Academic Paper |
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| Title: | 'Death of the mother tongue' – is English a glottophagic language in South Africa? |
| Author: | Rajend Mesthrie |
| Institution: | University of Cape Town |
| Linguistic Field: | Sociolinguistics |
| Subject Language: |
English
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| Abstract: | This article reflects on the spread of English in South Africa, especially in the wake of the large-scale changes following the collapse of apartheid in the early 1990s. These changes allowed freer mixing of young South Africans of all backgrounds than had been hitherto possible in a segregated society. In particular, schools formerly reserved for Whites, opened their doors to initially small, then increasing numbers of pupils from other race groups: viz. Black, Coloured and Indian (this group is sometimes described as black in the general sense, in lower case, or non-whites in former apartheid-speak). The term Coloured in South Africa denotes communities of multiple ancestry, whose background encompasses the now obsolescent indigenous Khoe-San languages of the country as well as Bantu, European and Asian languages. |
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This article appears in English Today Vol. 24, Issue 2, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST . |
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