‘Give Afrikaans its due’: FF+ leader says indigenous languages in danger of going extinct

Freedom Front Plus (FF+) leader Pieter Groenewald believes it is illogical and strange that Afrikaans and other SA indigenous languages are being pushed to the level of extinction while English is being promoted by the government when it is the language of the colonialists.

In an interview with The Citizen, Groenewald said Afrikaans was under threat because some universities only wanted to use English as a medium of instruction. Of the 34 universities, none is exclusively Afrikaans-speaking.

While he did not expect universities to allow students to write and pass an Afrikaans test before being admitted – unlike some English-speaking universities where in the past students wouldn’t be admitted if they did not pass English – it was important for Afrikaans to be retained as a medium at tertiary level.

“There is an onslaught on Afrikaans; they are all English now and therefore I say it’s unfair. We say there should be at least two universities that are Afrikaans-medium – one in the north, like Potchefstroom University, and another in the south.”

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He said he found it strange that English was given preference, despite being fifth-ranked after the top four languages like isiZulu, isiXhosa, seTswana and Afrikaans.

“I don’t understand the logic. You’re fighting against colonialism, but you want to speak the language of the colonialists of Great Britain, which colonised everything in the world.”

He said it was essential for any language to be made available at tertiary level to develop into a science language, but the minute you stopped that, you risked bringing it down. If the government stopped using Afrikaans in its documents, there was a risk that state employees could refuse to serve people in Afrikaans.

There was also a problem with some Afrikaners who preferred to send their children to an English-medium school so they could “survive”. This was a misconception, brought on by the wrong belief that English was an international language.

He said Afrikaans was a highly developed language and an indigenous language but was being undermined. However, ironically, English – despite being a language of the colonialist – was preferred.

“You get a situation even in our schools where those that are double-medium [English and Afrikaans], in a few years’ time suddenly become an English-medium school.

“So Afrikaans is under threat and the Freedom Front Plus feels strongly about this issue,” Groenewald said.

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Not so long ago, he took issue with a plan by former arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa to change the name of the Afrikaanse Taalmonument (Afrikaans Language Monument) in Paarl in the Western Cape. Groenewald vehemently objected and spoke to President Cyril Ramaphosa in parliament to ask for his intervention.

During their discussion, Groenewald invited Ramaphosa to accompany him to see the monument to confirm that, to the Afrikaner, it symbolised the Afrikaans language and also recognised some of its origin from the Khoisan language. Ramaphosa assured him it wouldn’t happen and it was stopped.

On the issue of Afrikaans originating partly from Khoisan, Groenewald said Afrikaans words like bietjie, aitsa and many others were from the Khoisan language. So Khoisan had contributed to the development of Afrikaans.

“There are many misconceptions about Afrikaans, but in our constitution, as the Freedom Front Plus, we give recognition to all 12 official languages.

“This is why we are going to fight it when we see Afrikaans is under threat.

“If they think that the majority of Afrikaans-speaking people are white they are wrong, it’s actually the brown people who are the majority,” he said.