Efforts are being made to keep alive the ancient Nama language of the Khoi and San, and to promote sign language, which is used by the often marginalised hearing-impaired community in SA.
This year’s theme for Language Activism Month — “multilingualism education a necessity to transform education” — could not have been delivered more emphatically on Wednesday at the start of a 2023 outreach campaign in Gqeberha.
In February every year, countries including SA observe International Mother Language Day, which was declared in 1999 by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
The official global commemoration aims to raise awareness of the importance of mother tongue use, cultural diversity and multilingualism worldwide.
It is estimated that 40% of the global population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand.
In SA, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) espouses promoting multilingualism and the use of the mother tongue in all nine provinces.
“We need to encourage each other to learn each other’s languages, and to learn as many as we can,” the PanSALB’s Eastern Cape senior provincial manager, Dr Xolisa Tshonogolo, said on Wednesday.
He was speaking at the Reuben Birin School For Hearing Impaired in Bethelsdorp as part of a three-day programme in the metro.
Earlier, a delegation of Khoi and San activists and PanSALB representatives ushered in the event at De Vos Malan Primary School in nearby Schauderville.
The group distributed Nama Goab dictionaries to the school to strengthen the aim of introducing Nama as an African language on the curriculum.
Nama language facilitator Goab Kora Hennings said the four Nama community hubs in Nelson Mandela Bay, including Bethelsdorp Road Primary School, were pivotal towards uplifting the language.
“As indigenous people, it is important to learn our [heritage],” Hennings said.
“Our community is scattered across the Eastern Cape, and it is important for [facilitators] to be equipped with the resources to reach them.”
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The department of sport, recreation, arts and culture’s assistant director, Roseline Kameli, explained the department’s mandate.
“We create platforms for languages, especially marginalised languages, to be developed and promoted,” she said.
“The department has projects and programmes which speak to the deaf, such as a deaf awareness campaign [in September].”
The PanSALB handed over the SA Sign Language Charter, developed to articulate the linguistic rights of deaf people, and to create conditions for the development of SA sign language, to SABC business manager at Umhlobo Wenene and TruFM Loyiso Bala and Reuben Birin principal Mzwanele Blou.
Parents of hearing-impaired children were encouraged to learn sign to communicate and support their children’s education as the programme headed to Nelson Mandela University’s main campus in Summerstrand for a pop-up exhibition.
Activations were also held at the taxi rank in Central, with the PanSALB distributing information leaflets and language material.
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