Africa is the second largest continent, in terms of size and … In 1995 the Ghanaian sociologist Kwesi Prah wrote: “One cannot underemphasise the fact that unless the generation of knowledge, discourse and knowledge transfer is effected in the language of the masses, the conditions of the masses cannot be transformed.” DM, Photo: South Africa fans react after their team lost to Uruguay following their 2010 World Cup Group A soccer match at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria June 16, 2010. South Africa has one of the world's younger populations by age, according to U.S. government estimates. This will presumably allow the English-learning pupils of today to take their place as the “global citizens” of tomorrow, but not everyone will be convinced it’s a great idea. It ranked the country first for strength of auditing and reporting standards as well as financing through local equity market. “Anyone who wanted to do business with the Dutch authority had to display knowledge of Dutch,” writes Nkonko Kamwangamalu in “When 2 + 9 +1: English and the Politics of Language Planning in a Multilingual Society”. The majority of the white population (about 60%) is of Afrikaans descent, with many of the remaining 40% being of British or European descent. Matric exam leak: Education dept to challenge ‘some’ aspects of ruling ewn.co.za - Picture: Supplied. In South Africa, the city is referred to as 'Tshwane' as the municipality changed its name in 2007. Also see South Africanisms and useful Xhosa phrases and Zulu phrases. To the east, south and west of the plateau lands is a mountainous region called the Great … For those who aren’t from South Africa, we have 11 official languages – Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga. All Rights Reserved. Find and book hotels and accommodation in South Africa. Click here to see other benefits and to sign-up to our reader community supporting quality, independent journalism. Experience South Africa’s rich history, from its turbulent past to its unique architecture and languages, by visiting these historical monuments. Possibly the more interesting finding, however, is the degree to which English is dominating the South African education system. Lily Franey/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images But when South African president P.W. We have some. South Africa is the southernmost country on the African continent.It has a long history of conflict and human rights issues, but it has always been one of the most economically prosperous nations in southern Africa due to its coastal location and the presence of gold, diamonds, and natural resources. South Afr… The black population of South Africa is divided into four major ethnic groups; namely Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi), Sotho, Shangaan-Tsonga and Venda. As a whole, the South Africa Survey suggests, “only between a quarter and a third of pupils who speak an African language at home learn in that language”. The President is both head of state and head of the executive. The coloured population have a mixed lineage, which often comprises the indigenous Khoisan genes combined with African slaves that were brought here from all over the continent, and white settlers. The Sepedi language is spoken most commonly in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Limpopo provinces. Subscribe. Several authors characterise the South African school system as effectively consisting of two differently functioning sub-systems (Fleisch, 2008, Van der Berg, 2008, Taylor and Yu, 2009). When Sibusiso Bengu, then the minister of education, announced South Africa’s new language policy in education in 1997 he declared that it was aimed at, among other things, “creating an environment in which respect for languages other than one’s own would be encouraged”. Promoting Professionalism And Quality In Landscaping. There are 11 official languages in South Africa, of which Xhosa is one of the most widely spoken. It was and remains their knowledge of English and/or French that sets them apart from the vast majority of their African compatriots and which keeps them and their offspring in the privileged middle and upper classes.”. View Images Boulders Beach in Cape Town is home to a protected colony of African … South Africa, as a Party to the United Nations (UN) Convention to Combat Desertification, reviewed the 2004 NAP to combat desertification, land degradation and to mitigate the effects of drought for South Africa and developed a new NAP for the period 2017 to 2027. There are many great benefits to being a Maverick Insider. Approximately 16 percent of South Africa’s population, or 8.3 million people, cite Xhosa as being their home language. Select which newsletters you'd like to receive, Safura Abdool Karim and Aviva Tugendhaft for the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Defining Africa's northern bulge, the Sahara makes up 25 percent of the … Within South Africa, the quality of education varies widely. Of the 12,2 million South African school pupils, just 850,000 (7%) speak English at home. Population: 58.5 million people live in South Africa (2019); Capital city: Pretoria has 3 million inhabitants. Eugene