Abstract
Before the transition to full democracy in South Africa, only English and Afrikaans were official languages used in governmental matters. This effectively excluded more than half the population who had no working knowledge of those languages, from participation in public affairs and hindered them from accessing their entitlements. The 1996 South African Constitution set out to change this and to accord equality of official status to all the major languages — 11 in all, and placed a duty on government to take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of formerly marginalised indigenous languages. A special body was set up to assist the government in carrying out this task. This paper examines the extent to which these provisions have been implemented, and examines the implications for equality, democracy and citizenship of the failure by government to carry out their constitutional mandate. The importance of making government and administration accessible to the population is explored and the paper suggests ways in which the 11 official languages could be used so that their use does not become too burdensome in terms of finance and administration. The paper draws on experience in these matters in Canada and a number of other countries which are multilingual. Finally the paper concludes that so little has been done to make the language provisions of the constitution workable, that the drift to English, discernible from 1993, has become virtually unstoppable.
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