7 ENGLISH - THE LANGUAGE OF A NEW NATION

THE PRESENT-DAY LINGUISTIC SITUATION OF SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa provides one of the most exciting sociolinguistic melting-pots; the
past and future role of English in the multilingual state is crucial. This chapter
describes the history of English in the country and gives a demographic sketch
of its population; then the forms and functions of English are described along
ethnic lines, with special attention to the social, regional and educational
problems that the use of English involves. Characteristics of SAfE are then
treated with regard to pronunciation, grammar and lexis. There is an extensive
discussion of the future of English, and of what kind of English as a national
norm, at the end.

1. Introduction1
When in 1820 Lord Somerset planted his settlers — impressively ‘monumented1
on a hill overlooking Grahamstown — and imported churchmen and teachers
into the Cape Province to stabilize Britain’s hold on a country then only recently
conquered from the Dutch, he may not have dreamt of the linguistic con­
sequences of his move. The acquisition of the colony was one of the more
obvious instances of English linguistic imperialism (cf. Phillipson 1992); English
was made the only official language in the Cape and was thus forced on the
Dutch settlers. In later stages of the country’s history, British imperialism was
restricted to arms, the economy and political power, a policy that culminated in
the Boer War. There was no explicit aim on the part of the British colonial
administrators, in the 19th or 20th centuries, to spread the English language —
the British took the leading role of English for granted and relied on its
attractiveness as one of the main determinants of social upward mobility. And,
true enough, the mass of non-English-speaking immigrants streaming into the
new industrial and commercial centre of Johannesburg from the 1870s onwards

'This survey was written for the South Africa section of the Anglistentag at Greifswald, 24-27
Sept., 1995, and published in abridged form as Gorlach (1996e). The historical introduction
owes much to the survey by Lanham (1982). In the mean time a great deal of detailed
information here sketched has become available in de Klerk (1996a).

Open Rubric
102 Even More Englishes

adopted English within a very short time — the rural form of Dutch, later to be
standardized, raised in prestige and renamed Afrikaans in a remarkably success­
ful case history of language planning (cf. Roberge 1993), presented no reason­
able alternative. So the knowledge of English increased through the large
numbers of second-language speakers mainly among the Afrikanders/Boers and
the Coloured populations and through language shift among the Indians who
were imported during the 19th century as workers on the Natal plantations. The
last 120 years have been a period of rapid population growth (cf. Table 1),
particularly in the English-dominated towns. They grew through immigration
from Europe and slow internal Boer migration; moreover, slums of black
workers exploded on their outskirts (later ethnically segregated and named
townships). When the tables were turned in 1948, the National Party rising to
power, the functions of Afrikaans were drastically increased under a regime that
has given the world the best-known and most hated word in that language,
apartheid. One effect of the pro-Afrikaans language policy was that bilingualism
in the two white languages increased to an unprecendented degree —-among the
white and the Coloured populations, the Indians becoming more and more
monolingual in English, and the black majority left to communicate in a great
variety of Bantu languages2 plus inadequately learnt (because inadequately
taught) English and the generally disliked Afrikaans — one remembers that the
Soweto riots of 1976 were at least partially sparked off by the introduction of
Afrikaans as an obligatory school language to be used as a medium of instruc­
tion for half of the school subjects.
Another consequence, legally based on the Bantu Education Act of 1953,
was that eight years of schooling (primary and part of secondary education) were
to be in the mother tongues. Whereas even UNESCO support could be adduced
for this enlightened principle, it was in fact created to stabilize white rule by
excluding the Black majority from higher education and well-paid jobs.

2It might well have been possible to create two standard languages, Nguni (including Zulu and
Xhosa) and Sotho (including Tswana and N and S Sotho), from the closely related dialects
— which would have covered some 44% and 24% of the total population respectively — but
the divide-and-rule policy saw a point in standardising various dialects (cf. the creation of
various Turkic languages in the former Soviet Union).
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 103

2. The present-day linguistic situation3

When the great change came in 1990-94, South African society was left with a
difficult heritage — threatening ethnic conflict, economic crisis, emigration,
rightwing obstruction — and educational and linguistic problems. Before
entering into a discussion of the forms and functions of English, it will be useful
to state a few demographic facts:
1. South Africa is a multilingual country; the number of languages spoken
by its 40 million inhabitants is disputed. There are at least 24, but the
recent constitution of the new state provides for eleven official lan­
guages:4 Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, SeSotho sa Leboa, SeSotho,
siSwathi, Xitsonga, Setswana, Tshivenda, isiXhosa and isiZulu (quoted in
the official spellings). The formula that legislation is to work for ’’The
creation of conditions for the development and for the promotion of the
equal use and enjoyment of all South African languages” (§9a) is wishful
thinking at best — it is still quite uncertain how the article is to be
implemented.
2. The major written languages, English and Afrikaans, are spoken natively
by 9.5% and 11.5% of the population; the largest speech communities are
the Zulus (23.5%) and Xhosa (18.5%).
3. The degree of individual multilingualism is unique among nations; some
80% of the white and Coloured populations master both English and
Afrikaans; the use of the two ‘white’ languages (some 50% each) and
usually a few other languages or dialects is common among black
speakers — though often at low levels of proficiency.5

