The decolonising of previously marginalised indigenous languages is no doubt one of the most important tasks facing the country today. A people’s dignity and self-esteem is restored and identity and respect maintained if they speak and use their mother tongues. A people’s language is a heritage bequeathed them by their ancestors. But the latter generations of our people dumped it and embraced the foreign tongue.

Our heritage was snatched and trashed by those, isiXhosa poet, Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi, calls “…oonyana bakaGogi noMagogi (sons of Gogi and Magogi)”. In his prescient warning, he asked “…iya kuthi, yakutshonela iphele le ntetho nale mikhwa inesidima yakowawo, kutshonele nanto ni na emveni koko (…what will happen their language and the dignified customs and traditions have completely disappeared, and what else will disappear thereafter)”. Now this sounds like a rhetorical question. Ignoring and neglecting what Mqhayi observed at the beginning of the twentieth century presents us with cases of missed opportunities by the latter generations of isiXhosa speakers. This equally applies even to speakers of other tongues.

In 1912, when one of the most prominent revolutionary struggle movements was formed, it is no secret that the leading figures of the movement adopted English, under the misconception that a foreign tongue can unite the people. Ironically, in his 1963 speech on the Amendment of the Constitutional Bill, the architect of apartheid, HF Verwoerd, spoke strongly for the development of the Bantu languages. He believed that the leaders should speak to their people in their languages. What a noble idea, notwithstanding the context, of course. This led to textbooks being produced and terminologies being developed during the period of 1955 and 1975. Research also indicates that during this period matric pass rates were relatively high.

A second instance of missed opportunities was the 1976 student revolution, known today in South Africa as Youth Day. The students did well to reject Afrikaans as medium of instruction, but instead of embracing the indigenous languages, they opted for English; they replaced one coloniser’s language with another, and according to studies, the matric results started to decline from 1976 through the 1980’s.

Recently we welcomed the advent of freedom and democracy with a lot of activities around language debates, researches, policies resulting in the formation of various bodies and institutions, all geared towards working on the South African indigenous languages so that their status is lifted and use is increased. All this emanates from the stipulations in the Constitution of the country.

In 1995, the minster of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, appointed the Language Task Group (Lantag) to advise him on language related matters. The Langtag report was presented to parliament in 1996. And subsequently, many documents were crafted from it – the National Language Policy Framework, the Implementation Plan, the Language Research Development Centres, and the Language Bill resulting in the Use of Official Language Act of 2012.

At the centre of the support of the development of indigenous languages is the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) (with its structures). This statutory body was established by an act of parliament and was meant to be independent. It was put under Senate. But the amendment act of 1999 removed it from Senate and put it under the National Council of Provinces, later under the Department of Arts and Culture. It was stripped of all the vestiges of independence. And this raised suspicions about the effectiveness of the board. A weakened PanSALB is a lame duck even today. What made things much worse is the overlapping responsibilities between it and the National Language Service, and the rivalry between the two for financing.

An issue one finds very difficult to understand is why take language, which is normally taught and developed under education structures and put it under a department which has nothing to do with language. And to make things worse, no working relation seems to be displayed between these institutions. All these issues are a recipe for failure in promoting, developing and empowering the indigenous languages of the country.  

Having said all this, what does the picture tell us? Where does this put the speakers, the people of our country, and their languages? People without language are less than human; they lack dignity, respect, self-esteem and identity. Under these conditions one cannot expect these languages to be taught properly.

This human tragedy can be traced back to 1492, when Christopher Columbus "discovered’ the Americas. Within a few hours of landing on these shores, he declared that the indigenous people he found there had no religion, no culture, no language; in fact they were non-beings. That was the start of hierarchisation of the populations of the world. People were classified as human (the colonisers) and subhuman (the colonised). The bestial nature of the colonised qualified them for cheap labour, producing for conquerors.

The situation became worse when greed took the upper, when profit over people became the norm. Capitalism was maturing and subsequently, racism was invented. This naturalised the domination, exploitation of the indigenous people, and iniquities like land expropriation; hard and cheap labour became the norm. These people had no life, no languages, therefore, they had to be given the colonial languages to be able to communicate with the colonisers.

This situation was conceptualised by Anibal Quijano as the “coloniality of power” to highlight the process of “social and universal classification of the world’s population based around the idea of race”. As we have intimated, it has its genesis in the colonisation of the Americas, and spread with the European colonial expansion, strengthened by the establishment of capitalism as a system of social relations. Since then, according to Quijano, “the current global pattern of power has permeated every area of social existence and constitutes the most profound and effective form of social domination both material and intersubjective”.

The process of colonisation spread all over the world and reached Africa and South Africa in the eighteenth century. Our country was not spared the human tragedy referred to above. The colonial matrix of power was unleashed in all the colonies in Africa, including South Africa. In South Africa, indigenous people suffered under oppression, exploitation, and their languages were, and still are, dehumanised and marginalised. Scholars argue that one of the aspects of coloniality, the linguistic aspect, is used to explain how it is possible and continues to be possible for colonised people and their descendants to be treated as if they were not really human. This is exactly what is happening in South Africa, but the pain of language dehumanisation and marginalisation may not be felt very deeply because those in power had, and have, some form of education which privileged them to speak some form of a colonial language, English.

Under these circumstances, you can never expect the indigenous languages of South Africa to be taught properly. In fact, for me the situation is a disaster and crisis of immeasurable proportions. Where have you heard in the whole world, where people who have spoken their indigenous languages for centuries in their country, are being taught through a foreign language? Ironically, even this article is written in English. This shows the extent of our linguistic and intellectual entrapment.

I have earlier highlighted the fact that a lot of work was initiated after 1994 to restore the dignity of the indigenous languages of South Africa, but all those efforts came to nothing. Yes, one can hear some uncoordinated complaints here and there about the plight of these languages. You even hear people speaking with pitched voices about decolonisation of structures, but it is very difficult to capture the tangible strategies that are intended to be followed.

I am saying this because I fear that decolonising a formidable edifice left over by colonisation can never be easy. Professor Nelson Maldonado-Torres says that “…coloniality survives colonialism. It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience. In a way, as modern subjects we breath (sic) coloniality all the time and everyday”.

This includes institutions such as westernised universities, governments, economy, law, and so on. To remove and destroy such a formidable structure demands some effort on the part of the citizens. I believe it is possible, but it demands enduring commitment, passion, vision and good will. To be able to even begin this momentous task, there should be a radical shift in the mind-set of the people and an embrace of the decolonial option which does not simple protest the contents of imperial coloniality, but demands a delinking of oneself from the knowledge systems we take for granted (and can profit from) and practicing epistemic disobedience.

* Phumzile Arthur Sotashe is a lecturer in the Department of African Languages in the College of Human Sciences at Unisa