Masuku Calls for Preservation of All Languages (fwd)

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Masuku Calls for Preservation of All Languages

BuaNews (Pretoria) NEWS November 11, 2004
By Wilson Matsawela Barberton
http://allafrica.com/stories/200411110221.html

Mpumalanga MEC for Culture, Sport and Recreation Madala Masuku says the
frequent use of English in schools and officially, may lead to the
disappearance of African languages.

MEC Masuku was speaking here today at Umjindi Community Hall during the
provincial Language Awareness Day and Literature Exhibition.

The aim of the event was to promote all the eleven official languages,
particularly those predominant in Mpumalanga like Swati, Ndebele,
English and Afrikaans, Tsonga and Sotho as well as displaying
outstanding South African literature in all the official languages.

The event also aims to encourage young and upcoming writers and
linguists to write literature in their own languages, thus promote
multilingualism in the country.

The theme for the event is: "Celebrating multilingualism in the decade
of freedom through exhibition of marginalised African literature".

Mr Masuku said any nation promoted the learning; teaching and speaking
of its languages could produce astute writers and language specialists.

"There are definitely specific cultures that are closely related with
our languages and we need to expose those today bearing in mind that we
are today building one nation," he explained.

He said it was possible to explore and express the broader human
experience in indigenous African languages and literatures.

The MEC said literature in African indigenous languages was previously
limited to schools and severely censored, rendering the authors
powerless in using their trade to reflect human experiences or
encourage national unity.

"This was deliberately planned under the apartheid state, thus we are
saying today let us all work together to use the platform we have today
to effectively use our present education system in helping us to
actually develop our languages and be able to produce writers of our
own languages," MEC Masuku said.

He also encouraged people to preserve all languages and tap into the
reach knowledge and cultures espoused in this regard.