonga zone to the south. On the Maputaland

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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 carried 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

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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 evidence for sex-based distribution of language already being well established at that time. The striking sex-based distribution of languages was evident even to

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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 throughout 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 individuals 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 traditionally 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 inﬂuence. This line cut the Tembe–Thonga area, although there was little immediate effect on traditional life since the population comprised small, independent

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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 Thongaland and Zululand were incorporated into Natal in 1897. Zululand control of Thongaland was more forcefully exerted after 1982, following 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 pressure from Thonga headmen, who claimed that they had not been consulted and, more importantly, from the KwaZulu government, which claimed that the district has been an integral part of Zulu territory since time immemorial, the deal was aborted. While the latter assertion is patently untrue, the practical consequence 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 Independence 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 expected, 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 interm´ediaire 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

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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

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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 description 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

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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 locally. 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 VCVZulu form of preﬁxes. Women’s speech occasionally has a fully class 5 li- preﬁx, 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 reliably 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 ikhombo ukuhleleleka

Zulu ishwa ukuqala uhambo

English misfortune to undertake a journey

The political economy of language shift amatimba inqopho amathaku isipakani umphahla -shishita

7.2

ummbila ulaka izinqe ikati izimvu -chama

329

maize; mealies anger buttocks cat grey hair urinate

Phonetic–phonological

(a) Tekela (women) -enta -buta timbuti

Zunda (men/Standard Zulu) -enza -buza izimbuzi

English do something ask a question goats

(b) elision of initial /l/ in class 3 nouns Nyakatho unilo unomo unente

Zulu umlilo umlomo umlenze

English ﬁre mouth leg

(c) nk-w alternation Nyakatho iwuku iwomo

7.3

Zulu inkukhu inkomo

English fowl beast

Morphological

(a) Characteristic palatalisation of labials and some other consonants, e.g. w/diminutive and passive sufﬁxes, does not ocur in Nyakatho. Nyakatho isintombana isimotwana -lume

(intombi) (imoto) (-luma)

Standard Zulu intonjana imotshwana -lunywa

English small girl small car be bitten

(b) absence of class 1a marker in Nyakatho Nyakatho Mame Baba

Standard Zulu uMama uBaba

English Mother Father

(c) Nyakatho has a full CV class 5 marker /li-/ as opposed to Zulu /i-/ Nyakatho litinyo lilanga litimba

Standard Zulu izinyo ilanga izimba

English tooth day ear of corn

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(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 tiwomo timbuti

Zulu izinkomo izimbuzi

English beasts goats

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

Zulu ukhuni uvemvane

English ﬁrewood butterﬂy

(g) Nyakatho occasionally shows a class 15 preﬁx hu- with vowel stems in place of Zulu /uku-/ Nyakatho huwenta huwaha

Zulu ukwenza ukwakha

English to do 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

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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 approach of the sort championed by Hymes (1962, 1982) in which the variable of language is seen as inextricably linked to other variables of sociocultural organisation such as religion, kinship and other social relations, economy, political organisation, and so on. Using this approach, the different cultural value sets associated 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 fatherin-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 recognition 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

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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 values 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 orientation 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 symbols 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 reference 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.

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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 selfappellation. 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 particularly 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

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when they [boys] become conscious of themselves as males that the switch to Zulu as the dominant language is made’ (Felgate 1982: 24). 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. 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. 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 interesting. 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. Obviously, these outsider reports of unintelligibility need to be assessed with caution. The basis for comparison is the Thonga/Tsonga spoken in southern Mozambique, rather than the South African standard Tsonga of the Eastern Transvaal. 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’.

bibliography Allison, A. A. 1951. ‘A Maputaland school: the Star of the Sea School’. Native Teachers’ Journal 31: 7. Baumbach, E. J. M. 1987. ‘Klaspreﬁkse van Gondzze’. South African Journal of African Languages, 7: 1–6. Bryant, A. T. 1929. Olden Times in Zululand and Natal. London: Longmans. Clerc, Andr´e 1938. ‘The marriage laws of the Ronga tribe’. Bantu Studies, 12: 75–104. Doke, C. M. 1954. The Southern Bantu Languages. London: International Africa Institute. 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.

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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 consequences 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 background 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 communication 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) (b) (c) (d)

schooling, with teachers being native speakers of English; schooling, with teachers being non-native speakers of English; contact with native speakers of English in Natal; contact with non-native speakers of English (chieﬂy Indians). 339

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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 outside the home (in classrooms or, in the case of large numbers who had no schooling, 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 grandparents in an ancestral language, but this is increasingly rare.) The closed cycle of reinforcement is remarkable for its potential two-way inﬂuence: the grandparent 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

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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 syntax) but in many ways signiﬁcantly different. Similarities are due to several factors: shared mother tongues; input from a very small percentage of indentured 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’; alphabets, ‘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

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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 characteristic 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 pronoun), 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, religion 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.) interested in get in touch proposed disappointed spoilt marry out

husband or wife-to-be in love with have a romantic involvement afﬁanced, engaged jilted in love carrying a child out of wedlock to marry outside one’s traditional sub-ethnic group

Some semantic shifts in ISAE lazy interfere hint independent

unintelligent to molest to speak ill of (not necessarily obliquely) stand-ofﬁsh, haughty

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uncouth, vulgar fat, overweight (not a conscious euphemism) compulsory payment to landlord to secure accommodation

Lexis drawn from Indian languages isel dhania bhajia nikah thanni jhanda

a winged termite, ﬂying ant (Tamil, Telugu) coriander (Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Urdu) spicy fried snack (Bhojpuri, Urdu) Islamic wedding ceremony (Urdu) a popular card game (Tamil) 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 dividing 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. Importing 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

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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. Sometimes 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 conducted 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

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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 discernible 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 welleducated 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: topicalisation, absence of have before got in the ﬁrst question and non-inversion of auxiliary and subject in the second. Conversely, a mesolectal speaker not wanting to sound overdeferential, uneducated, easy-going (and powerless) might well increase the use of ‘formal’ constructions such as do-support, auxiliary-inversion, perfective have, etc.

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Another speaker (a college lecturer), whose interview style can best be described as upper-mesolectal to acrolectal, showed similar patterns of style shifting 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.

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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 complementation 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.

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(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 languages – 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 derive from the English input. Such ‘ﬂeshing out’ may lead to an increase in redundancy, making an inter-language more like a native language.

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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.’)

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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) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40)

We from born we staying here. We very unity people this side. From small he’s like that. Very sin to see that thing. He offed it! (= ‘He put it off.’) Who’s look-aftering the baby?

born n. unity adj. small n. sin adj. off v. look-after v.

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6 CHARACTERISTIC PROCESSES IN THE MESOLECT

While basilectal syntax consistently shows the creation of core grammatical 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 inappropriate 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.

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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 attraction 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 speakers 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 resubcategorisation 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

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speech they are easily able to produce a standard form, but in spontaneous discourse, under either very relaxed or very tense situations, they display several ‘near-misses’. By contrast, forms typical of the basilect often involve not-sonear 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 exempliﬁed 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.’)

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(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.

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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 acquisition’. 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 internationally 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 important 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

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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 government 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 sociopolitical 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 regarding 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 languages 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 longterm effects of the underfunding of black education, overcrowded facilities and

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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 classroom (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 ascertain 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 competence 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 languages 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 languages, 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 localised, 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.

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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 multilingualism 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 subcommittee, 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.

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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 typically 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 little 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 interviews 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

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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 prominence 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 signalling contrast and the difference between given and new information (as is typically the case in native varieties), because in the Bantu languages grammatical 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 auxiliary 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.

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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.

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(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 n`e in tag questions (borrowed from Afrikaans) You start again by pushing this button, n`e? (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

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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 acceptability 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 grammatical, 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 relates 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

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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 degrees 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 particular 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 fundamental part of the process of the nativisation of English (Kachru 1992), in South Africa there has been comparatively little research into discourse features of BSAE, particularly outside academic contexts. Pragmatic transfer has been claimed in BSAE in terms of a preference for indirectness over the AngloSaxon 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 deference towards superordinates may be carried over to English interaction (Gough 1996; Genrich de Lyle 1985: 125). This may be particularly prevalent in the

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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 traditional 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 acceptance 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 indicate 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 selfselection 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 devices, and apparently caused no discomfort (cf. Chick 1985, 1989). Of possible signiﬁcance here is the fact that Ndiki (1997), in his research on the development 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.

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(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 conversation: (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

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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 frequently 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.

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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 languages (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

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(speciﬁcally African) group membership is also salient to them, it is not used exclusively but rather together with the vernacular. Consider the following example 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 towards 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

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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, ﬁghting 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 relationship with English, and ﬁnd themselves forced to make an effort to master it only for instrumental reasons. Many learners of English experience deep ambivalences 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 appropriate 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

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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 educators) 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 varieties 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 multilingual. 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 purposes, 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 languages 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

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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 competence 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 selfimprovement 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 relationship 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 institutions. 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 language 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 teachers are not equipped or trained to teach these languages, and prospects for the establishment of adequate training facilities are not promising. Progress on

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devising L2 syllabuses for the indigenous languages is slow, and support among mother-tongue speakers for their own languages is worryingly low. This attitude 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 reinforced 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

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and entrenched, while the masses will ﬁnd themselves unable to improve their own English because of a massive national decline in competence. The question 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 recognised 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. bibliography Adendorff, R. and M. Savinni-Beck 1993. ‘The teaching of English vowels and consonants in the new South Africa’. Journal of Language Teaching, 27, 3: 232–48. Adey, A. D. 1977. ‘South African Black English’. English Usage in South Africa, 8, 1: 35–9. Bamgbose, A. 1992. ‘Standard Nigerian English’. In B. Kachru (ed.), The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 148–61. Bokamba, E. G. 1992. ‘The Africanisation of English’. In B. Kachru (ed.), The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, 2nd edn. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 125–47. Branford, W. 1987 (ed.). The South African Pocket Dictionary. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Bua 1993. Facts and Figures: laat die feite self praat. 8(3) September.

