South African indigenous languages in teaching and learning : policies and the threat of cultural genocide

Abstract

South Africa is a multilingual country with 10 indigenous, English, and Sign Language as official languages. Before 1994, only English and Afrikaans were used as languages of learning and teaching (LOLTs) at all educational levels. Indigenous African languages were only used as LOLTs to Grade 3. 1994 led to new expectations regarding the use and development of indigenous languages as LOLTs. Government seemingly intends to eventually make English the only LOLT at school and higher education levels. Concerns have surfaced regarding the possible ‘murder’ of indigenous languages and the violation of people’s human rights through language policy implementation. An education law and policy lens was mostly used to examine issues. I wrote the article as a critical analysis of extant literature and used Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson’s (1994) concept of linguicism as the theoretical basis of my examination of data. It led to my conclusion that the emergence of English as the juggernaut language in education could probably lead to the revival of colonization, the assimilation (or ‘destruction’) of indigenous languages, and ‘cultural genocide’ called multilingualism. McIlwraith’s (2014) letter of advice to language and development leaders after a 2013 international language conference in South Africa and cited in the conclusion of the article still provides a fitting conclusion resonating with the content of the article.