San call for greater recognition of their languages (fwd)

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SOUTHERN AFRICA: San call for greater recognition of their languages
The San called for more efforts to promote their languages

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43051&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=SOUTHERN_AFRICA

WINDHOEK, 6 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - Representatives of the Bushman communities
in Southern Africa have called on regional authorities to do more to
promote and develop San languages, some of which they say are in danger
of becoming extinct.

San from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa ended a three-day workshop
on Friday in Windhoek, the Namibian capital, where they discussed ways
to achieve the tuition of San languages at primary schools. The
workshop was organised by the NGO, Working Group of Indigenous
Minorities in Southern Africa.

The estimated 110,000 remaining San today live in Botswana, South
Africa, Namibia and Angola. Their languages, although fundamentally
similar, vary considerably from place to place. San is primarily a
linguistic label adopted by anthropologists to describe people speaking
these related but distinct languages.

"We call on the government of Botswana to adopt a policy of
multi-lingual education to bring the country in line with policies of
African countries and of the United Nations," said the resolution
adopted by the 30 participants at the workshop.

In Botswana, only Setswana and English are taught in schools.

The participants also urged the Namibian government to recognise the
Khwedam language and introduce it at primary school level. Namibia's
education policy provides for mother-tongue tuition for the first three
years of school, but from the fourth grade English is used as the
medium of instruction.

Billies Pamo of the Northern Cape told IRIN: "The South African
government planned to introduce San languages in the middle of this
year [2004], but it has been delayed. We realised at this workshop that
we face the same problems trying to obtain more rights for our
languages and education in our mother tongue."

There are 35 San languages, according to South African sociolinguist
Nigel Crawhall. Language groups represented at the workshop were
Khewdam, !Xun, Ju/'hoansi, Naro and Hai//om.

"In Namibia and South Africa non-formal adult education programmes exist
for the San, assisted by the governments. In Botswana, this does not
happen," he noted.

David Naude, who hails from Shakawe in northwestern Botswana, in some
cases pointed out that efforts to protect San languages had emerged
from abroad.

"The University of Cologne in Germany has, together with us, compiled a
dictionary of our Khwedam language. We hold literary workshops with San
adults to enable our people to become literate in their own language,"
he explained.

The collaborative initiative has seen the publication of a newsletter in
Khwedam every two months, which is distributed in northwestern Botswana
and the Caprivi Region in northwestern Namibia.

Participants also blamed the high number of school dropouts in the San
community on the absence of their languages as subjects in school.

[ENDS]