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Buthelezi, Q. 1995. ‘South African black English’. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 242–50. Central Statistical Services 1994. STATS, monthly statistical and marketing digest, 30, 4. Pretoria: Central Statistical Service. Chick, J. K. 1985. ‘The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa’. Language in Society, 14: 299–326. 1989. ‘Intercultural miscommunication as a source of friction in the workplace and in educational settings in South Africa’. In O. Garcia and R. Otheguy (eds.), English across Cultures, Cultures across English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 130–60. Crawhall, N. 1993. ‘Consenting adults: talk about sex and AIDS’. Bua, 8, 2: 23–5. de Kadt, E. 1993. ‘Attitudes towards English in South Africa’. World Englishes, 12, 3: 311–24. de Klerk, V. 1996a (ed.). Focus on South Africa. John Benjamins: Amsterdam. 1996b. ‘Use of and attitudes to English in a multilingual university’. English World-wide, 17, 1: 111–27. 1997. ‘Encounters with English over three generations in a Xhosa family: for better or for worse?’ In E. W. Schneider (ed.), Englishes around the World: Studies in Honour of Manfred G¨orlach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 97–118. de Klerk, V. and G. Barkhuizen 1998. ‘Language attitudes in the South African National Defence Force: views from the Sixth SA Infantry’. Multilingua, 17, 2–3: 155–80. Democratic Party 1995. Discussion and information document on language. Unpublished manuscript. D’Souza, J. 1992. ‘The relationship between code-mixing and the new varieties of English’. World Englishes, 11, 2/3: 217–23. Genrich de Lyle, D. 1985. ‘Theme in Conversational Discourse: Problems Experienced by Speakers of Black South African English, with Particular Reference to the Role of Prosody in Conversational Synchrony’. MA thesis, Rhodes University. Gough, D. 1994. ‘English people and people’s English’. In E. Reckwitz, L. Vennarini and C. Wegener (eds.), The African Past and Contemporary Culture. Essen: Die Blaue Eule, pp. 221–31. 1996. ‘Black English in South Africa’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 53–78. 2000. ‘Discourse of students’ experience of higher education’. In B. Liebowitz and Y. Mohamed (eds.), Routes to Writing in Southern Africa. Cape Town: Silk Road International, pp. 43–58. Herbert, R. K. 1996. ‘The meaning of language choice(s): social and pragmatic factors reconsidered’. Unpublished conference handout, First International Conference of African Linguistics, Swaziland. Hundleby, C. E. 1964. ‘Xhosa–English Pronunciation in the South-East Cape’. Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University. Jacobs, M. 1994. ‘Consonantal variation in Zulu English mesolect’. South African Journal of Linguistics, 12, 1: 16–25. Jefferay, C. R. 1993. ‘The Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an English Language Development Component within Grahamstown Community Project’. MA thesis, Rhodes University. Jowatt, D. and S. Nnamonou 1985. Common Errors in English. London: Longman. Kachru, B. B. 1986. The Alchemy of English. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

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1992. ‘Meaning in deviation: towards understanding non-native English texts’. In B. Kachru (ed.), The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 301–26. Kasper, G. 1992. ‘Pragmatic transfer’. Second Language Research, 8, 3: 203–31. Language Task Action Group (LANGTAG) 1996. Towards a National Plan for South Africa: Final Report of the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). Pretoria: Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. Lanham, L. W. 1984. ‘Stress and intonation and the intelligibility of South African black English’. African Studies, 43, 2: 217–30. Magura, B. J. 1984. Style and Meaning in African English. Michigan: University Microﬁche International. Mawasha, A. L. 1982. ‘English teaching in a multi-cultural environment’. In R. D. Eagleson (ed.), English in the Eighties. Adelaide: AATE, pp. 25–30. Mesthrie, R. 1995. ‘South African English’. English Today, 9, 1: 27–33. 1997. ‘A sociolinguistic study of topicalisation phenomena in South African black English’. In E. W. Schneider (ed.), Englishes around the World: Studies in Honour of Manfred G¨orlach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 119–40. Mfusi, M. J. H. 1989. ‘Soweto Zulu Slang: A Sociolinguistic Study’. Honours essay, University of South Africa. Murray, S. 1990. ‘Teaching EAP at the University of Bophuthatswana’. South African Journal of Higher Education (special edition): 139–42. Myers-Scotton, C. 1989. ‘Code-switching with English: types of switching, types of communities’. World Englishes, 8, 3: 333–46. 1993. ‘Elite closure as a powerful language strategy: the African case’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 103: 149–63. Ndiki, N. 1997. ‘The Development of Conversational Competence in English in a Khayalitsha High School’. Honours essay, University of the Western Cape. Peirce, B. N. 1990. ‘The author responds’. TESOL Quarterly, 24, 1: 105–12. 1995. ‘Social identity, investment and language learning’. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 1: 9–31. Peires, M.-L. 1992. ‘Talking in a Strange Tongue: an Examination of L2–L2 Conversation’. Unpublished paper, University of the Transkei. Pennycook, A. 1994. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman. Platt, J., H. Weber and M. L. Ho 1984. The New Englishes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phillipson, R. and T. Skutnabb-Kangas 1995. ‘Linguistic rights and wrongs’. Applied Linguistics, 16, 4: 483–504. RCM (Reaching Critical Mass) 1993. Reaching Critical Mass Survey Report. Cape Town. Sachs, A. 1994. Language Rights in the New Constitution. South African Constitution Studies Centre, University of the Western Cape. Schefﬂer, L. 1978. ‘Common language errors’. English Usage in South Africa, 9, 1: 25–7. Schlebush, A. 1994. ‘Non-Racial Schooling in Selected Cape Town Schools: Language, Attitudes and Language Learning’. M.Phil. thesis, University of Cape Town.

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Schiffrin, D. 1986. Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmied, Josef 1991. English in Africa: An Introduction. London: Longman. Schuring, G. K. 1993. Sensusdata oor die tale van Suid-Afrika in 1991. Unpublished working document. Pretoria: HSRC. Smit, U. 1996. ‘Attitudes to English: the inﬂuence of minority group membership’. SA Linguistics 1995. Papers of the 31st Conference of LSSA: 174–85. Statistics South Africa 1996. The People of South Africa: Census in Brief. Report No. 03-0-11. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Street, B. 1993. ‘The new literacy: implication for education and pedagogy’. Changing English, 1, 1: 113–26. Titlestad, P. 1996. ‘English, the constitution and South Africa’s language future’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 163–74. Wade, R. 1995. ‘A new English for a new South Africa: restandardisation of South African English’. South African Journal of Linguistics, Supplement 27: 189–202. 1997. ‘Arguments for Black South African English as a distinct “New” English’. Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on World Englishes. Webb, V. N. 1996. ‘English and language planning for South Africa: the ﬂip-side’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 175–90. Williams, J. D. and G. C. Snipper 1990. Literacy and Bilingualism. New York and London: Longman. Wissing, R. J. 1987. ‘Language Contact and Interference in the Acquisition of English Proﬁciency by Bantu-speaking Students’. MA thesis, University of South Africa. Wright, L. 1996. ‘The standardisation question in black South African English’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 149–62.

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 community), 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 association, 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 formal 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 virtually 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 anathematised 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 betrayed the working class and hou hulle wit (‘act white’, ‘pretend to be white’), 381

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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 community 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 considerable 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 individualism 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 variants 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 especially in customary religious discourse, which was previously Arabic in reference to religious ritual and Malay in reference to communal custom. Finally,

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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 speakers of middle-class Afrikaans, Xhosa and Zulu. The vast majority of workingclass informants appeared to know little of etymology other than the connotations 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 ineffectual, 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 L¨otter and Schurink’s (1984) monograph on the origins, myth and organisation of coloured prison

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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 methods 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: Kotz´e’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 L¨otter and Schurink (1984) apart, no formal or disciplined 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 communities and their subordinated antecedents. For three centuries prior to the elections 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 contempt 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

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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 community has been given no proper name, but its Respectable Lexicon is accurately 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; literally, ‘ﬂat’ Afrikaans). Since the advent of Black Consciousness in the late 1960s, the common, self-stigmatising, self-sacralising term Gamtaal (‘Hamlanguage’, ‘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 unstable 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 communal membership and style, and vehicle of underdog intimacy and love between members. Use of the dialect powerfully signiﬁes the sharing of subjective communal 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 knowledge 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

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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 codeswitch 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 Rastafarians, 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, signifying 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 community – 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’ (L´evi-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 congruent 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 psychosocial and communal development and oppose anti-Cultural Nature. One must bear in mind that these are folk constructions. In scientiﬁc terms, all identity enaction is psychosocially acquired and thus cultural, whether or not it is construed in folk terms as Natural.

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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 outcast, 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 disreputability (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, another 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 mobile, 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

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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 violence 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 ambivalence, 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, deprivatory 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 identity 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 disintegration, 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 society and Culture, in the community but not socially of it. Outcastness is victimisation by both stigmatised Nature and persecutory Culture, precluding or disqualifying 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 murder, addiction, compulsive promiscuity in females and homosexuals, histrionic effeminate homosexuality, paedophilia, parent–child incest, sadomasochistic

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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 because 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 members 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 community. All prison-gang subculture, including language, was maintained with rigorous conservatism and potentially murderous authority by senior members through the instrument of Die Boek (‘The Book’, modelled on the Bible); the oral, putatively secret language, myth of origin, cosmography and religiomilitary 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 multilingual, depending on the extent to which they identify dialectal lexis as Afrikaans, English, Xhosa and Zulu and comprehend the original meaning. (These issues 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

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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:

Sˆe my wat gebeur hierso? ‘Tell me what’s happening here?’

Working-class respectable:

Vertel my wat gat aan hiesa? ‘Tell me what goes on here?’

Working-class disreputable:

Maak my vol accor’ing di´e beweging? ‘Make me full according this movement?’

Working-class delinquent:

Gee my wat gat s´o? ‘Give me what goes so?’

Working-class outcast:

Hoe sal ek gcwala di´e 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 increasingly concrete in semantics; and as it is changed from standard to slang to dialect, and from respectable to outcast, it becomes increasingly metaphoric, hinted, allusive, elliptical, condensed, cryptic and mystic. This reﬂects increasing alienation from white and middle-class and working-class respectable 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 sometimes 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

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Western society since the time of Aristotle, and now academically termed ‘communication’. 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 degrees of subjectivity and objectivity, including science (and thus this chapter). Between ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ myth and ‘science’, L´evi-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 ‘standard’ 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

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speak) of the sanctimoniously dominant from whom it is taken. The processes of construction are partly serious, rule-bound and consequential, and partly creative, 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 disreputably prescient, nimble and creative bricoleurs under conditions of subordination 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 clich´ed 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 tolerated unobtrusive eavesdropping). From infancy, one is educated only in selfreliant 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 patterns 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

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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 antilanguage is precluded here (cf. Stone 1991: 68–77, 517–35). I can only introduce 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 following 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 connotation 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 became colloquial. 2. in late 16th to early 17th century, a receiver of stolen

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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 newspapers 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 declaiming 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, neighbourly 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 symbiotic 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 essentially to Naturally inherited communal identity as formed integrally from birth and enacted in consciousness, style, etc., even if the actor has become a passwhite. 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 abovementioned connotations. Signiﬁcance undergoing rapid change towards uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity since 1976, with conservative retreat as well with severe economic recession and unemployment, and increasing competition with black working class since 1990. See blush, boer, bootie, darkie, Goenta, Hottie, vaal, wit, and in Disreputable Lexicon blou, boesie, boesman, 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:

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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 greeting 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, le¨emens, rondemens, tˆotie, vo¨el. (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 stˆek Frans, ystervo¨el. 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

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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). bibliography Brillouin, L. 1968 [1949]. ‘Life, thermodynamics and cybernetics’. In W. Buckley (ed.), Sociology and Modern Systems Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, pp. 147–56. Fagan, E. 1984. ‘An Examination of Prison Gang Language: Analysis of a Letter’. LLB. research project. Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town. Freud, S. 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. London: Hogarth Press. Halliday, M. A. K. 1976. ‘Antilanguages’. UEA Papers in Linguistics, 1: 15–45; reprinted in Halliday 1978, pp. 164–81. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Heilbuth, D. 1984. ‘Cloragail: The Code the Queens Use on the Cape Flats’. BA research report, Department of English, University of Cape Town. Kotz´e, E. F. 1983. ‘Variasiepatrone in Maleier-Afrikaans’. Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. L´evi-Strauss, C. 1962. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1964. The Raw and the Cooked. London: Cape. L¨otter, J. M. and W. J. Schurink 1984. Gevangenisbendes: ‘n Ondersoek met Spesiale Verwysing na Nommerbendes onder Kleurlinggevangenes. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.