Marais' striking poem ‘Winternag’ was published as early as 1905 and in 1915, Totius became the first recipient of the Hertzog Prize for … SouthAfrica.co.za tells the stories of these cultures. JOHANNESBURG - The Basic Education Department on Saturday said it would challenge some aspects of the judgment which overturned its decision for a … Intersectional issues of gender, ethnicity, and race further complicate the matter of identity and make it highly inadvisable to categorise the different people contained within South Africa’s borders. That day is a powerful reminder of the significance and centrality of language to national identity. The Afrikaans language is one of South Africa’s official languages and a large proportion of the local population uses it as their first or second language. Both desertification and land deg… There are eleven official languages in South Africa. In Language in South Africa: The Role of Language in National Transformation (2002), University of Pretoria linguist Victor Webb makes the point that such languages can become substantial barriers to much of the population accessing their national rights and privileges, and also to accessing the country’s formal economy. “In all post-colonial societies,” wrote Alexander, “knowledge of the conquerors’ language [becomes] a vital component of the ‘cultural capital’ of the neo-colonial elite. Some of the major landforms in Africa include the Kaapvaal craton and Cape Floral in South Africa, Atlas Mountains, Ethiopian Highlands, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, Sahara Desert, Congo River Basin, Nile River System and the Great Rift Valley. “English is not a solution to the unravelling of ‘unequal power’ relations in the world but an integral part of the problem,” writes linguist Richard Alexander; but he notes, too, that when people want to hold a protest banner up to an international TV camera, the writing in that banner will often be in English. There are numerous subgroups within these, of which the Zulu and Xhosa (two subgroups of the Nguni group) are the largest. These are English (9.6%), Afrikaans (13.5%), Ndebele (2.1%), Sepedi (9.1%), Xhosa (16%), Venda (2.4%), Tswana (8%), Southern Sotho (7.6%), Zulu 22.7%), Swazi or SiSwati (2.5%) and Tsonga (4.5%). South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA) is the southernmost country in Africa. Subscribe for the latest special offers and travel inspiration. South Africa is the Rainbow Nation, a title that captures the country's cultural and ethnic diversity.The population of South Africa is one of the most complex and diverse in the world. The language is also rich in idioms. The Afrikaans language is one of South Africa’s official languages and a large proportion of the local population uses it as their first or second language. The learning of two or more languages should be general practice, he stated, to “counter any particularistic ethnic chauvinism”. For the first one-and-a-half centuries of the Dutch occupation of the Cape, it was Dutch. South Africa has a population of approximately 55 million people comprising of diverse culture, religion, origin, and languages. Most of the coloured population lives in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, whilst the majority of the Indian population lives in KwaZulu-Natal. Most of South Africa's landscape is made up of high, flat areas called plateaus. South Africa is the Rainbow Nation, a title that captures the country's cultural and ethnic diversity. In other words, future South Africans are likely to see English as the language of business, science, technology, politics and so on, whereas indigenous African languages may be increasingly relegated to the domestic sphere. About the Afrikaans Language. This echoes the situation all over post-colonial Africa, where the official language of communication has generally been the language of the former colonial power (mainly English, French of Portuguese), even though knowledge of these languages may be minimal. Xhosa is characterised by a number of ... IsiZulu, more commonly shorted to Zulu, is one of the 11 official languages of this country. Today access to the top rungs of South Africa’s formal economy still generally requires a fluency in English or Afrikaans, and linguistic proficiency becomes another proxy for race or class in contexts like job interviews. While most pupils begin their education at the foundation phase in an African language, the switch to either English or Afrikaans tends to happen as early as Grade 4. There are, of course, consequences to this if the majority of the population is not sufficiently fluent in the language of power. Since approximately 91% of South Africa’s landscape is drylands, it makes it susceptible to desertification. A South African family moved from Soweto to the Orange Farm shantytown in South Africa, December 1989. English is often presented as a kind of equaliser – a neutral global lingua franca which just happens to be the most practical way for people to communicate. Of course, there is little neutral about it: English is the language of global corporatism, which is exactly why there are strong practical reasons for South Africans to learn