Legal Regulations, Obstacles and Current Developments in the Language Policy of the Republic of South Africa

Abstract

Although South Africa has a very advanced and multilingual language policy with a declaration of eleven official languages in its Constitution of 1996, the implementation thereof remains a challenge. The current President Cyril Ramaphosa was the first Post-Apartheid President who used Khoekhoegowab in his State of the Nation (SONA) in 2019. Such was not the first time a President of South Africa highlighted and signposted the relevance of language policy. Due to colonialism and its dichotomy between Dutch and later Afrikaans and English and the highly politicized language policy during apartheid as THE core area and representation of constructed socio-linguistically segregation language policy in South Africa is a highly emotional and contested topic as well as African languages suffer from such stigmatization. Despite a general multilingual tone reflected in the Constitution and the South African School Act (SASA) of 1996 with its establishment of so called School Governing Bodies (SGB s), which offer a micro language policy opportunity, nothing much has significantly changed on the ground for pupils. The 2013 political initiative ‘The Incremental Introduction of African Languages in South African schools’ (IIAL) aimed to ensure the teaching of African languages at ALL South African schools to uplift the widespread low language attitudes towards African languages.