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Makhudu, D. 1980. ‘An Etymological and Morpho-phonological Description of Flaaitaal/Tsotsitaal: A Sociolinguistic Perspective’. BA (Hons.) research project, Department of Linguistics, University of the Witwatersrand. Mfenyane, B. 1981. ‘Isjita-Scamto: the black language arts in SasAfrika’. In M. Mutloatse (ed.), Reconstruction. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, pp. 294–302. Partridge, E. 1972. The Penguin Dictionary of Historical Slang. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Small, A. 1974. Kitaar My Kruis, 2nd edn. Cape Town: HAUM. Stone, G. L. 1970. ‘The culturally deprived child’. Education, 54, 2: 46–60. 1972. ‘Identity among lower-class Cape Coloureds’. In M. G. Whisson and H. W. van der Merwe (eds.), Coloured Citizenship in South Africa: Report of the Second Workshop. Cape Town: Abe Bailey Institute of Interracial Studies (now Centre for Intergroup Studies), University of Cape Town, pp. 28– 47. 1991. ‘An Ethnographic and Socio-Semantic Analysis of Lexis among Workingclass Afrikaans-speaking Coloured Adolescent and Young Adult Males in the Cape Peninsula, 1963–1990’. MA thesis, University of Cape Town. Turner, V. W. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Van Onselen, C. 1982. Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886–1914, vol. II: New Nineveh. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

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 township 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 protopidgin, fashioned by expediency to lay the foundations for new communication 398

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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 principally white, and Africans, who are principally labourers (see Adendorff, chap. 9, this volume). Fanakalo is an out-group language of work and exploitation; 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 nonrepresentativeness 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

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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

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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 dispossessor – 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 sentences, 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 inclusion 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 impression, 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

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new post-apartheid order, ANC leaders tried to establish a rapport with their supporters by making the occasional remark in Flaaitaal, notably at the beginning 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 ‘antilanguage’.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 bra [bra] bab [ba:b] bri [bri] budi [budi:] brikhado [bri:kado] mri [mri:]

Source language brother (English) baba (‘father’ – Zulu) brigade (English, French, Italian) boetie (‘little brother’ – Afrikaans) obrigardo (‘thank you’ – Portuguese) 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 phonological 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 FT word

Locality

bari [bari] barzen [barzən] mumish [mɒmi:ʃ] jankrap[daŋkrap] dat [da:t ] mqhaka [m!aka] hamish [hami:ʃ]

generic Kagiso Atteridgeville Meadowlands Eldorado Park Sharpeville Rockville/Soweto

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Overlexicalisation gives clues to domains in which Flaaitaal is used. The worldview 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, grammatical 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 /b/ > /m/ /d/ > /m/ /f/ > /m/ /v/ > /m/ /p/ > /m/ /t/ > /n/ /d/ > /n/

5.2

English/Afrikaans beer baikie dom vang vest papier timing met or moet dak or duck

FT /miya/ /maikie/ /mom/ /maŋ/ /mesten/ /mamir/ /naimiŋ/ /mun/ /nak/

Gloss beer jacket foolish arrest clothing papers wise with dodge

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’.

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(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: Language Meaning FT Stem nice English nice /naiza-naiza/ vang Afrikaans catch /fang-fang/ -thenga Zulu to buy /thenga-thenga/ -tama FT to eat /tama-tama/

FT meaning party hit repeatedly cheap woman delicious food

(b) Partial reduplication Stem Language ndama blackjack dikoto snaaks

FT English Sesotho Afrikaans

Meaning

FT

FT meaning

money policeman clubs funny

/ndadama/ /jekeja/ /makotokoto/ /snakanaka/

money policeman a ﬁrearm a foolish person

An introduction to Flaaitaal

5.5

405

Lexical metaphors

(a) Colour /braun/ /tʃoklet/ /tʃok/ (b) Composition /eister/

brandy (brown) South African paper money cigarettes

silver coin or similar currency, from Afrikaans yster, ‘iron’ /ntsimbi/ silver coins, from Bantu (Zulu especially) insimbi, ‘iron’ coins of some kind, from Afrikaans klip, ‘stone’ /tʃlep/ (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 common to Flaaitaal and Iscamtho. 2 I am indebted to Stone (1991) in this section for drawing my attention to the applicability 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.

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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. Pretoria: 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. P¨utz 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 language 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 reﬂects a number of social phenomena. Languages are not abstract entities but important social and historical phenomena which bind, and sometimes reﬂect cleavages within, communities. Thus, Iscamtho reﬂects an urban identity 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

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(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 background (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 (3a) Flaaitaal

Ek loop. 1sg.-go 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.

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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 headquarters, 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 associated 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 processes 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 ) instead of the palatal click (spelt ). 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

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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.

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Slabbert and Myers-Scotton conclude that although Flaaitaal and Iscamtho are not structurally related to each other with regard to their morphosyntactic bases, they are related in other ways. First, they share some content morphemes. Second, Afrikaans is signiﬁcant in both varieties – as matrix language 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 prostitutes, 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

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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 is-gendane

from Zulu feba, ‘to carry on prostitution’ 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 from Iscamtho word for a young man, where a female using this lani-jita 5 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, teachers 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

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concepts. If this happens in a Zulu lesson, it shows that students do not necessarily 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

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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 migration 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 tsotsigroepe 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.

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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 development – 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

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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) language planning is a conscious and deliberate activity; (b) language planning is future oriented; and (c) language planning involves choices, and the decisionmaking process involved in making these choices. Further, language planning should be (at least ideally) an essentially democratic 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 activities: 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 broadcasting 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 individuals, for creating and strengthening national bonds and ties, and for maximising educational and economic development. Relatively successful examples of language planning include the cases of Turkish (Dogancay-Aktuna 1995; Heyd 1954), Swahili (Polom´e and Hill 1980; Whiteley 1969), Hebrew (S´aenz-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 powerful 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?

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(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 languages – Arabic, Sanskrit and Hebrew – used almost exclusively for religious purposes. Finally, there are the various natural sign languages used by the different 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, reﬂecting 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

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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 notion 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 educational 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 education. 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

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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 schooling 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 multicultural 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 related and overlapping language policies were implemented in South Africa (see Reagan 1986b). Among the more important of these language policies were:

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(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 psychological 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 considerable 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 formulated 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 essentially 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

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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 important 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 languages 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, statusplanning 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.

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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 development 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 languages, rejecting the historical bilingual policy which reﬂected only the linguistic 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 languages’ (African National Congress 1994: 71). This commitment to multilingualism 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 proposals related to issues of education and training (African National Congress 1995). Included in this document are four lessons that are identiﬁed as being 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:

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(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 opportunities. (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 languages 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 formulation envisioned by the ANC is the National Education Policy Investigation’s work on language (NEPI 1992, 1993). The National Education Policy Investigation (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,

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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 unknowingly, 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 appropriate 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 languageplanning 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

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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 manifestations 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 irrationality. 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).

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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 government 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, educational 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 policy 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. bibliography Adam, H. and K. Moodley 1986. South Africa without Apartheid: Dismantling Racial Domination. Berkeley: University of California Press. African National Congress 1994. The Reconstruction and Development Programme: A Policy Framework. Johannesburg: African National Congress. 1995. A Policy Framework for Education and Training (Discussion document). Braamfontein: Education Department, African National Congress. Alexander, N. 1989. Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books.

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Bullivant, B. 1981. The Pluralist Dilemma in Education: Six Case Studies. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin. Bunting, B. 1986. The Rise of the South African Reich. London: International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Cluver, A. 1992. ‘Language planning models for a post-apartheid South Africa’. Language Problems and Language Planning, 16: 105–36. Comrie, B. 1981. The Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cooper, R. L. 1989. Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coulombe, P. 1993. ‘Language rights, individual and communal’. Language Problems and Language Planning, 17: 140–52. Degenaar, J. 1987. ‘Nationalism, liberalism and pluralism’. In J. Butler, R. Elphick and D. Welsh (eds.), Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospect. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 236–49. Dogancay-Aktuna, S. 1995. ‘An evaluation of the Turkish language reform after 60 years’. Language Problems and Language Planning, 19: 221–49. Dunja-Blajberg, J. 1980. Sprach und Politik in S¨udafrika. Bonn: Informationsstelle S¨uidliches Afrika. Eastman, C. M. 1983. Language Planning: An Introduction. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp. French, E. 1982. The Promotion of Literacy in South Africa. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Hartshorne, K. 1987. ‘Language policy in African education in South Africa, 1910–1985, with particular reference to the issue of medium of instruction’. In D. Young (ed.), Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice in English Second Language Teaching: Essays in Honour of L. W. Lanham. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, pp. 62–81. 1992. Crisis and Challenge: Black Education, 1910–1990. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Heugh, K. 1985. ‘The relationship between nationalism and language in education in the South African context’. In D. Young (ed.), UCT papers in language education. Cape Town: University of Cape Town, Language Education Unit, Department of Education, pp. 35–70. 1987a. ‘Trends in language medium policy for a post-apartheid South Africa’. In D. Young (ed.), Language: Planning and Medium in Education. Rondebosch: Language Education Unit (UCT) and SAALA, pp. 206–20. 1987b. ‘Underlying Ideologies of Language Medium Policies in Multilingual Societies’. M. Phil. thesis, University of Cape Town. Heyd, U. 1954. Language Reform in Modern Turkey. Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society. Hirson, B. 1981. ‘Language in control and resistance in South Africa’. African Affairs, 80: 219–37. Kaschula, R. and C. Anthonissen 1995. Communicating across Cultures in South Africa: Toward a Critical Language Awareness. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Kerr, D. H. 1976. Educational Policy: Analysis, Structure, and Justiﬁcation. New York: David McKay.

