Local isn't just good and lekker, it's also mnandi and monate write Ana Deumert and Tessa Dowling.
Ana Deumert is Research Director of the Language and Society Centre at Monash University, Australia.
Tessa Dowling is Director of African Voices.

THE TROUBLE WITH ENGLISH
Tessa Dowling and Ana Deumert

The Mail and Guardian Newspaper
April 2 to 7 2004

"English is going to the dogs, my bru, check how these ouens pronounce cirCUMstances", complains Desmond, writing his "CD's for sale" sign. "Heyi, abelungu namaKhaladi nama-Ndiya, soze bafunde iilwimi zethu! [Hey, the whites and the coloureds and the Indians, they'll never learn our languages!]" exclaims Noxolo.

We can laugh this off, but it is worrying when beliefs about language use and language competence become accepted as national truths. Is English in South Africa really the property of its native speakers - no matter how ineptly used by them? Is knowing English and Afrikaans enough for those South Africans who don't speak an African language as their first language? Do they really show no interest in learning African languages?

Everyone speaks enough English to get by

Click on a certain South African website - you will be told that in South Africa "We speak English". Then: "We are a multi-lingual country ... However, most of us speak English, so you will have little trouble communicating." Really?

Recently we surveyed 250 households (over 2000 individuals) in the townships of Cape Town, and found that "most of us" do not speak English. In fact, we found it difficult to use any English in interviews.

We asked a hostel dweller how she felt about her life. "Are you happy?" She stared miserably out of the broken window: "Yes." We repeated the question in Xhosa. In her own language, she told us she was angry with her father, who had squandered his money by sleeping with so many different women, "Look, these girls are my sisters, but we all have different mothers! Nxx! Ngoku singamahlwempu! And now we are paupers!" That is not happy in any language.

Surprised? If you are an English speaking South African, can you imagine being asked the same, seemingly simple, questions in an African language?

FACT: The Pan South African Language Board's 2001 survey on Language Use and Language Interaction in South Africa states: "more than 40% of people in South Africa often do not, or seldom, understand what is being communicated in English."

English and Afrikaans speaking learners are getting a chance to learn African languages at school.

Sadly, this is not so, certainly not in the Western Cape. Many schools in Cape Town have chosen to discontinue Xhosa as a subject. Why? Because learners don't do well enough in it and are not assured of high marks in matric.

Even if Xhosa is your first language and you want to send your child to a suburban Cape Town school, you'll be lucky if it offers Xhosa as a subject. If it doesn't, your child will never learn the skills of writing, editing or translating in your mother tongue. That is why advertisers and publishers struggle to find qualified African language specialists.

With the decay of African language learning in schools, speakers of these languages are always placed at a disadvantage when communicating with English or Afrikaans speakers: they are deprived of their right to use the language which they know best.

Among English speakers, on the other hand, there is little sense of being disadvantaged. Asked whether he would introduce Xhosa into his staff training, a Cape Town business man answers bluntly: "It is at the bottom of my list of priorities."

FACT: In the Western Cape 503 secondary schools offer Afrikaans as a second language, but only 81 have Xhosa at that level. (The figures for Gauteng are no better - Zulu: 37, Sotho: 5, Afrikaans: 247.)

People will learn English when they realize how important it is for their economic survival.

Many of our respondents linked a knowledge of English to economic well-being, yet proficiency in English remains low in many of Cape Town's townships. There are a number of possible reasons:

• Rural migrants to urban areas typically settle where others from their home village live already, and thus aren't immediately challenged to learn new languages.
• Unless they get jobs, people don't move outside the townships and mix with English speakers.
• Township dwellers battle to survive; so, like the businessman, they do not see learning another language as a priority.

Thus, although English is a vital resource in the tight South African job market - as one respondent put it, "It's our bread and butter!" - proficiency remains low.

The ghost of the Group Areas Act also plays a role: the majority of Xhosa speakers still live apart from other language groups.

But in Imizamo Yethu, an expanding township just outside Hout Bay, we found that residents spoke more English than those in Langa and Gugulethu. Being close to an affluent area not only provides job opportunities, but also allows regular interaction and hence language learning.

FACT: Residential integration facilitates language learning as speakers of different languages are now in more regular contact.

Learning languages: a right and a need in a multilingual country

The constitution already protects our first languages. But we also need opportunities to learn each other's languages.

After all, how can the people we interviewed in the townships ever hope for work if they can't explain their skills in English or Afrikaans? And how can we answer them if we don't speak in Xhosa? What South Africans need, in addition to protection for their first languages, is a statutory right and publicly funded obligation to learn second (and third and fourth) languages.

Heard over tea in a future South Africa:

Hey, boet! You must hear Deirdre's little girl speak Xhosa with Noxolo's laaitie. Awesome stuff! And he tunes her - in English, nogal - "Your tones aren't quite right." How's that, hey?