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<h1 class="">Health department wants to go trilingual</h1>
<span id="spnDate" class="">2015-05-29 19:07</span>
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<p class="">Genevieve Quintal, News24</p>
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<p>Johannesburg - In an
effort to improve its language policy, the national health department
wants to provide official communication in three official languages
according to a Government Gazette notice published on Wednesday.</p><p>The department was inviting members of the public to comment on the notice.<br></p><p>It said, based on South Africa's language distribution, there are 11 official languages - it picked English, Zulu and Sesotho.</p><p>International
communication, inter and intra-government communication and
communication of its website and social media would be done only in
English.</p><p>Corporate publications of the department and written communication with the public would be done in English, Sesotho and Zulu.</p><p>Figures
issued by the department showed majority of people spoke Zulu (23.82%)
as a home language, while 9.39% spoke Sesotho and 8.2% English.</p><p>Oral
communication with the public, public hearings and educational material
for health promotion and outbreaks would be done in all 11 official
languages, taking into account regional circumstances. </p><p>Members of
the public could notify the department in writing if they wanted to
communicate with it in a language not one of the official ones.</p><p>The same went for those who wanted to communicate in South Africa Sign Language.</p><p><a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Health-department-wants-to-go-trilingual-20150529">http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Health-department-wants-to-go-trilingual-20150529</a><br></p><p><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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