3There is no adequate survey on 1995 conditions available; the 39 chapters in Webb (1995a)
cover many relevant aspects but describe the state of affairs in 1990-91. Reliable descriptions
of more recent situations are now found in de Klerk (1996a) and in Mesthrie (1995), which
cover all the major languages of South Africa. Both books became available too late to be
properly considered in my survey; since I agree with most of my colleagues’ arguments, no
further revision was necessary for the reprinted version.

“^The ANC at first supported a predominant role for English, but later opted for a solution
considered more democratic.

5Very high rates of bilingualism among whites were claimed as early as the 60s; graphs based
on census data in Spolsky & Cooper show a steady decrease in monolingualism (Table 2,
1978:170-9). Lass (1987:303) reports for the mid-1980s the expected high rates of competence
in the other white language — 77+% for Afrikaans among Anglos, 87% for English among
Afrikanders — but adds that only "9.6% of first-language [English] speakers consider them­
selves fully bilingual, while 13.5% of Afrikaans speakers do."
104 Even More Englishes

4. The frequency of language contacts of all imaginable types and in all

possible situations has led to various complex forms of ‘diglossia’ in
which certain languages are preferred or expected for certain functions,
but has also resulted in all kinds of borrowing. Code-switching is common
and can involve up to five languages in townships (Finlayson & Slabbert
1997), with degrees of mixing (especially in ‘totsi’ languages) which are
not recorded from any other speech community.

The map shows the numerical relations between ethnic groups in the new South
Africa and between languages and ethnic groups in five selected provinces.
(Abbr.: X(hosa), Z(ulu), E(nglish), A(frikaans), Bi(ack), Wh(ite), I(ndian) and
C(oloured)). Figures on map: total population of provinces (in millions). Largest
group = 100; shaded squares = black population.

For any kind of language planning, attitudes are crucial. It is therefore

important to point to the most comprehensive survey after independence:
although the official policy has since changed from almost unqualified support
of English as the major school and national language to the eleven-language
formula, the attitudes elicited in 1990 permit a prognostication of long-term
developments if it proves impossible (as it certainly will) to implement the
eleven-language solution.
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 105

Young’s report (1991, here summarized from Smit 1994:76-8) is based on

the Western Cape; some of the major results include:
In general, the majority of the informants favoured a trilingual situation at
school with English, Afrikaans and Xhosa used together. The most intolerant
respondents to other L is were to be found in CED, i.e. White schools.
Similarly, the issue of official language was looked at from a pluralistic
perspective by most informants who favoured the use of more languages
including one or more African languages, while the most intolerant attitudes
were found among White and Coloured pupils. They supported a continuation
of the status quo. The strongest single proposal was to use English as sole
official language, and was argued for by a third of all respondents. (
The informants agreed that Afrikaans would survive in the future, that
English was essential to one’s personal life; that every South African must
learn to speak an African language, and that the shared knowledge of one
national language would be crucial in the future.
The proposals for the future official language and language in education
policies revealed an interesting strong pattern of convergence on the choice of
English as both MOI [= medium of instruction] and national language [...] —
a weight of choice far greater than that evident in individuals’ responses to the
‘think sheet’ question. This can probably be explained in terms of peer group
pressure conformity in groups and the predictable power of strong personalities
in each group. (Young et al. 1991:26-30, quoted from Smit 1994:77)

(De Klerk & Bosch (1993) provide a certain control on Young’s findings
because their investigation was based on the strongly English-centred community
of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, as was Smit’s study conducted in 1993).
The leading role of English is therefore a long-term certainty. This is so
although attitudes are divided:
However, the role of English during the years of apartheid has been con­
troversial. For the majority of South Africans, the experience of English as an
official language has been one of poverty, low wages, selective justice, and
biased media [...] On the other hand, during the last decade[s], English has
become the carrier for discourses of democracy and freedom and a way of
achieving solidarity across different language groups in the liberation struggle.
(Kerfoot 1993:432)