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Kloss, H. 1978. Problems of Language Policy in South Africa. Vienna: Wilhelm Braum¨uller. Kroes, H. 1978. ‘Afrikaans in education’. In L. Lanham and K. Prinsloo (eds.), Language and Communication Studies in South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 169–86. Language Plan Task Group 1996. Towards a National Language Plan for South Africa: Final Report of the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). Pretoria: Government Printer. Malherbe, E. 1977. Education in South Africa, vol. II. Cape Town: Juta. Marivate, C. N. 1993. ‘Language and education, with special reference to the mothertongue policy in African schools’. Language Matters: Studies in the Languages of Southern Africa, 24: 91–105. McKay, S. 1993. Agendas for Second Language Literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mesthrie, R. 1992. English in Language Shift: The History, Structure and Sociolinguistics of South African Indian English. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. National Education Co-ordinating Committee 1993. The National Education Policy Investigation: The Framework Report. Cape Town: Oxford University Press/ NECC. National Education Policy Investigation 1992. Report of the National Educational Policy Investigation Language Research Group. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 1993. The Framework Report. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Nel, B. F. 1959. Aspekte van die onderwysontwikkeling in Suid-Afrika. Cape Town: Haum. Penn, C. 1993. ‘Signs of the times: deaf language and culture in South Africa’. South African Journal of Communication Disorders, 40: 11–23. Penn, C. and T. Reagan 1990. ‘How do you sign “apartheid”? The politics of South African Sign Language’. Language Problems and Language Planning, 14: 91–103. 1994. The properties of South African Sign Language: lexical diversity and syntactic unity’. Sign Language Studies, 85: 319–27. 1995. ‘On the other hand: implications of the study of South African Sign Language for the education of the deaf in South Africa’. South African Journal of Education, 15: 92–6. Pennycook, A. 1994. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Polom´e, E. C. and C. P Hill 1980 (eds.). Language in Tanzania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Potgieter, F. J. and C. B. Swanepoel 1968. Temas uit die historiese pedagogiek. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik. Prinsloo, K., Y. Peeters, J. Turi and C. van Rensburg 1993 (eds.). Language, Law and Equality: Proceedings of the Third International Conference of the International Academy of Language Law. Pretoria: University of South Africa. Reagan, T. 1984. ‘Language policy, politics and ideology: the case of South Africa’. Issues in Education, 2: 155–64.

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1986a. ‘Considerations on liberation and oppression: the place of English in black education in South Africa’. Journal of Thought, 21: 91–9. 1986b. ‘The role of language policy in South African education’. Language Problems and Language Planning, 10: 1–13. 1987a. ‘Ideology and language policy in education: the case of Afrikaans’. In H. du Plessis and T. du Plessis (eds.), Afrikaans en Taalpolitiek. Pretoria: Haum, pp. 133–9. 1987b. ‘The politics of linguistic apartheid: language policies in black education in South Africa’. Journal of Negro Education, 56: 299–312. Reagan, T. and I. Ntshoe 1987. ‘Language policy and black education in South Africa’. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 20:1–18. Reagan, T. and C. Penn 1997. ‘Language policy, South African Sign Language, and the deaf: social and educational implications’. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 5: 1–13. Rubin, J. and B. Jernudd 1971 (eds.). Can Language be Planned? Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice for Developing Nations. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. S´aenz-Badillos, A. 1993. A History of the Hebrew Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saulson, S. B. 1979. Institutionalized Language Planning: Documents and Analysis of the Revival of Hebrew. The Hague: Mouton. Schuring, G. K. 1985. Kosmopolitiese omgangstale: die aard, oorsprong en funksies van Pretoria-Sotho en ander koine-tale. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. 1991. ‘Language policies in Africa and their relevance to a future South Africa’. In D. J. van Vuuren, N. E. Wiehahn, N. J. Rhoodie and M. Wiechers (eds.), South Africa in the Nineties. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 617–47. Steyn, J. C. 1980. Tuiste in eie taal. Cape Town: Tafelberg. 1992. ‘Die behoud van Afrikaans as ampstaal’. In V. N. Webb (ed.), Afrikaans n´a apartheid. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, pp. 201–26. Tollefson, J. W. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community. London: Longman. Troup, F. 1976. Forbidden Pastures: Education under Apartheid. London: International Defence and Aid Fund. van den Heever, R. 1987. Tree na vryheid: ’n studie in Alternatiewe Afrikaans. Cape Town: Kaaplandse Professionele Onderwysersunie. 1988. Alternatiewe Afrikaans: Afrikaans en bevryding. Cape Town: Kaaplandse Professionele Onderwysersunie. van Rensburg, C. 1992. ‘Die demokratisering van Afrikaans’. In V. N. Webb (ed.), Afrikaans n´a apartheid. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, pp. 181–97. van Zijl, J. 1987. ‘Teacher education for a multi-cultural society: seven strategies’. South African Journal of Education, 7: 187–90. Whiteley, W. H. 1969. Swahili: The Rise of a National Language. London: Methuen.

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 educational 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 unacknowledged 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 multilingualism, 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.

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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 departments 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 responsibility of the Department of Education and Training (DET); the rest fell under the various ‘homeland’ education departments, though the DET maintained a degree of control through its administration of the matric examination. From 1979 onwards, the language situation in all black schools was fairly uniform: children 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 boundaries 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 languages (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 language. 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 nearest 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 instruction for most of these children. Despite the demands made on black children

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in terms of language learning, their schools were deliberately underresourced (see Donaldson 1992). During the period immediately prior to the elections, there was some movement of black children – speakers of African languages – into white, Indian and coloured schools, especially those that were English medium. Schools, however, 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, responsible 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 researcher 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 multilingualism as a ‘national resource’ and a move away from terms such as ‘medium of instruction’ to ‘language(s) of learning’ (Centre for Education Policy Development (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).

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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 announcement, 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 transition 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

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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 associated 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 leyongane 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 language policies in colleges, technikons and universities also plays a part, and although the National Commission on Higher Education (1996) has given limited support for multilingualism, it seems likely that the role of English will become stronger rather than weaker in higher education.

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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 unfavourably. 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

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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 educational 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 orthodoxy was challenged in several ways. There was always a question mark

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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 standardisation 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 encouraged. 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 curriculum, 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 differences 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

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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 (Pl¨uddemann 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 – Breakthrough – 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; currently 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

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(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 existence 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 considering 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 requirement 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 educational 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).

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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 direction (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.)

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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). bibliography Adendorff, R. 1992. ‘Code-switching among Zulu-speaking teachers and their pupils: its functions and implications for teacher education’. In J. Boughey (ed.), Visions and Realities: Proceedings of the 11th Annual SAALA Conference. Cape Town: University of Cape Town, pp. 23–42. Alexander, N. 1992. ‘A language policy for a future South Africa’. Proceedings of the English Academy of Southern Africa Conference. 1–3 July. Cape Town: University of Cape Town, pp. 154–62. 1996. ‘Mainstreaming by conﬂuence: the multilingual context of literature in South Africa’. World Literature Today, 70, 1: 9–11. Bengu, S. M. E. 1997. Statement by the Minister of Education, 14 July (on the Internet: http://www.polty.org.za/govdocs/misc/langpol/html). Bosch, B. and V. de Klerk 1996. ‘Language attitudes and their implications for the teaching of English in the Eastern Cape’. In V. de Klerk (ed.), Focus on South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 231–250. Bot, M. 1993. ‘Language use in schools: a survey of teachers’ opinions’. Edusource Data News, 3, August: 1–9. Botha, E. M. 1994. ‘Manifestation of language varieties in the classroom in the PWV’. ELTIC Reporter, 18, 1/ 2: 27–31. Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD) 1993. ‘Language Policy in Education: Report of the Language Policy in Education Working Group’. June. Cummins, J. and M. Swain 1986. Bilingualism in Education: Aspects of Theory Research and Practice. London: Longman. de Kadt, E. 1993. ‘The dangerous power of English’. In Proceedings of the English Academy of Southern Africa Conference. Cape Town, July: 6–16.

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Department of Education 1997. Curriculum 2005: Lifelong Learning for the 21st Century. Pretoria: Department of Education. Donaldson, A. 1992. ‘Financing education’. In R. and A. McGregor (eds.), McGregor’s Education Alternatives. Cape Town: Juta, pp. 231–50. Dowling, T. and P. Maseko 1995. African language teaching at universities. In Heugh et al. (eds.), pp. 100–6. English Language Teaching Information Centre (ELTIC) 1997. Multilingual Learning: Working in Multilingual Classrooms. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman. Freer, D. 1992 (ed.). Towards Open Schools: Possibilities and Realities for Non-Racial Education in South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Garson, P. 1998. ‘Reading’s vital statistics’. The Teacher, 3, 1: 5. Garwen, M. 1995. ‘Interim Evaluation Report’. Johannesburg: READ/DBSA. Gough, D. 1993. ‘Code-switching in the classroom – thetha or khetha/choose or loose/kies of vries’. Unpublished article. Hartshorne, K. 1992. Crisis and Challenge: Black Education 1910–1990. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 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. Heugh, K., A. Siegruhn and P. Pl¨uddemann 1995 (eds.). Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann. Janks, H. 1990. ‘Contested terrain: English education in South Africa 1948–1987’. In I. Goodson and P. Medway (eds.), Bringing English to Order. London: Falmer Press, pp. 242–61. Johanson, E. 1996. ‘“TALK”-ing at Princess High’. ELTIC Reporter, 20, 1: 77–81. Kgomoeswana, V. N. 1993. ‘The case against codeswitching in multilingual classrooms’. ELTIC Reporter, 17, 2: 13–16. Langhan, D. 1996. ‘The roles of languages in learning across the curriculum’. ELTIC Reporter, 20, 2: 4–23. Luckett, K. 1992. ‘National Additive Bilingualism. Report from the Medium of Instruction Sub-group to the Language Policy Research Group’. NEPI Working Paper. 1993. ‘“National additive bilingualism”: towards the formulation of a language plan for South African schools’. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2, 1: 38–60. Macdonald, C. 1990. Crossing the Threshold into Standard Three. Main Report of the Threshold Project. Report SOLING-16. Pretoria: HSRC. Maclean, D. 1997. ‘Conditions under which outcomes can be common’. SAALA Communiqu´e, June: 4–5. Makoni, S. B. 1994. ‘Mother-tongue education: a literature review’. ELTIC Reporter, 18, 1/2: 18–26. Mawasha, A. 1984. ‘Your English, our English: English in black South Africa’. English Usage in Southern Africa, 15, 2: 12–18. Mhlanga, S. I. 1995. ‘Parental Preferences regarding Medium of Instruction in Primary Schools in the Nongoma District of KwaZulu-Natal’. M.Ed. half-thesis, Rhodes University. Murray, S. 1998. ‘Talk Schools Programmes: Interim Evaluation’. Unpublished draft discussion document.