the language well – however much you might decry its use as the vehicle of imperialism, globalisation and a host of other ills. Please sign in or register to enable this feature. Its official currency is South African … Given population growth, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth has been close to nil since 2014, leaving little room to reduce poverty. When it comes to Afrikaans, similarly, more pupils want to be taught in the language (11%) than speak it at home (9%), though it lags far behind English as a desired medium of instruction. South Africa is a diverse nation with a population of over 55 million comprising of people different languages, origins, cultures, and religious practices. Throughout the development from itinerant teachers to schools and school systems, the family foundation of Christian … It is one of the 11 official South African languages. Only one third of the 3.1 million pupils who speak Zulu at home choose to receive teaching in their home language. About 51.3% are female, and 48.7% male. into Angola in the west, and the Muchinga Escarpment in Zambia … Of the 51.7 million South Africans, over 41 million are black, 4.5 million are white, 4.6 million are coloured and about 1.3 million Indian or Asian. respect for all languages used in the country, including South African Sign Language and the languages referred to in the South African Constitution. It has an area of 1,219,090 square km. And, we'll send you a R200 voucher to use on your next booking. South Africa is home to a wide array of vibrant, rich cultures, each with their own deep history. 5. For illustration of just how heated these issues can become, South Africans have never had to look further than 16 June 1976, when the spark that lit the tinder box that was the Soweto Riots was the decision taken by the National Party government that Afrikaans should be a compulsory medium of instruction in secondary schools within the Department of Basic Education. Swati one of the 11 official languages of South ... Tsonga is spoken throughout Southern Africa by the Shangaan-Tsonga culture, but is concentrated in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa. After the South African War the Tweede Afrikaanse Taalbeweging (Second Afrikaans Language Movement) developed, which would build upon the foundation laid in the nineteenth century. At least thirty-five languages indigenous to South Africa are spoken in the Republic, ten of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venḓa, Xhosa, Zulu and Afrikaans.The eleventh official language is English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages … Much of the country’s media has been tailored to include as many of these languages as possible. The popularity of English as a home language has grown slightly more significantly, from 8,2% in 2001 to 9,6% in 2011, and this spurt has allowed English to move up a rung in the popularity chart. Africans or South Africans and Bantu-speaking people form the major part of the population (approximately 35 million). In 2001, English was tied for the fifth most spoken home language with Setswana, after isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans and Sepedi. Like much of the African continent south of the Sahara, South Africa's landscape is dominated by a high Central Plateau surrounded by coastal lowlands. By 2011, English was beating out both Sepedi and Setswana as the fourth most popular home language. 3. South Africa and International Human Rights Law 5.1 The influence of international human rights law on the Bill of Rights 5.2 Interpreting human rights in South Africa 5.3 Becoming a party to human rights treaties 5.4 Giving effect to international law in South Africa 5.5 International conferences and programmes of action 6. Cape Town then became the legislative capital of the union and later of the country of South Africa. The Afrikaner population is especially concentrated in the Gauteng and Free State provinces and the English population in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. There has been significant growth in magazines published by the four major media h… Languages Of South Africa. The South African economy grew by 1.3% in 2017 and 0.8% in 2018. We make it easy for you to plan your trip online. It is also known as Suto, Souto, Sisutho, and Suthu. Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Tsonga, Swazi, and Venda are some of its official languages. The dialects originate from Suto, Pedi amd Tswana, but these are all considered to be separate ... Swati, Sewati, Swazi or siSwati are all names for the same language, which is part of the Nguni group. In South Africa, it hasn’t always been either English or Afrikaans that presented a ticket into the formal economy. – The Top Ten Countries, Visit Khomani Cultural Landscape 9th of South Africa’s World Heritage Sites, Gay and Lesbian South Africa Our LGBTI Guide, A Tour of the Most Famous Landmarks in South Africa, hello (a greeting), as in "how is it going", Travelling to South Africa? Sahara The Sahara is the worlds largest hot desert, covering 8.5 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles), about the size of the South American country of Brazil. Removing