3. Ethnic varieties
3.0. Different cultures, different mother tongues and, as a consequence of
segregated schools during the time of Bantu education from 1953 on, also
different means of language acquisition have produced a great complexity of
linguistic variation, as far as competence in individual languages, including
English, is concerned. In March 1994 I watched on South African television a
106 Even More Englishes

panel discussing the restitution of land to black farmers who had been expropri­
ated by the apartheid regime. The discussion was fascinating because of the
topic, but even more so because of the disputants’ Englishes: the former
landowner (Zulu/BIE), the representative of the local administration (Anglo-
English), the present ‘owner’ (AfkE) and the (black) talkmaster whose English,
surprisingly for his job, was the least comprehensible of all the ideolects repre­
sented. How far were these ideolects (which were immediately classifiable)
typical of ethnic varieties? Are there any such entities that can be distinguished
by the linguist — and does this classification accord with the perception of other
users?6 Can phone-callers in South Africa be immediately allocated to one of
the groups, and if so, on the basis of what features? What are the attitudes
involved if value judgments are made purely on the basis of linguistic
characteristics (for instance, using matched guise tests)? It is both the scarcity
of research and the fact that developments in the field are so rapid — after a
state of comparative fossilization under the old regime — that makes statements
on the existence of ethnic varieties very tentative in 1995. Mesthrie &
McCormack warn us: "The impression should not be gained that SAfE is made
up of discrete dialects, neatly divided along ethnic lines" (1993:39). It is one of
the apparent failures of the apartheid regime not to have achieved this linguistic
division. However, for want of a better alternative my subsequent survey will be
organized along ethnic lines.

3.1. Anglo-English
The history of the forms and functions of native-speaker English in South Africa
and their evaluation have been thoroughly documented and analysed by Lanham
(1982). Even though certain details of his interpretation were corrected by Lass
& Wright (1985) and Jeffery (1982), the main trends are undisputed. The early
development can, then, be broken up into three stages (also cf. Mesthrie &
McCormick 1993) which are still vital for the proper understanding of present-
day varieties and attitudes toward them:
1. Early settler English in the Cape developed into a dialect that was
somewhat stigmatized because of the lower-middle-class origins of most
of its speakers — and because it formed the input for second-language
speakers of AfkE; the dialect in its broad form is fast receding and no
longer sociolinguistically relevant.

6Research by Smit in 1993 (Smit 1994, 1996) showed that speakers identified ethnic varieties
of English with success rates of between 70 and 90%.
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 107

2. The more middle-class variety of Natal English, influenced by a large

proportion of retired officers etc., and strong cultural and emotional links
with Britain which developed from the mid-19th century.
3. The spread of Natal English blended with the BrE of recent arrivals in the
newly opened industrial centres in the interior, mainly around Johannes­
burg, from 1870 onwards.
(These three areas still form the centres of the ESS A (= English-speaking South
African) majority, cf. Map 1.)
Like speakers of English in Australia and New Zealand, ESSAs felt
themselves to be representatives of the European mother country in a faraway
and often hostile continent; in contrast to Australians and New Zealanders,
however, they were in a minority, now representing some 37% of the five
million whites. Even when the Indians and the 10% native speakers among the
Coloured population are added, the number of native speakers of English is well
below 10% of the total population of the new South Africa.7 This minority
position, and the high prestige attached to ‘correct’ English among the educated
throughout the 20th century, may have contributed to a longer and more rigid
adherence to BrE norms than is found in, for instance, modem Australia.8
Significantly enough, SAfE has a language academy which has tried to settle
questions of correctness (and runs a telephone service named ‘grammar-phone’)
— such an institution has never been created for Britain or the United States in
spite of attempts starting in the 17th century, or for any of the other former
colonies. There is a long list of books dealing very critically with peculiarities
of English in South Africa, ranging from the verdict passed by Pettman, who
said in 1913
It gives an Englishman, who loves the sentence that is lucid and logical, a
shock to hear his native tongue maltreated by those who are just as English in
blood as himself, (p. 1)

701der statistics are biased by the separate counts of speakers in semi-independent homelands.
Whereas figures for native speakers are halfway reliable, those for multilingualism and compe­
tence in further languages diverge widely and therefore have to be treated with great caution.

