South Africa: When a language gets lost - Sandile Memela

[Harold Schiffman]

Forwarded From: edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


Dispatch Online



When a language gets lost - Sandile Memela



MANY of those who were teenagers in 1976 are the first generation of
African adults to raise children who cannot speak their own mother
tongue. When we fought apartheid, we were not too sure of what we
wanted to unleash into this world to define our freedom. Perhaps it is
time for us to ask: What kind of world have we created for our
children? The new South Africa is a confusing, changing place. We
continue to celebrate June 16 and April 27 as significant days that
marked a radical change in the course of history, culminating in
democracy. But I find that our children are awkward and orphaned by
parents who live to work in the name of trying to provide a better
quality of life for their offspring. As a result, these children are
left to tread carefully in a deceptively normal society where they are
not encouraged to speak their indigenous African languages.



Full story:

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=231271





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