Why not use Sepitori to enrich the vocabularies of Setswana and Sepedi?

Abstract

According to Census 2011, six official languages of South Africa experienced negative growth in a 10-year period (2001–2011), and all of them are Black South African languages (BSALs).1 The remaining five languages experienced positive growth. According to Webb (2010), urban dwellers reject standard varieties of BSALs and perceive them as symbols of traditionalism, lacking the required legitimacy and regarding them as inadequate and inferior. Calteaux (1996) notes that urban dwellers use Black Urban Vernaculars (BUVs) – which are also non-standard varieties – to bridge language barriers and their use is no longer limited to informal domains, but has also spread to formal domains. In reconciling Webb (2010) and Calteaux (1996), standard varieties of BSALs are on a decline among urban dwellers, while BUVs are on an increase. If these trends were to continue, standard varieties of BSALs would likely decline even further as South Africa becomes more urbanised, and BUVs would likely grow further. This article proposes that non-standard varieties should be used to enrich the vocabularies of standard ones so as to reverse these trends. Were the vocabularies used by urban dwellers to be incorporated into the standard varieties of BSALs, there is potential that urban dwellers would change the way they view BSALs. The article will use the example of Sepitori2 – a non-standard variety of the Tshwane metropolitan municipal region – to demonstrate how it could be used to enrich the vocabularies of its two ancestral languages – Setswana and Sepedi.3 Sufficient evidence from a comprehensive study on Sepitori could be brought before ‘language development’ stakeholders, and subsequently to a standardisation body to make a case for its contribution to enriching Setswana and Sepedi.