®The ties with Britain were of course loosened under the apartheid regime. Nor should it be
overlooked that the self-confidence expressed in an independent norm for AusE has emerged
in the past fifty years — the period which has been the most difficult for ESSAs, and least
encouraging for the emergence of a new standard.
108 Even More Englishes

to Beeton & Domer’s dictionary of 1975 in which the authors pontificated on

correct usage by reducing the options to the binary choice of acceptable vs. not
acceptable.
As is to be expected in a sociolinguistic situation like the present one,
there are two positions as far as the future of English is concerned. While all
informed commentators appear to agree that English will be the dominant
language in the years to come, its future norms are much debated. A conser­
vative faction, represented by the English Academy (cf. Young 1993), believes
in keeping the wells of English undefiled by the mud and decay threatening from
non-native, less educated and predominantly non-white speakers.9 It is claimed
that, in order not to risk a development towards internal disintegration, frequent
miscommunication and, above all, international stigmatization, the language
ought to retain the high standards represented by the best South African schools
and universities. A more lenient and realistic attitude would rely on the social
prestige of ‘correct’ English but allow for much more variation within the
(‘modified’) standard. Smit (1994, 1996) reports that there was great readiness
among all ethnic groups to consider the emergence of a new norm which takes
into account the majority of users of English, viz. Black L2 speakers.
It might indeed be advisable to look abroad and learn from the linguistic
experience of other African and Asian countries: while South Africa is in an
incomparably better position than most other nations — having so many native
speakers of English and an adequate educational system — it is also clear that
realistic aims should be formulated to teach effectively the type of English that
is within reach of the learners. This stress on the instrumental functions of
English might even result in an internal norm (with lingua franca uses and
intelligibility stressed) and a formal variety closer to international standard.

3.2. Afrikaans English

It has always been questionable how far we can discern a well-defined entity
‘AfkE’ (the broad forms of which are popularly known as ‘Anglikaans’) and it
has apparently become much more doubtful in recent years. While Afk-accented
English is very noticeable (and stigmatized) among older and less educated
speakers, all observers agree that the quality of English among younger educated
Afrikaans speakers is such that it is increasingly difficult to identify their mother
tongue. Research by Watermeyer (1996) has shown that in a small Afrikaans-

9A large international conference devoted to language planning in South Africa and the forms
and functions of English in the new society was held in Cape Town in 1992 (= Young 1993),
and another in Grahamstown in September 1995.
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 109

dominated town of the Western Cape there are quite a few regular features,
mainly in pronunciation, marking speakers as members of a non-English
community. However, many of the characteristics commonly associated with
AfkE are confined to interlanguage forms resulting from inadequate acquisition;
they are concentrated in phonetic peculiarities (Afrikaans [r] and vowel qualities
transferred to the pronunciation of English) and a smaller number of syntactic
features, many of which are shared with other ESL varieties. All of these seem
to be recessive, and they are certainly no longer supported by any overt prestige
(if they ever were): with the decline of any political motivation for stressing
Afrikanderdom, there is certainly little reason left for speakers to cultivate ethnic
stereotypes.10

3.3. Indian English

Thanks to Mesthrie’s research (1992a, b, 1996), the English spoken by Indians
has been described fairly comprehensively and with sociolinguistic sophistica­
tion. However, the main question remains — is there an entity sufficiently
characterized by features not shared by other speakers and of sufficient stability
that allows us to speak of ‘IndE’? The first generations of Indians were
obviously quite loyal to their ancestral languages (and also used a fair amount
of Fanagalo as a lingua franca), and their English was characterized by a great
amount of interference. Mesthrie has shown that the present English used by
Indians cannot be a straightforward descendant of these 19th-century forms;
rather, it consists of innumerable idiolects identified by personal competence in
English on a cline of bilingualism. There are a few persistent phonetic or
grammatical features, and some of these are handed on to younger speakers who
themselves do not speak any Indian language. But they do not seem to be shared
in any regular, predictable way, nor do the 800+ lexical items collected in
Mesthrie (1992a) appear sufficient to constitute a variety proper, being mainly
foreignisms relating to Indian culture. This impression is confirmed by
sociological data which show the Indians as eager to accommodate once they
have decided on a language shift to English — which they have done with great
rapidity in the past few years.11 Even the apartheid years, with segregated

l0Smit (1994:101) found that an Afk accent was judged most negatively in Grahamstown in
1993 — certainly encouraging speakers to drop such stigmatized features that are quickly
losing their former identificational value.

1'That there must be some covert prestige in the ethnic variety is indicated by the fact that it
is considered not good style to use English too close to St E — an attitude reported from
many countries around the world, including India.
110 Even More Englishes

schools and universities, do not appear to have firmly established a stable

ethnolect that is cultivated as a marker of Indian identity.

