Afrikaans as a lingua franca in South Africa: the politics of change

Abstract

Afrikaans has been a lingua franca throughout its existence. Its early development took place mainly in and around Cape Town, in a situation of intensive language contact between indigenous Khoekhoe, Dutch settlers, and slaves. Since most people learned it informally, often from other non-native speakers, and since the Cape was relatively isolated from conservative linguistic influences, the language changed a great deal. Until the late nineteenth century, there was no concerted attempt to regulate it. Regulation and standardization occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at a time of great hostility between white speakers of Dutch / Afrikaans and the British colonial authorities. The standard dialect was based on a variety spoken by white Afrikaners. After its declaration as an official language alongside English in 1925, political and cultural institutions promoted its use in all domains by all South Africans. The Afrikaner nationalist government, which took power in 1948, made renewed efforts to enforce the use of the language. The language was strongly associated with apartheid, and many of its speakers feared that it would suer in the new democracy. It does have less prominence in public life, but is still being used as a lingua franca.