Cape Town as a multilingual city

Abstract

This chapter explores aspects of Cape Town as a multilingual city where questions of signification and translation are chronotopic and multilayered, and they are negotiated by different actors in different spatial and temporal constellations. The chapter introduces Cape Town as a global southern city shaped by colonial violence, which has created deep-seated inequalities grounded in the intersectional complexities of racial capitalism. Like any urban space, Cape Town has many facets, and the chapter is organized around three case studies: two multilingual spaces of economic transaction that are part of the everyday life of many residents (‘Securing livelihoods’ and ‘Brokering language’) and one educational space (‘Naming heritage’). The latter space is highly privileged, but speaks in important ways to the history of the city, the importance of addressing the violence and dehumanization of the colonial past, and the role of language and naming in transforming ‘white public space’ in Cape Town. Throughout the discussion we keep in mind formal and informal language policies, the ideologies that inform them, and the experiences of people as they negotiate their lives and livelihoods in the city.