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Murray, S. and H. van der Mescht 1996. Preparing students to teach English ﬁrst and second language. In V. de Klerk (ed.), Focus on South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 251–68. Murray, S. and M. Hendricks 1997. ‘Multilingual Education: From Policy to Practice’. Paper presented at the Kenton Education Conference, Hermanus, 31 October–2 November. National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) 1996. Report: A Framework for Transformation. Cape Town: NCHE. Ndebele, N. 1987. ‘The English language and social change in South Africa’. English Academy Review, 4: 1–16. Nokaneng, M. 1986. ‘The Methodology of African Languages’. Paper presented at CSIR Conference on the Role of Language in Black Education, Pretoria, February. Nomvete, S. 1994. ‘From oppression to opportunity: multilingual policies for schools’. ELTIC Reporter, 18, 1/2: 11–17. Ntete, S. 1998. ‘Case Studies of Second Language Learners who Excel in English’. M.Ed. thesis, Rhodes University. Pather, E. 1994. ‘Language attitudes and multilingualism: classroom-based action research’. ELTIC Reporter, 18 1/2: 32–8. Peires, M.-L. 1994. ‘Code-switching as an aid to L2 learning’. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 3, 1: 14–22. Pl¨uddemann, P. 1995. ‘Girls go for Xhosa’. Bua! 10, 1: 15. Prinsloo, M. and M. Breier 1996. The Social Uses of Literacy: Theory and Practice in Contemporary South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Roberts, J. E. 1997. ‘A Study of the Development of Institutional Language Policies in Two Gauteng Primary Schools’. M.Ed. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Shoai, C. 1997. ‘New policy on language’. The Teacher, August 1997: 3. Smit, U. 1994. ‘Investigating language attitudes as a basis for formulating language policies – a case study’. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 3, 1: 23–35. South Africa (Republic) 1996. South African Schools Act No. 84. Pretoria: Government Printer. Street, B. 1997. ‘The implications of the “New Literacy Studies” for literacy education’. English in Education, 31, 3: 45–59. Technical Committee for the Revision of Norms and Standards in Teacher Education 1997. Norms and Standards for Teacher Education, Training and Development: Discussion Document. Pretoria: Department of Education. Thornton, R. 1988. ‘Culture: a contemporary deﬁnition’. In E. Boonzaier and J. Sharp (eds.), South African Key Words: The Uses and Abuses of Political Concepts. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 17–28. Walters, P. 1996. ‘Issues in English language teaching in primary schools’. In V. de Klerk (ed.), Focus on South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 211–30. Winkler, G. 1997. ‘The myth of the mother tongue’. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies, 5, 1: 29–39. Young, D. 1993a. ‘The NEPI language report: product or process?’ Proceedings of the 12th Annual SAALA Conference, Part 2. University of Port Elizabeth, 28–30 June, pp. 267–78.

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1993b (ed.). How do we Ensure Access to English in a Post-Apartheid South Africa: Proceedings of the English Academy of South Africa Conference, Cape Town 1–3 July 1992. Cape Town: English Academy of Southern Africa and Language Education Centre, School of Education, University of Cape Town. 1995. ‘Preparing teacher trainees to teach in multilingual classes’. In K. Heugh et al. (eds.), pp. 107–12. Young, D., A. Schlebusch, V. Jahpta, C. Goeminne, V. Edwards, U. Hoadley and S. Wright 1995. ‘Many Voices, One Tongue?’ Research report, University of Cape Town.

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 circumstances 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 multilingualism. In the era of globalisation, however, there are larger structural forces at play, which inﬂuence international and domestic economic and development 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 multilingualism 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

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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 government, however, nurtured a public and bilingual ‘habitus’ during the half-century of Afrikaner nationalist rule, and it has not, since Milner’s Anglicisation policy 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 furthered through the application of this policy since the development of Afrikaans was to ensure unrestricted functional use of the language, whereas the development 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 hegemony 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 perception 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

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became neither willing champions of their own languages nor willing users of Afrikaans. Instead they became committed to English for high-status communicative 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 language 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:

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(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 language 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 dominant 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 detriment 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 sociolinguistic 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 strategies 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 different 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 interdependent 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

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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 policy. 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 individual 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 recommendations 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

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education effectively advantages the children of the ruling class and disadvantages 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 inequalities . . . between the imperial European languages and other languages becomes indispensable 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).

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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 strategy 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 development plan and a language plan. At another level, a number of sociolinguists extend this argument by examining the relationship between the failure of development programmes and the failure of education on the continent to embrace the reality of multilingualism. Paulin Djit´e, 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 international 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). Djit´e’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 realities, 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 international mediums of communication, for they satisfy the criteria of efﬁciency, adequacy, and acceptability (Haugen 1966: 61–3). (Djit´e 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

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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 subsequently 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

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literacy and educational purposes, in order to realise the democraticparticipation of all linguistic communities in the transformation of the country. Alexander argued 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’ˆetre 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 Djit´e 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:

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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 experts 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-`a-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 advancement’ (Desai and Trew 1992). Crawhall in analysing this contribution draws attention to the importance of a comment included in Desai and Trew’s document: ‘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 position 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 proposals. The NLP, which had been following language policy and planning developments in India, Australia and Africa as well as the international discourse on ‘additive bilingualism’, responded with the identiﬁcation of additive bilingual

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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 conclusions for a new language-in-education model, and she formulated a bold proposal for ‘national additive bilingualism’.14 PRAESA, under the directorship 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 recommendations 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-ineducation 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 multilingualism 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, planning 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 language began to reassess the position of Afrikaans vis-`a-vis English. English remained, and still is, the greatest threat to the status of Afrikaans as a language of

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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 conservative 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 commencement 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,

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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 national 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 development 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 formulated 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 communication. 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

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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 substantively 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 equitable 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.)

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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, commissioned 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 sixmonth 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 decision 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 framework rather than to put forward a prescriptive blueprint’ (DACST 1996a: 8). Attention was focused on the following areas: r r r r r r r

language equity; language development; language as an economic resource; language in education; literacy; language in the public service; 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.

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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 extending 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 planning. 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 election 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 references of PANSALB include the language clauses of the 1993 constitution and also the notion of language as a resource. PANSALB’s establishment was accompanied by many expectations from civil society as well as from government.

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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 instrumentally 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 government 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 respective provinces. Other structures, namely, the national language bodies for fourteen 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 particular, the department succeeded in relocating lexicography units for each of the ofﬁcial languages under PANSALB. This involves the board in hands-on language 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 commissioning of a national sociolinguistic survey of the country (PANSALB 2000). This

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survey has provided a wealth of current data which is necessary for accurate and appropriate language-planning ventures. The prognosis for PANSALB, however, 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 sufﬁcient 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 political pressure. The capacity of PANSALB to act as a watchdog on government’s implementation of the language clauses of the constitution has thus been successfully 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 ﬁnalisation 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 developments 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 implementing 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

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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 curriculum. 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 implementation 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 commission 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’ˆetre of the commission is to support ethnic or separatist tendencies 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 analysts, Neville Alexander included, fear that in the long term it will feed ethnic

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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 generations 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 contrary, 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 development, 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 attempt 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 answer 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 sentimental or ethical reasons, will have little success. There have been no examples of the successful implementation of a rights-based language policy. The failure

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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 powerful 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 towards 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 convincing 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 implication 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 educational 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.

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8.1

Moving in from the periphery

Given that there are many shared languages and lingua francas in Africa, crossborder 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 international 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 education 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 knowledge 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 endogenous 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 created 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 obsession 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.’

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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 language 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, according 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 vehicles for scientiﬁc and technical progress); the Harare Declaration by Ministers of Education of African Member States linked education in African languages to socioeconomic 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.

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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. bibliography Agnihotri, R. 1992. ‘India: multilingual perspectives’. In N. Crawhall (ed.), Democratically Speaking: International Perspectives on Language Planning. Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 46–55. Akinnaso, F. N. 1991. ‘Toward the development of a multilingual language policy in Nigeria’. Applied Linguistics, 12.1: 29–61. Alexander, N. 1989. Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books. 1992a. ‘Language Planning from Below’. In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, pp. 56–68. 1992b. ‘Harmonising Nguni and Sotho’. In N. Crawhall (ed.), Democratically Speaking: International Perspectives on Language Planning. Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 143–9. 1998. ‘The political economy of the harmonisation of the Nguni and the Sotho languages’. Lexicos, 8 (AFRILEX – reeks/series 8: 1998): 1–7. Alexandre, P. 1972. An Introduction to Languages and Language in Africa. London: Heinemann. ANC 1992. ‘ANC language policy considerations’. Johannesburg: ANC, Department of Arts and Culture. Baker, C. 1988. Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Bamgbose, A. 1987. ‘When is language planning not planning?’ Journal of West African Languages, 18: 6–14. 1996. ‘African Language Situation and its Implications for Language Planning and Education’. Paper presented at the Pan African Seminar on the Problems and Prospects of the Use of African National Languages in Education, Accra, 26–30 August 1996. Christian, D., C. L. Montone, K. J. Lindholm and I. Carranza 1997. Proﬁles in TwoWay Immersion Education. McHenry, Ill.: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc. Chumbow, B. 1987. ‘Towards a language planning model for Africa.’ Journal of West African languages, 18: 15–22.

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Constable, P. and P. Musker 1993. ‘Language in Education – Policy Considerations’. Paper presented to the READ College Conference, May. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Act 108 of 1996. Cape Town: Government Printer. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Bill (B212–93) 1993. Cape Town: Government Printer. Crawford, A. 1994. ‘Black Patients/White Doctors: Stories Lost in Translation’. Paper presented at the First World Congress of African Linguistics, Kwaluseni, Swaziland, July. Crawhall, N. T. 1993. ‘Negotiations and Language Policy Options in South Africa’. Cape Town: National Language Project (policy document). Crystal, D. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cummins, J. 1988. ‘From multicultural to anti-racist education: an analysis of programmes and policies in Ontario’. In Skutnabb-Kangas and Cummins (eds.), pp. 127–57. Cummins, J. and T. Skutnabb-Kangas 1988. ‘Introduction’. In Skutnabb-Kangas and Cummins (eds.), pp. 1–44. 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. Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) 1996a. Towards a National Language Plan for South Africa. Final Report of the Language Plan Task Group (LANGTAG). Pretoria: Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. 1996b. Language as an Economic Resource. Language Planning Report No. 5.1. Pretoria: Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. 1996c. The Economics of Language. Language Planning Report No. 5.2. Pretoria: Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. 1997. Trading with Francophone Africa: The Language Issue. Language Planning Report No. 5.6. Pretoria: Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. Department of Education 1997a. Curriculum 2005: Lifelong Learning for the 21st Century. Pretoria: Department of Education. 1997b. Language in Education Policy. Pretoria: Department of Education. Desai, Z. and R. Trew, 1992. ‘Language Rights in the Draft Bill of Rights: Protection from Linguistic Disenfranchisement’ and ‘Language Rights: Textual Suggestions’. Submission to the ANC constitutional committee. Djit´e, P. 1993. ‘Language and development in Africa’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 100/101: 148–66. Gogolin, I. 1993. ‘The “Monolingual Habitus” as a Concept for Understanding Reactions of Standard Language Teaching to Multilingualism’. Paper presented at the Tenth World Congress of the International Association of Applied Linguistics, Amsterdam, August. Goula, M. 1998. ‘Rediscovery of Africa’s (Bio)diversity and endogenous knowledge as a basis for social advancement’. A project proposal. Grin, F. 1996. ‘Studying the links between language and the economy: core concepts and research goals’. In Riemersma et al. (eds.), Forum – Conference: Economic