3.4. Black English

The designation ‘B1E’ is apparently becoming meaningful in present-day South
Africa. Educational discrimination, which, through the hated system of Bantu
education, effectively barred native speakers of English from teaching Black
pupils for many years, has caused the English of Black speakers to deviate from
that of native speakers; modelled on the pronunciations of Black teachers and on
written texts, it has drifted further and further away from prescribed standards,
especially in pronunciation (including stress and intonation) — but without so
far crystallizing in a new norm. Deviances in pronunciation concentrate in
certain problem sounds' and clusters, such as a much reduced vowel inventory
and mergers or non-distinction of various consonants, like the [1/r, b/v, 0/d/t]
confusion, as illustrated by an experience I had myself some 25 years ago
(admittedly with students from Zambia):12 One of them explained to me that
his group was not responsible for the mess about the rubber-trees. I had not seen
any such trees in the hostel and consequently was at a loss. It was only after a
few minutes that it dawned on me that he was talking about lavatories — a
mispronunciation and mishearing which involved at least four sounds articulated
in a way that made misinterpretation possible or rather inevitable: [1/r], [se/a, a ],
[v/b] and [i/i].
An anecdote (reportedly a misunderstanding based on fact) deals with a
properly South African situation. An advertisement in a 1992 Johannesburg
paper (apparently phoned in) is claimed to have read as follows:
Villa for sale. Four bedrooms, two garages, swimming-pool, [and ending with
the words] seven squatters.
It took some linguistic sophistication to explain that a combination of non-
rhoticity, conflation of various vowels and misanalysis of the word boundary had
produced the — all too possible — seven squatters instead of the intended
servants’ quarters.
Linguists have been concerned about the reduced intelligibility of English
spoken by Black South Africans for a long time, and Lanham’s research has for
years concentrated on making speakers aware of deviances which lead to

,2The texts are also used in ch. 4 above.

 7 English — The language o f a new nation 111

miscommunication.13 There is some hope that the new government will see the
need for determined efforts towards improving ELT, and will devote their energy
to the most urgent problems so as to raise its quality and thus ensure comprehen­
sibility. (Attitudes being what they are, there is little danger that broad features
of the English of the Black majority will be carried over to other Englishes, and
establish a new norm).
In 1987, W. Branford wisely refrained from making any allocation of
lexical items to ‘B1E’ or defining this entity in any way. He said that ethnic
varieties "flow into one another” and that ’’labelling of this kind is likely to be
counter-productive if any kind of ‘General SAfE’ is ever to come into being"
(1987:xiiif.). In fact, recurring features more likely to occur in the speech of
Black South Africans exist which make the identification of a Black speaker
comparatively easy. Apart from the phonological traits mentioned (mainly the
transfer of the five-vowel system of Nguni and seven-vowel system of Sotho
languages, differences in consonantal clusters, word stress and intonation) they
are most distinctive in grammar — but they are found much more seldom in
educated Black speech, which indicates that they are more typical of class than
of ethnicity. Gough (1996) lists among others resumptive pronouns and gender
conflation, lack of concord, topicalization, misuse of progressive aspect, and
various overexplicit features (use of the demonstrative for the article, duplicated
conjunctions, etc,). Some of these are carried over from native languages, while
others are more typical learners’ errors shared with other ESL varieties (cf. Platt
et a l 1984).

3.6. Coloured English

The history of the Coloured population is closely connected with the early Dutch
colonial society in the Western Cape; in a way they can be said to have
‘invented’ Afrikaans — so it comes as no surprise that almost 90% still report
it as their mother-tongue.14 However, some shift to English is reported from
Cape Town and bilingualism with English is nearly as widespread as in the

l3For the complex problems arising mainly out of different vowel sets and deviance in pro­
sodic phonology (stress, pitch levels and contours) and suggested solutions cf. Wright (1996).

14The varieties of Afrikaans are not my concern here. However, it is worth remembering that
about half of its speakers use ‘standard Afk’, mainly in the centre of South Africa, whereas
the other half, predominantly Coloureds, in the Western Cape speak a much stigmatized broad
(historically early) form of the language (Cluver 1993a). This difference has to be taken into
account when research into Coloured English spoken in the Western Cape is generalized to
include other members of the Afrikaans community.
112 Even More Englishes

white population; and without an ethnic mother-tongue of their own, their

English is predictably close to that of AfkE. Further generalizations are difficult
because only Cape communities have been investigated in any detail, but it
seems noteworthy that Coloured speakers are reported to be critical of their own
English (McCormick, p.c.). Mesthrie & McCormick (1993:37-8) report the
following characteristic features, some of which are shared with other ESL or
non-standard varieties:
1) Inconsistent marking of tense;
2) use of dative of advantage;
3) use of unemphatic did to mark recent past;
4) double negatives;
5) non-standard subject-verb concord.
However, the English used differs in the same area, or even the same family.
Political changes in the last fifty years have produced a complex age-related
situation: the older generation acquired English in mission schools as a second
language for written/formal functions; their children were forced into mother-
tongue Afk education under apartheid, with much less English taught, and as a
consequence of this, developed negative attitude towards school Afk; parents
then switched to English as a home language to secure English-medium
education for their children — which for them was of a poorer quality than for
their grandparents (p. 38).

