Soap operas bring linguistic democracy to South Africa - CSMonitor.com

[Victor Steinbok]

This is a Christian Science Monitor headline.

http://goo.gl/r9qEJ
> The writers of the South African Constitution probably did not imagine
> soap operas as a way to achieve linguistic democracy, but they are
> practicing just that.
> ...
> Zarina Ebrahim, a Durban housewife, watches “7de Laan” (“Seventh
> Avenue”), a soap opera in Afrikaans sprinkled with English and Zulu
> dialogue and with English subtitles. English is her first language,
> but she studied Afrikaans at school and understands some Zulu. On “7de
> Laan,” characters will greet each other in Afrikaans, discuss a
> problem in Zulu, and then make a joke in English, all in one scene.
> “It’s so normal – that’s more or less the way we communicate in real
> life,” says Ms. Ebrahim.

There is some Whorfian stuff in there as well...

VS-)

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