Creolisation and Purity: Afrikaans Language Politics in Post-Apartheid Times

Abstract

Language politics about the Afrikaans language are at the heart of struggles over transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Opposing claims and practices over standard Afrikaans and Kaaps, a vernacular spoken mostly by coloured people, emerge in the tense language debate at Stellenbosch. Contrary to the idea of a fixed and pure hegemonic standard language, the notion of creolisation has recently been drawn upon by coloured Afrikaans-speakers to express disaffection with nationalist and white imaginations of Afrikaans. From a historical perspective, ethno-nationalist mobilisation and racist exclusivism are related to a formerly dominant Afrikaner identity and the standard (white) form of Afrikaans. After the loss of Afrikaner political control, the language struggle at Stellenbosch University as part of a ‘Third Afrikaans Language Movement’ is represented as the defence of Afrikaans language and culture, driven by white language activists. In contrast, the non-ethnicised practice of language, particularly Afrikaans, but also English, among the coloured population, surfaces in academic debates, meetings, literature and the arts, such as the Afrikaaps musical theatre production and the 2009 Roots academic conference and cultural festival. A core question is then what the notion of creolisation signifies in this context. I agree with the Caribbean scholar Édouard Glissant that creolisation as ‘Relation’ may turn out to be an important heuristic resource for a progressive and inclusive cultural strategy. This implies that white cultural hegemony in the politics about Afrikaans and its relation to socioeconomic inequalities needs to be addressed.