4. Characteristics of SAfE on individual levels

4.0. The existing variation as sketched in the previous chapter makes it difficult
to list individual features common to, or characteristic of, all varieties of English
in South Africa. It is also difficult to say whether these (or some of them) are
perceived as typical of SAfE, and if so, how this identification affects evaluation
of the relevant features. It is likely that the norms of the educated elite are still
very much BrE-oriented, so that characteristic features of SAfE are considered
to be not just deviances but mistakes.

4.1. Pronunciation
SAfE shares certain features of ‘Southern hemisphere English’ with AusE/
NZE,15 in particular ‘r-lessness’ in car and cart; raising of /e, ae/ and backing

l5These features were typical of Cape English and Natal English respectively, but the dis­
tinction is probably no longer watertight as far as the features listed are concerned.
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 113

of III — which leads to the mishearing of vowels in bit, bet, bat and pin, pen,
pan, retracting of /i/ before /l/ in fill : full, bill : bull. Long vowels are similar
to Cockney; note retraction of /a:/ so that /?ar& : department: deportment
can be confused by non-South Africans. Diphthongs (as in nice house) tend to
monophthongization — as they do in some types of RP and a few American
dialects. The phoneme Ixl is an addition from Afrikaans (in loanwords and place-
names). (For stereotypical features self-cdtically and jocularly seen as part of
SAfE see Malan 1972.)
Although predictions are exceptionally difficult and risky, it seems fair to
say that two developments are likely in the next few years: the range of pronun­
ciations heard in public (e.g. on television), and accepted by listeners, will no
doubt increase, with the possibility of ethnic markers emerging, especially among
Black speakers — because they are coming to see such features as having
identiflcational value (‘black is beautiful’) or because inadequate education leads
to forms shared by so many Black speakers that they become part of an
(informal) norm. By contrast, differences between Anglo and Afrikaans speakers
of English, and less dramatically peculiarities of Indian and Coloured speakers,
are likely to be recessive — it all depends on how such features are interpreted
sociolinguistically in the new South African society.

4.2. Grammar
How far are deviances found in the speech of non-standard speakers of SAfE
likely to continue? Features claimed to be part of Anglikaans are so high on the
scale of awareness that they now occur mainly in facetious, stereotypical uses.
Even among Black teachers, according to Gough’s (1996) pilot study, "a fairly
traditional norm of ‘correctness’ continues to act as a model.” They accepted
pleonastic prepositions {discuss about, refuse with) and wrong singulars/plurals
(a luggage, advices) fairly widely and in this view were in full agreement with
ESL speakers elsewhere in Africa and Asia (cf. Platt et al. 1984:81-5, 46-52),
but wrong uses of the progressive aspect were consistently marked as mistakes.
Even if ‘a lowering of the standards of correctness’ were to happen in SAfE,
there is some consolation in the fact that the permitted features do not affect
semantic contrasts, but express overexplicitness and greater symmetry —
developments which may even help increase communicational efficiency.

4.3. Lexis
SAfE shares with other ex-colonial Englishes tendencies
114 Even More Englishes

a) to reduce lexis no longer needed because referents are lacking in the new
surroundings,
b) to re-use old words for new referents, and
c) to expand the lexis by loanwords, caiques and independent coinages.
(For the same tendencies in early AmE cf. the classic account in Webster 1828.)
The long and intimate coexistence of the two white languages has, unsur­
prisingly, resulted in much greater contact-induced consequences in SAfE than
in AmE or AusE. Branford’s collection of SAfE lexis (1987) is useful for
estimating these influences because he aimed at a descriptive synchronic account
of the common words of SAfE. He found that of the exclusively SAfE items,
more than half (52%) are loanwords from Afk/Dutch, 18% are English (appar­
ently caiques as well as independent coinages) and 11% are from Bantu lan­
guages. There is not a single ex-colonial variety similar to SAfE in composition:
CanE has only a very small number of loans and caiques from French, and AmE
and AusE have fewer than 1% loanwords from native Indian and Aboriginal
languages — which contrasts with the much larger number of Bantu and
Khoisan loanwords in SAfE. Moreover, whereas most of these ‘native" loans are
quickly becoming obsolete in AmE and AusE, and hardly any new items are
borrowed, the process continues in SAfE, and has, for obvious political reasons,
become even more pronounced in the past few years.
Language has been a loaded weapon in South African society for
generations, but increasingly so in the past twenty years. Many of the terms and
new meanings coined by the apartheid system have happily no referents left in
the new South Africa and are accordingly described as ‘hist.’ or ‘obs/ in recent
editions of dictionaries: to ban (an author or a book), Book o f Life, classification,
homeland, location — and, of course, apartheid and its English translation,
separate development. I6 Other terms are so offensive that new coinages have
become necessary — as has happened to many plant names containing Kaffir (cf.
the entry in Branford 1987). There is still some uncertainty about the terms
Coloured, Black, and Bantu: for some words, there is no neutral term available,
or the ‘white’ meaning is not adequate, or it is not clear which word form should
be lemmatized (cf. the names of the nine official African languages mentioned
above). ‘Political correctness’ is thus becoming an important factor in lexical
innovation; it is significant that satirical uses of such new terms are part of the