advertising from your browsing experience is one of them - we don't just block ads, we redesign our pages to look smarter and load faster. In South Africa today, English is not just dominant in the education system, but also as the language of power. The traditional newspaper market is relatively static, but there has been phenomenal growth in the tabloid market. Education - Education - South Africa: From the time of the first white settlements in South Africa, the Protestant emphasis on home Bible reading ensured that basic literacy would be achieved in the family. View more information about each (see below), including the origins of the language and where it is spoken in South Africa. But language has always been a thorny issue in a South African context, and pragmatism of this kind has often not been considered sufficient to swing the debate. Parliamentary proceedings are carried out overwhelmingly in English; Hansard, the record of what is said in Parliament, is published in English; and all addresses of national importance – like the state of the nation address, or the annual budget speech – are given in English. Tsonga is a part of Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo languages ... Venda is also known as Luvenda or Tshivenda, and originated from the Bantu language. In its 2015-2016 Global Competitiveness Report, the World Economic Forum ranked South Africa 49th in its Global Competitiveness Index out of 140 economies, up from 56th in the previous reporting period. Most of South Africa’s landscape is made up of high, flat areas called plateaus. At that point, knowledge of Afrikaans became a requirement of entry into the civil service. Britain won the war and in 1910 it established the Union of South Africa. It is known as a beautiful language, melodic on the ear. Zulu is the home language of about 22.7% of South Africans; while as many as half of ... SA-Venues.com® has been assisting travellers with their South Africa travel plans since 1999, and is the largest, independent online travel guide for South Africa available in both English and German. Teen Spirit was an actual deodorant worn by one of Kurt Cobain's former girlfriends. Each of these regions has unique animal and plant communities. The results of Census 2001 found that 13,3% of South Africans spoke Afrikaans at home, and by the time Census 2011 rolled around, this figure had risen only fractionally, to 13,5%. The country is also home to over 5 million immigrants, especially from the neighboring Zimbabwe.There are eleven major languages of South Africa… 3 • LANGUAGE The Xhosa language is properly referred to as isiXhosa . It is still taught in schools. This plateau is rimmed by the Great Escarpment which extends northwards to about 10° south of the Equator (i.e. He saw the end result as both important and simple: “Being multilingual should be a defining characteristic of being South African.”. India and China have recorded a similar trend, with newspapers targeted at specific local audiences powering through the readership ranks. It is still taught in schools. The reverse is evident for African languages. Last updated on July 28th, 2020. With the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, English and Dutch were technically bestowed equal status, with Afrikaans added as a part of Dutch in 1925, but in practice English retained top billing until Afrikaners took power in 1948. These lands are covered with rolling grasslands, called highveld, and tree-dotted plains, called bushveld. 2.The inherited language-in-education policy in South Africa has been fraught with tensions, contradictions and sensitivities, and underpinned by racial and linguistic … The South African Constitution Act 1996 took effect on 3 February 1997. As with other South African languages, Xhosa is characterized by respectful forms of address for elders and in-laws. Sitemap. Only one third of the 3.1 million pupils who speak Zulu at home choose to receive teaching in their home language. Afrikaans has a fascinating history of its own, and a heritage and ... Ndebele Language: A large proportion of South African folk are able to speak Ndebele. Modern South Africa is a democratic republic with a written constitution. Some ethnic groups are unique to South Africa while others like Basotho crossed the border i… What happens in South African … Said to be closely related to two other languages in the Sotho language group – ... Southern Sesotho is a Bantu language that originates from the Bantu-Nguni era. The late Neville Alexander wrote that education in indigenous languages “came to be equated in the minds of most black people with inferiority and racial ghettoization”. What the dominance of English in the education system today suggests is more that a functional division of languages is likely to be increasingly entrenched. South Africa’s geography and landscape. Through the works of established academics and writers we delve into history, customs and the blending of different ways of life in a cultural landscape that is uniquely South African. A defining characteristic of being South African. ” by respectful forms of address elders... 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