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Development in Rural Areas in Interaction with Minority Languages. Report of the International Conference 11–14 October 1995. Ljouwert: Berie foar it Frysk, pp. 11–19. Hartshorne, K. 1992. Crisis and Challenge: Black Education 1910–1990. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Haugen, E. 1966. ‘Linguistics and language planning’. In W. Bright (ed.), Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the UCLA Sociolinguistics Conference, 1964. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 50–71. Heine, B. 1992. ‘Language policies in Africa.’ In R. K. Herbert (ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press, pp. 23–35. Heugh, K. 1992a. ‘Effecting Equality: A Proposal for Multilingual Classrooms’. Paper presented at the South African Applied Linguistics Association Conference, 6 July. 1992b. ‘Enshrining elitism: the English connection’. Language Projects’ Review, 7.3: 2–4. 2000. ‘The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa’. PRAESA Occasional Papers No. 6. Cape Town: PRAESA, pp. 1–42. Heugh, K., A. Siegr¨uhn and P. Pl¨uddemann 1995 (eds.). Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann. Kelman, H. 1975. ‘Language as an aid and barrier to involvement in the national system’. In J. Rubin and B. Jernudd (eds.), Can Language be Planned? Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice for Developing Nations. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. King, K. 1993. ‘Aid and Education in Africa’. Seminar paper, University of Cape Town, 7 May. Liddicoat, A. 1991 (ed.). Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Melbourne: NLLIA. Lo Bianco, J. 1990. ‘A hard-nosed multiculturalism: revitalising multicultural education?’ Vox, 4: 80–94. Luckett, K. 1992. ‘National Additive Bilingualism’. Working paper/report to Natural Educational Policy Investigation. MacMillan, C. M. 1986. ‘The Character of Language Rights: Individual, Group or Collective Rights?’ Paper for the political theory section of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Winnepeg, 8 June . Mazrui, A. 1997. ‘The World Bank, the language question and the future of African education’. Race and Class, 38.3: 35–47. Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 1995. The Pan South African Language Board Act. No. 59. Ministry of Finance 1996. Growth, Employment and Redistribution: A Macro-Economic Strategy. Pretoria: Ministry of Finance and the Development Bank of South Africa. Ministry of the Ofﬁce of the President 1994. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Pretoria: Ministry of the Ofﬁce of the President. Msimang, C.T. 1994. ‘Language attitudes and the harmonisation of Nguni and Sotho’. Paper delivered at the First World Congress of African Linguistics, Kwaluseni, Swaziland, 18–22 July. 1996. ‘The Nature and History of Harmonisation of South African Languages’. Paper delivered at the Colloquium on Harmonising and Standardising African Languages for Education and Development, University of Cape Town, 11–14 July. National Education Policy Investigation 1992. Language. Cape Town: National Education Co-ordinating Committee and Oxford University Press.

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NLP and PRAESA 1995. ‘Urgent Submission to the Constitutional Assembly: Language Clauses in the Final Draft of the Constitution’. Cape Town: Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa and the National Language Project. Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 1986. ‘The Language Plan of Action for Africa’. Twenty-Second Ordinary Session of the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity, Addis Ababa, 28–30 July. Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) 2000. Language Use and Language Interaction in South Africa: A National Sociolinguistic Survey. Pretoria: PANSALB. Phillipson, R. 1988. ‘Linguicism: structures and ideologies in linguistic imperialism’. In Skutnabb-Kangas and Cummins (eds.), pp. 339–58. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pool, J. 1993. ‘Linguistic exploitation’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 103: 31–55. Rado, M. 1991. ‘Bilingual education’. In Liddicoat (ed.). Ramirez, D., S. Yuen, D. Ramey, and D. Pasta 1991. Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early-exit and Late-exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language Minority Children. San Mateo, Calif.: Aguirre International. Ruiz, R. 1984. ‘Orientations in language planning’. Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education, 8: 15–34. Schmied, J. 1991. English in Africa: An Introduction. London: Longman. Siatchitema, A. K. 1992. ‘When nationism conﬂicts with nationalist goals: Zambia’. In N. T. Crawhall (ed.), Democratically Speaking. Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 17–21. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 1988. ‘Multilingualism and the education of minority children’. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and J. Cummins (eds.), pp. 9–44. 2000. Linguistic Genocide in Education. Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. and J. Cummins 1988a (eds.). Minority Education: From Shame to Struggle. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 1988b. ‘Concluding remarks: language for empowerment’. In Skutnabb-Kangas and Cummins (ed.), pp. 390–4. Smolicz, J. J. 1990. ‘Language and economy in their cultural envelope’. Vox, 4: 65–79. Thomas, W. and V. Collier 1997. School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students. Washington: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Tollefson, J. W. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality. London: Longman. Tripathi, P. D. 1990. ‘English in Zambia: the nature and prospects of one of Africa’s “new Englishes”’. English Today, 6.3: 34–38. UNESCO 1953. The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education. Paris: UNESCO. 1977. Education in Africa in the Light of the Lagos Conference 1976. Paris: UNESCO. 1982. Conference of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for Economic Planning in African Member States: Final Report. Paris: UNESCO. Vawda, A. and A. Patrinos, 1998. ‘Producing Educational Materials in Local Languages: Costs from Guatemala and Senegal’. Paper presented at the Tenth World Congress of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), 12–17 July, University of Cape Town.

Index

names Aarons, D. 143 Achebe, C. 458 Adendorff, R. 163, 399, 440 Alexander, N. 22f., 67, 425, 434, 436, 443, 456, 457, 463, 465, 467, 468 Alexandre, P. 454 Allison, A. A. 324 Anders, H. 37, 41 Anderson, R. 349 Anthonissen, C. 421 Appel, R. 200 Arbousset, T. 40, 69 Armstrong, J. C. 89 Ashforth, A. 414 Bailey, R. 70, 71 Baker, P. 89 Bamgbose, A. 454, 457 Barkhuizen, G. 24, 359, 463 Baumbach, E. J. M. 64, 71 Beach, D. M. 34, 35, 313 Bengu, S. 437 Bennett, P. 56 Bennie, J. 16, 31 Bhana, S. 161 Bleek, D. F. 27, 36, 37, 39, 41, 43, 44 Bleek, W. H. I. 27, 36, 38–40, 43, 50, 51, 297 Blench, R. 55–7 Bokamba, E. G. 365 Bonner, P. 409 Boonzaaier, E. 34 Bot, M. 438 Boyce, W. 16, 31 Brain, J. B. 161 Branford, W. 172 Brink, A. P. 208, 209 Brown, D. 180 Bruyn, A. 87 Bryant, A. T. 62, 300, 320

476

Buccini, A. F. 79, 85, 86 Bullivant, B. 423 Bundy, C. 409 Buthelezi, Chief M. G. 325 Buthelezi, Q. 357 Bynon, T. 229 Callaway, H. 190 Calteaux, K. 6, 244, 245, 251 Carbaugh, D. 258 Carstens, P. 33, 205 Chick, K. 365 Cluver, A. D. de V. 35, 36, 430 Clyne, M. 232 Cobbing, J. 16 Cole, D. 163, 188, 189, 199, 240 Combrink, J. G. H. 86, 98, 208 Comrie, B. 420 Conradie, C. J. 85 Constable, P. 459 Cooper, R. 419, 420 Corne, C. 89 Crawhall, N. 12, 22, 28, 365, 457–9 Crystal, D. 449 Cummins, J. 438, 467 Cupido 40 Davids, A. 17, 83 Deacon, J. 39 de Kadt, E. 153, 373, 440 de Klerk, V. 6, 24, 263, 359, 365, 374, 438, 463 de la Bat, J. 131 Delbridge, A. 110 Delius, P. 409 den Besten, H. 14, 82, 85, 88–90, 94, 95, 97, 98 Desai, Z. 164, 457, 458 Deumert, A. 83, 98 de Villiers Pienaar, P. 34

Index Dimendaal, G. J. 27 Dittmar, N. 236 Doke, C. M. 16, 37, 43, 60, 63, 68, 71 Donaldson, B. C. 97 Donnelly, S. S. 11, 66, 72 Dorian, N. 27, 173 Dowling, T. 282, 286, 291, 444 Downes, W. 194 du Plessis, J. 32, 35, 38 Eastman, C. 420 Edwards, J. 7, 38 Ehret, C. 58, 61 Elphick, R. 29, 31, 32, 79–82 Erikson, F. 268 Evans, M. S. 398 Faye, C. U. 302, 306 Felgate, W. 319, 324 Finlayson, R. 23, 63, 65, 244, 245, 249, 250, 253, 281, 292, 308 Forsythe, D. 154 Fortune, G. 68 Franken, J. L. M. 87, 88 French, E. 422 Gal, S. 195 Gambhir, S. K. 168, 170 Gandhi, M. 163, 164 Gerwel, J. 209 Gogolin, I. 450 Goldswain, J. 114 Goosen, J. 208 Gough, D. 2, 357, 358, 363, 365, 440 Greenberg, J. 53, 54 Grimes, B. 53 Grobbler, E. K. 319 Grosvenor, G. 166 Gumperz, J. J. 227, 241, 268 Guthrie, M. 51, 57, 60, 65, 289, 316 Haacke, W. H. G. 33 Hag`ege, C. 68, 302 Halliday, M. A. K. 384, 389, 402, 403 Hallowes, D. P. 37, 42 Hancock, I. F. 185 Hani, C. 402 Harinck, G. 29, 30, 201, 202, 300 Harries, P. 71, 73, 316 Hartshorne, K. 19, 423, 450 Hattersley, A. F. 16 Haudricourt, A. 302 Haugen, E. 200, 454 Heap, M. 130

477 Herbert, R. K. 2, 6, 30, 56, 59, 65, 70, 247–9, 260, 261, 263, 279, 282–4, 290–2, 303, 306, 331, 369, 435 Hernandez-Chav´ez, E. 227 Hesseling, D. C. 87, 88 Heugh, K. 253, 423, 429, 436 Heyd, U. 420 Hill, C. P. 420 Holm, J. 87 Hudson, R. A. 205, 209 Huffman, T. N. 59, 63 Hundleby, C. E. 360, 361 Hunter, M. 281, 282, 286 Hymes, D. 2 Jacobs, M. 360 Jacotett, E. 307 Jakobson, R. 302 Janson, T. 63, 69, 400 Junod, H. A. 316, 319, 320, 324, 325 Kamwangamulu, N. 241 Kannemeyer, H. D. 164 Kaschula, R. 271, 272, 421 Kasper, G. 366 Kaufman, T. 84, 85, 87 Kerr, D. 420, 426 Keswa, E. R. G. 409 Khathi, T. 240 Khumalo, J. S. M. 240 Kicherer, J. J. 38 Kichlu, C. P. 164 Kloeke, G. G. 79 Kloss, H. 84, 424, 430 K¨ohler, O. 28, 36 Koopman, A. 239, 240 Kopf, A. 204 Kotz´e, E. F. 83, 86 Kroenlein, J. G. 93 Kroes, H. 422 Kruger, B. 33 Kruger, P. 206 Kulik, D. 321 Kunene, D. P. 69, 292, 308 Labov, W. 196, 200 Langhan, D. 439, 440 Lanham, L. W. 16–18, 30, 37, 42, 108–10, 121, 201, 299, 302, 308, 361 Lass, R. 109, 113, 114, 120, 123 Levin, R. 291 L´evi-Strauss, C. 391 Lichtenstein, H. 93 Links, T. H. 34, 83 Lloyd, L. 27, 38, 43, 203