l6Note that Branford (1987:xx) included two labels referring to objectionable terms, and did
so eight years ago: "D (= disputed) indicates a use that, although widely found, is still the
subject of much adverse comment by informed users; R (= racially offensive) indicates a use
that is regarded as offensive by members of a particular ethnic or religious group.”
 7 English — The language o f a new nation 115

political situation, but not frequently found. Thus, the new slogan ‘affirmative
action’ (working for racial equality, mainly in employment, and itself borrowed
from AmE) sparked off ‘black humour’ in form of coinages like affirmative
shopping for ‘looting’. The fascinating field of lexical change in rapidly
developing new political and social structures still awaits thorough scholarly
documentation.17

5. The future of English

The constitution mentions English as one of eleven official languages, but it is
quite clear that in the new society English will be more equal than others, and
what the regulation really means is that Afrikaans is on the decline (cf. the
insightful analysis by Cluver 1993a). There is no doubt that the numbers of
speakers of English will rise especially in the Black population (for which the
1991 census gave 31% proficiency), and that the quality of the English used will
be closer to whatever is perceived as standard. Realistically, after the failure to
standardize Nguni and Sotho, there is no alternative among the African lan­
guages which could fulfil the role of a national language. So, whatever may
happen to these and to Afrikaans, English is there to stay, supported by
a) high prestige, including the positive attitudes engendered by its perceived
connection with the fight for freedom;
b) the decision of the neighbouring countries which have all opted for
English (apart from lusophone Angola and Mozambique)18;
c) theeminent usefulness of English in international contexts;
d) (whether the fact is openly admitted or not) the advantage that English is
a convenient link language where the option of one of the native lan­
guages might be divisive (cf. the situation in Nigeria or India); and
e) the fact that South Africa has the largest English native-speaker com­
munity in Africa — two million white people, one million Indians and

nA new edition of J. Branford’s dictionary is certain to contain fascinating evidence of this

— just as the earlier editions (4 9 7 0 ,41991) reliably documented earlier changes. Silva’s more
recent dictionary (1996a) covers new lexis until 1993-94 but cannot of course be a substitute
for a much-needed Dictionary of New Words (and Meanings) in SAfE (cf. my review in ch.
9).

l8The teaching of Afrikaans had more or le'ss ceased even in the semi-independent homelands
when the apartheid regime was still in power (Cluver 1993a); Namibia, against expectations,
opted for English as the sole national language (Cluver 1993b) — a decision that Lesotho,
Botswana, Swasiland, Zimbabwe and Zambia had taken many years before (cf. Schmied
1991).
116 Even More Englishes

increasing numbers among the other groups, especially the Coloured

community.
All these factors combined make the opposition against English look ephemeral
— however deeply felt it may be by some: there is still a substantial faction
among the South African intelligentsia that is inclined to see English as a
language of the colonizers and of the socially privileged and rightly claims that
the perpetuation of English also means stabilization of the existing class
structure.
In market research undertaken by the South African Broadcasting
Corporation in 1990 (Hanekom 1994, Smit 1994:89) it was reported that all the
ethnic groups had 90+% reading capacity in English at the complex level —
except Blacks who scored only 34%. While this latter figure appears still quite
low, the rise within four years from 19% in 1989 is drastic and gives a good
indication of the trend. However, language preferences19 in different environ­
ments continue to be quite marked:
Almost two thirds (62,9%) of adults in South Africa prefer to use English in
schools; this finding validates the earlier findings of the high incidence of
proficiency in English due to the usage of English as a language of instruction.
41,9% prefer to read print media in English, it is important to note that the
bulk of the printed media in South Africa is published in English. This
percentage decreases considerably for radio listening as only 20% of the total
universe prefer to listen to radio in English. 91% of the black universe prefer
to listen to radio in a vernacular, only 9% indicated that they want to hear
radio in English. It is important to note that the radio is the only mass medium
that caters for each of the 11 main language groups in South Africa. The latter
findings underline the fact that language, choice is dertermined by the
availability of material in the respective languages. (Hanekom 1994)
The more important question — to which it is still too early to expect an
answer — is what standards will finally emerge. In this respect uncertainty
remains, as it did for W. Branford eight years ago, in spite of all the political
changes that have happened in the mean time. He stated:
Under a happier social dispensation, it is possible that something in the nature
of a ‘General SAfE’ [...] might ultimately emerge. One prerequisite for this
would be a society very much better integrated than our own.
In the South Africa of 1987 there are formidable communication
barriers between different population groups.