478

Index

Lo Bianco, J. 451 Louw, J. A. 30, 63, 65, 66, 300, 301, 303 Luckett, K. 436, 438 Mabinda, J. 42, 44 Macdonald, C. A. 108–10, 437 Madiba, M. R. 240 Maggs, T. 50 Maho, J. 55 Maingard, L. F. 43 Makhudu, D. P. 87, 244, 400, 403 Makoni, S. 439 Malan, R. 117, 118, 212 Malherbe, E. 422 Mandela, N. 402 Marais, J. S. 29, 33, 35, 38, 207 Markey, T. L. 87 Marks, S. 300 Mattera, D. 401 Mawasha, A. L. 357, 441 Mazrui, A. 453, 454 McCormick, K. 111, 123, 232 Meinhof, C. 95 Mentzel, O. F. 91 Mesthrie, R. 111, 123, 163, 180, 181, 189 Mfenyane, B. 408 Mfusi, M. J. H. 401 Milner, A. 18 Milroy, L. 219 Mitchell, A. G. 110 Mohamed, Y. 12 Morgan, R. 143 Moshoeshoe, King 69 Mostert, N. 31 Msimang, T. 67 Mtshali, L. 463–6 Mtuze, P. 203 M¨ulh¨ausler, P. 170, 179 Mutolase, M. 401 Muysken, P. 300 Myers-Scotton, C. 235, 244–6, 250, 251, 369, 371, 410, 411 Mzamane, G. I. M. 66, 283, 308 Nasson, B. 221 Ndebele, N. S. 212, 213, 441 Nel, B. F. 422 Ngubane, B. 426, 463, 464 Ngubane, H. 319, 331 Ngubane, S. 72 Nhlapo, J. 22 Nicola¨ı, R. 66 Nienaber, G. S. 29, 32, 33, 95, 98 Nokaneng, M. 441

Ntshangase, D. K. 244, 401, 441 Ntshoe, I. 424 Nurse, D. 54, 305 Ogilvy-Foreman, D. C. 143 Oliver, R. 56 Orpen, J. 39–41 Ownby, C. P. 300 Pakendorf, G. 153, 154 Parkington, J. 6 Parsons, N. 17, 18 Pather, E. 438, 441 Pauw, B. A. 286, 291 Pauwels, J. L. H. 85 Peirce, B. N. 371 Peires, J. 203, 365, 367, 440 Penn, N. 37, 38, 135, 140, 141, 143, 421, 424 Pennycook, A. 359, 419 Pheiffer, R. H. 85 Phillipson, D. W. 56, 57 Phillipson, R. 359, 372, 419, 453, 470 Polome, E. C. 420 Pomerantz, A. 260 Ponelis, F. A. 79, 86, 87, 89, 90 Pool, J. 454, 470 Potgieter, E. F. 41, 42, 422 Poulos, G. 72 Prabhakaran, V. 163 Pringle, T. 31 Prinsloo, K. Y. 429 Puddu, M. 82 Rademeyer, J. H. 32, 83, 97 Radise, J. A. 180 Raidt, E. 82–4, 205, 207 Ramaphosa, C. 402 Reagan, T. G. 141, 143, 421, 424 Reinecke, J. E. 398 Roberge, P. 6, 83, 96, 98 Romaine, S. 179, 185, 216 Ross, R. 40 Ruitz, R. 451 Sachs, A. 359 Sales, J. 30, 31, 40 Samarin, W. J. 169 Schapera, I. 69 Schlebush, A. Schmied, J. 360, 365 Scholtz, J. du P. 33, 79 Schulz, J. 268 Schuring, G. K. 399, 401, 425 Shaka, King 279, 308 Shell, R. C.-H. 79, 81, 82

Index Shoai, C. 437 Shoshangane, Chief 71 Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 452, 467, 470 Slabbert, S. 23, 244, 249, 250, 253, 399, 400, 410, 411 Small, A. 97 Smit, S. 82 Sparrman, A. 94 Steenkamp, A. 17 Sterk, J. P. 56 Steyn, J. C. 422, 424 Stone, G. 402 Stopa, R. 297 Story, R. 37 Straight, H. S. 261 Strassberger, E. 33 Street, B. 373, 433 Swain, M. 438 Swanepoel, C. B. 422 Swellengrebel, H. 82 Thomason, S. G. 30, 84, 85, 87 Thompson, L. 29, 37, 249 Tinker, H. 171 Tollefson, J. 420, 430, 453, 470 Traill, A. 6, 13 Trapp, O. O. 181 Trew, R. 457, 458 Trudgill, P. 2, 169, 201 Tutu, D. 401 Uys, J. 41 Valkhoff, M. F. 82, 84, 88 van der Merwe, H. J. J. M. 205, 207, 208 van der Merwe, M. A. 35, 69 van Ginneken, J. 297 van Haeften, B. 82 van Rensburg, C. 7, 35

479 van Rensburg, M. C. J. 83, 86, 87, 93, 96, 398, 424 van Riebeeck, J. 31, 80 van Selms, A. 83 Vansina, J. 57, 58 van Warmelo, N. J. 63, 70, 72, 240, 307, 318, 321, 325 van Zijl, J. 423 Veenstra, T. 87 Vogel, J. O. 57 Wade, R. 357, 370 Walker, E. A. 201, 203 Wardhaugh, R. 200 Watters, J. R. 55 Webb, V. N. 86, 372 Webster, D. 324, 326, 330, 331 Weinreich, U. 302 Wells, J. C. 105, 112, 114, 116 Werner, A. 56, 300 Wessels, B. 180 West, P. 123 Westphal, E. O. J. 27, 303 Whiteley, W. H. 420 Wilkes, A. 66 Williams, J. 228 Williamson, K. 54–6 Wilson, M. 29, 32, 37, 38, 303, 307 Winter, J. C. 27, 36, 42 Wissing, R. J. 367, 368 Worden, N. 81, 89, 91 Wright, J. 36, 41 Wright, L. 357, 358, 372 Wright, S. M. 109, 113, 114, 120, 123 Young, D. 436, 438, 444 Ziervogel, D. 305 Zietsman, P. N. 205, 206

languages /Xam 27, 36–40 /’Auni 27, 28, 36, 42, 44 /’Auo 43, 44 //Ku//e 37, 40 //Ng !k’e 37, 40, 41 //Xegwi 37, 41, 42 =| Khomani 27, 28, 36, 42–4 !G˜a !ne 37, 41 !X´oo˜ 44 !Kwi 28, 36, 39–44 Aarschot dialect 85

Afrikaans 1, 5, 15, 17–19, 29, 31, 32, 34, 41–4, 79–99, 106–9, 113, 120, 122, 134, 136, 144, 150, 155, 157, 164, 181, 199–213, 216, 221, 223, 224, 228–31, 237–9, 292, 358, 381–96, 398, 401, 402, 404, 408, 410, 411, 420–4, 435–7, 440, 442, 444, 450, 456, 459, 460 Cape Afrikaans 87 Dutch-Afrikaans 209, 220 Eastern Cape Afrikaans 83 Hollands 80 Khoekhoe Afrikaans 32, 33, 35

480

Index

Afrikaans (Cont.) Orange River Afrikaans 35, 36, 83, 89, 93, 96, 97 Arabic 12, 17, 162, 382, 421 Awadhi 161, 166, 167

ethnic varieties 19 Natal 18 New Zealand 106, 112 received pronunciation (RP) 110, 121 Scots 106, 109, 120 inﬂuences on SAE 104–26 Southern British 105 Southern hemisphere Englishes 109–10 Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) 107 see also South African English (SAE)

Bantu (language group) 3, 11, 15, 50–78, 134, 235, 243, 299, 301, 307–9, 398, 404, 410 ‘Narrow’ Bantu 54–5 ‘Wide’ Bantu 54–5 Bengali 161, 166 Benue-Congo 53–5, 58 Bhaca 64, 305 Bhojpuri 161, 163, 166, 170, 173, 317 South African Bhojpuri (SABh) 166–71 Bihari 167 Brabant dialect 85 Braj 161, 166 Bushman languages see Khoesan; San

Fanakalo 12, 17, 18, 163, 172, 179–98, 339, 399 Garden 181, 187f., 190 Mine 180, 181, 185, 186 Flaaitaal 12, 209, 244, 385, 386, 398–405, 407, 409, 411 Flemish 85 French 12, 79, 398, 402, 452, 454, 455

Cantonese 12 Cape Dutch 83, 87, 92, 98, 99, 206 acrolectal Cape Dutch 95–8 Cape Dutch pidgin 90, 91, 93–8 Chainou 31 Chewa 11, 63 Chinese 12 Chopi 60 Cocho 31

German 3, 106, 148–60 Low 155ff. Standard High 155ff. GiTonga 60 Gondzze 71 Gorachou 31 Greek 12 Gri 33, 34 Gujarati 11, 162, 165

Dravidian 163 Dutch 6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 29–32, 38, 39, 41, 79, 80, 85, 91–3, 99, 106, 108, 109, 189, 190, 199, 200, 205, 210, 219, 220, 398 Dutch creole 89 Early Modern Dutch 84 Hottentot Dutch 88 Khoe-Dutch 32, 33, 35 pidgin Dutch 88 see also Cape Dutch Dyirbal 1

Hadza 14 Hakka 12 Hamito-Semitic 6 Hebrew 420, 421 Hindi 11, 161, 163–8 Hlubi 305

English 1, 2, 15, 17–19, 29, 31, 32, 34, 41–4, 79–99, 106–9, 113, 122, 134, 136, 144, 150, 155, 157, 164, 181, 199–213, 216, 221, 223, 237–9, 241, 292, 358, 381–96, 398, 401–4, 410, 412, 421, 422, 424, 435–44, 450, 452, 454–6, 458–61 Afrikaans/Afrikaner 122f. American 106–7 Australian 106, 112 British 106 Canadian 106 Cape 18 Cape Flats 123

Japanese 137 Ju/wasi 6

Indian languages 3, 11, 161–77, 458 Indo-European 11, 163, 398 Iscamtho 12, 244, 407–13, 441 Italian 12, 402

Kalanga 11 Kanauji 161, 167 Kannada 161 Kashmiri 166 Kgatla 52, 69 Khoekhoe (also Khoe) 29–36, 63, 79, 84, 93–5, 97, 98, 306 Khoesan 1–3, 11, 27–49, 53, 54, 297, 301, 303, 306, 308, 398 Konkani 11, 162