,9Figures quoted by Smit from the same survey show that competence reported among
Africans was almost identical (51.8% English, 50.5% Afrikaans), but of these, 34.1% reported
Afrikaans competence only for ‘less complex structures’.
 7 English — The language of a new nation 117

There still are in 1995, but it is obvious that the people, and their Englishes, are
moving closer together. However, it is also clear that proponents of a rigidly
BrE-oriented standard are fighting a losing battle. There will have to be much
more tolerance for linguistic varieties, as there already is for colour and religious
persuasions. It will be a fascinating development, still largely unpredictable, to
see an interethnic standard of English, e pluribus unum, emerge from the present
sociolinguistic melting pot. It would certainly be an indication of national
maturity and self-confidence if South Africa came to accept and implement
national norms of English, as Australia, New Zealand and Canada (and of course
the United States) have done. Hacksley, responding to conservative ideas of
linguistic norms for SAfE, rightly asks:
- Is the British ‘standard’ Received Pronunciation to be preferred to all other
varieties of spoken English?
- How much deviation from the ‘norm’ is acceptable (and to whom)?
After all —
- When much of the fare dished up for our television entertainment is
presented in a variety of transatlantic accents, though with significant
side-dishes from deep Down-Under, AND
- When several of the most popular local TV offerings are in broad Sowse-
effricun and Anglikaans, AND
- When the local English-language radio stations are increasingly being staffed
by presenters whose English is characterized by unmistakable African
accents, stress-patterns, intonation and phrasing -
surely one must ask: is it realistic for us to insist on ‘the King’s English’ in
South African schools? (1994:34)

Various of my remarks above have made it plain that the future of English
in South Africa, and the variety chosen as a norm, will depend on attitudes,
which will in turn be the basis for political decisions which will have their most
pervasive effects in the implementation in the schools. Most of the ethnic
variation there is in present-day South Africa is a consequence of ELT after
World War II, and the acceptance of norms; and the degree of homogeneity and
interintelligibility of SAfE will largely depend on the quality of language
teaching. This applies in particular to the teaching of English to Black speakers
who have been especially underprivileged. Wright (1996) rightly says:
Despite its official prestige in Africa, the English language is in
difficulties in much of the continent as a medium of effective communication
for sectors other than the Western-oriented and educated elites. The potential
for replicating this situation exists in South Africa. Indeed, unless the will to
tackle the educational problems involved is mustered, it may already be too
late. South Africa may have to content itself with relatively competent standard
English usage at tertiary and equivalent levels in society (obviously existing
118 Even More Englishes

side-by-side with less formal dialects), a cline of increasingly divergent, non­

native varieties entrenching themselves elsewhere in black urban social
groupings, and the rural communities remaining highly dependent on regional
vernacular languages and less able to participate in national life. This scenario
bodes ill for key democratic issues like equality of opportunity, empowerment
of the marginalized poor, the creation of a truly national polity, and the healing
of a fractured society.

He formulates the aims of ELT as "language cultivation, how to encourage the

evolution of a variety of Black SAfE in the schools which will satisfy the
demand for intercomprehensibility without stripping the language of its social
function as a marker of identity and solidarity" (1996).
However, even if ‘remedial’ education directed at improving intelligibility
especially in the elementary discrimination of phonemes and stress patterns is
successful for Black speakers, other problems remain. If speakers come to regard
such forms of English as second best, then the conclusion that good English is
for the whites (plus Indians and Coloureds?), but Black speakers are to be
fobbed off with second-rate English which is good enough for them, in an
attitude interpretable in neo-colonialist terms, may become almost unavoidable.
If such concerns are valid for ESL nations like India or Malaysia (cf. Wong
1984), then they are much more relevant for nations like South Africa in which
various forms of English coexist largely along ethnic lines and are likely to
continue to do so for some time to come.
Finally, the parallel of B1E in the US springs to mind — as a model and
a warning. The recognition of a different form of English spoken by Black
Americans has contributed a great deal to their self-confidence, identity and
solidarity. However, to cultivate such ‘deviant’ English, whether standardized or
not, to the exclusion of national or international St E would mean to deliberately
exclude the speech community from educational development and, in a way,
implement neo-apartheid policies. The answer can only be, I think, to tolerate
much variation, including ethnic varieties with covert prestige, and agree on a
distinctively South African English which is a member of the international com­
munity of English speakers at the same time. How much room will be left for
the other ten constitutional languages remains to be seen.