Index Kora 33–5, 95 Korekore 68 Ku/haasi 43 Latin 12 Magahi 161 Makua 63 Malagasy 12 Malay 12, 81, 84, 88, 91, 98, 206, 382 Malayalam 161 Malxas 43 Mandarin 12 Nama 14, 27, 28, 33, 34, 43, 44, 93, 95 Ndebele 1, 11, 15, 62, 66–8, 237, 305, 436 Nguni 4, 11, 23, 41, 60, 62–6, 71, 72, 200, 237, 238, 244, 279, 299, 300, 302, 305–7, 309, 360, 408, 439, 457 Niger-Congo 5, 6, 11, 53 Nilo-Saharan 6, 53 North(ern) Sotho (Pedi) 1, 11, 50, 62, 68–71, 133, 237, 243, 402, 436 Okavango 305, 307 Panjabi 166 Phuthi 11, 64, 66, 72, 299 Polish 12 Polynesian 12 Pondo 305 Portuguese 11, 14, 91, 181, 321, 402, 452, 454, 455 Cape 90 Creole 81, 84, 88 ‘proto-Afrikaans’ 88 Proto-Bantu 52, 57, 58, 63, 302, 308 Proto-Nguni 64, 310 Rajasthani 161, 162, 166 Ronga 71, 317 Russian 452 San 6, 36–44, 63, 297, 307 Sandawe 14 Sanskrit 12, 162, 210, 421 Scots Gaelic 173 Sekgalagadi 52, 69, 305 Sena 63 Seroa 40, 41 Shalambombo 398, 409 Shona 11, 60, 63, 65, 71–3, 303 Union 68 Sign Language 3, 135, 423, 463 American 128, 129

481 British 128, 129 Namibian 128 South African 127–47, 463 Swedish 128 Thai 128 Sotho 2, 11, 23, 42, 60, 62, 63, 66–70, 72, 133, 238, 240, 242–4, 246–8, 299, 302, 360, 407, 408, 440, 457 South African English (SAE) 7, 104–26, 421 black (BSAE) 356–75 coloured 216–34 Conservative 110, 113, 115ff. Extreme 110, 113, 116 Indian (ISAE) 116ff., 339–54 Respectable 110, 113, 115ff. Southern Bantu 64, 65, 297–313 South(ern) Sotho 1, 11, 23, 52, 62, 68–70, 133, 201, 237, 238, 243, 253, 279, 307, 309, 436 Swahili 420, 423 Swati 1, 11, 64, 66–8, 201, 237, 251, 305, 307, 319, 436 Tamil 12, 161, 163–5, 172, 173, 339 Tekela/Tekeza 62, 65 Telugu 161, 165, 173 Thonga 316, 318–34 Tok Pisin 95 Tsolo 41 Tsonga 1, 2, 11, 42, 50, 60, 62, 65–8, 70, 71, 133, 237, 308, 316, 317, 322, 436 Tsotsitaal 12, 238, 244, 398–405 Tswana 1, 11, 23, 44, 52, 62, 67–70, 79, 133, 238, 243, 244, 253, 305, 398, 436, 440 Urdu 11, 161, 164, 165 Venda 1, 2, 11, 60, 62, 66, 67, 71–2, 237, 246, 247, 436 Xatia 37, 42 Xhosa 1, 2, 11, 23, 24, 29, 30, 62–8, 199–213, 237, 240, 242–4, 247, 268, 272, 279–94, 299, 301, 303, 305, 307, 308, 358, 383, 389, 398, 408, 436, 442, 444 Yiddish 106, 221, 398 Zeeuws dialect 85 Zulu 1, 2, 11, 17, 23, 29, 42, 50, 62–9, 136, 155, 156, 161, 163, 172, 180, 181, 185, 189, 190, 237, 243, 244, 248, 252, 253, 259, 266, 268, 269, 299, 301, 302, 305, 307, 308, 319–21, 324–7, 330, 358, 361, 370, 383, 389, 398, 404, 407–10, 412, 413, 436, 438–41, 444

482

Index

subjects academic literacy 443 acrolect 91f., 96, 343ff. additive bilingualism 253, 439, 458 Africanisation of English 440 African National Congress (ANC) 22, 402, 423, 426, 427, 436, 456–9 Afrikaans, codiﬁcation of 206, 207 Afrikaners 15–18 Amsterdam 79 Anglicisation policy 450 Angola 11, 57 anti-language 393, 402 apartheid 3–5, 18, 19, 141, 144, 340, 357, 374, 402, 412, 421–3, 426, 429, 435, 449, 453, 459, 468 assimilation policies 452, 461 attitudes to BSAE 370ff. gender 327ff. to Iscamtho 412f. Australasia 106 Australia 1, 107, 458 Bantu Education 18, 19, 357 basilect 343ff., 347ff., 351, 407 basilectisation 98, 99 Basters 33, 35, 37, 42, 81, 95 Basuto 17 Basutoland 41 Bechuana 17 Bhaca people 41 Bihar 166, 172 bilingualism 13, 37, 43, 44, 87, 120, 200, 239, 326, 372–3, 421, 422 Black Consciousness Movement 450 Bophuthatswana 13 borrowing 3, 16, 84, 199–213, 217, 239–41, 293, 308, 310 Botswana 14, 44, 69, 307, 442 Britain 1, 17, 108 calques 200, 232 Cameroon 53, 55, 57 Canada 1, 7 Cape 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 27, 29, 31–3, 36, 37, 50, 88, 89, 91, 108, 149, 210 eastern 11, 15, 16, 18, 24, 108, 189 northern 27 western 31–3 Cape Colony 79, 80, 86, 87, 89 Cape Flats 382 Cape Khoekhoe 27–9 Cape Peninsula 381

capitalism 18, 454 Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD) 436 chain shifts (in SAE) 113f. China 12 Ciskei 13, 291 click consonants 29–31, 34, 62, 297–313 cluster reduction (in Dutch) 92 code-mixing 3, 216–33, 235 code-switching 3, 16, 86, 216–33, 235–54, 369f., 411, 434, 439, 440 conversational 225–8 conversational vs. situational 218f. markedness model of 245ff. matrix language frame model 251ff. situational 224–5 codiﬁcation 206–7 compliment-response studies 260–7 compliment-response types 261 constitution of South Africa 23–5, 450, 460–7 contextualisation cues 268 convergence 96, 216–33 corpus planning 420, 424, 465 creolisation 85ff., 343, 351 creolist hypothesis 87–92 cross-cultural communication 258ff. Curriculum 2005 467 Delhi 166 Democratic Party 111, 376 Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 25, 72, 462–6 Department of Bantu Education 19 Department of Education 437, 463, 466, 467 Department of Education and Training 358, 435 dialect 105 Dictionary of South African Signs 135, 140ff. District Six 216, 217, 219–22, 228 Dutch East India Company 79, 81, 107 East Africa 57 Eastern Cape 358, 441 education 18, 22, 24, 28, 104, 129, 164, 253, 254, 340, 356–9, 373, 374, 421, 423, 427, 434–45, 453–5, 457, 459, 466, 467 elite closure 371 embedded language 411 England 104 extraterritorial varieties of English 106f. Fingo 17 France 128

Index Free State 152 function, elaboration of 207–8 functional multilingualism 1, 452f. Gauteng 12, 243, 358 Gazankulu 317 Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners 83 Germans in South Africa 148–60 Germany 79 East 148 West 148 globalisation 449 Gonaqua 29–31 Gorachouqua 34 Gqunukwebe 29 Griqua 18, 34, 35, 81, 398 Griqualand 40 Group Areas Act 18, 401 Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) 461

483 Khoesan people 1–3, 11, 27–45, 53, 54 Kimberley 17, 34 koineisation 86, 166, 169–71 Korana 18, 34, 35, 387 KwaZulu-Natal 71, 72, 83, 149ff., 317, 339, 358

Johannesburg 18, 151, 154, 326, 399, 408, 411

Land Act 18 language and economy 468f. language and identity 221ff. language boards 66, 73, 457, 468 language cluster 11 language death 27, 37, 44, 422 language demographics (South Africa) 11 language genocide 1 language loss 373, 374 language maintenance 38, 39, 43, 153–5, 339, 373, 469 language planning 24f., 419–30, 452, 454, 457, 470 deﬁnitions 420 see also corpus planning; status planning language policy 23ff., 253f., 419–30, 434, 436, 437, 449–70 language rights 429, 430, 461, 468 of Deaf people 145 language shift 2, 30, 31, 33, 34, 39–41, 44, 86, 87, 104, 173, 316–34, 339, 340, 411 language spread 57, 422 Language Task Group (LANGTAG) 24f., 174, 359, 428, 463, 464 language of wider communication (LWC) 421, 438 languages of learning 436 Lesotho 11, 29, 40, 41, 69, 72, 409 liberalism 429 lingua franca 12, 81, 87, 89, 163, 219, 243, 324, 358f., 455, 456, 470 linguicism 451 linguistic diversity 81, 421f., 469 linguistic repertoire 223f. literacy 66, 129, 372f., 421, 434, 442f., 457, 463 loanwords 171f., 200–13, 240 in Afrikaans 205–9, 212 in English 209–12 in South African Bhojpuri 171f. in Xhosa 201–4, 240

Kalahari desert 69 Kalahari Gemsbok Park 36, 37 Karoo 28 Kenya 245 Khoe 6, 11, 300 Khoekhoe 31, 80, 82–4, 88, 90, 91, 93, 201f.

Madagascar 14, 81 Maputoland 317, 321 Martindale 408 Matabili 17 matrix language 410, 411 Mauritius 164

haplotypes 303 harmonisation 67, 68, 457 higher education 443 hlonipha – see isihlonipho sabafazi Holland 79, 108 homeland, linguistic 54, 58 homeland, political 67, 435, 460 hostels 412 Huguenot 80 hybridisation 98 illiteracy 2 illocution 258f. India 14, 17, 81, 162, 164 Indonesia 81 interactional sociolinguistics 267–9 intercultural communication 258–73 interdependence principle 452 interference 98 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) xiii Ireland 104, 106 Iscamtho speech networks 412 isihlonipho sabafazi 279–94, 305–10 rules of 284–5

484

Index

medium of instruction 19, 24, 131, 151, 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.

pidginisation 85 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 Tanzania 14, 455 Tembisa 243–5, 252 Tembu 17 terminal speakers 42 Transkei 13, 41, 286, 291 Transvaal 17, 41, 84, 109, 189, 316, 317, 408

vowels, English 105 BSAE 360 SAE 112ff.

Ulundi 326 ‘unassailable position of English’ 458 Union of South Africa 18, 108 United States of America 1, 106–8 urbanisation 16, 279 Uttar Pradesh 165, 172

Xhosa people 16, 38, 108, 201, 279–94, 299, 300, 383

variationist / interlectalist hypothesis 85–7 Venda 1, 2, 11, 50, 62

Wales 104 Western aid packages: impact on language policy 451 Western Cape 358

Zambia 454f. Zimbabwe 15, 63, 71, 72, 319, 326–8, 330–2 zones of convergence (SAE) 114 Zulu people 15, 17, 190f., 320, 324–6, 409, 412 Zululand 15, 17

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