“When we think of heritage, the first thoughts that spring to mind are culture, family, ancestry and language. We should consider language, culture and heritage as unitary. The ‘common language’ is not at all as common as its reputation might have it—and it empowers above all the generally fluent economic elite. We are counting the costs of this illusionary approach to language even today on Heritage Day. These extend beyond the economic impact on those who have not mastered the ‘common’ language, including their access to education, services and information. The rejection of indigenous language implies also a rejection of culture and heritage. Language, after all, is a carrier of heritage. It is how we transmit family culture and history between the generations. It is who we are and how our children build cultural confidence along with a healthy and integrated sense of identity.”
– Dr Zakeera Docrat (Chair of ILAF) & Dr Conrad Steenkamp (CEO of Afrikaans Taalraad)
on Heritage Day 2024
Losing our language, losing our heritage: a glimpse of the future
News from the Chair
Dear ILAF members and my fellow language activists,
Earlier this year ILAF underwent leadership changes, Prof Monwabisi Ralarala former ILAF Chairperson was appointed as our new Patron. I am honoured to have been elected as Chairperson of ILAF following my longstanding role as Vice-Chairperson. It is also with great pleasure that Mr Abram Mashatole was elected as our new Vice-Chairperson.
As the new leadership team we look forward to growing our organisation and strengthening ties with our current partners. The leadership team will seek to establish new networks in an effort to broaden our scope and fulfill our mandate of partnering with institutions to ensure the use, development and promotion of South Africa’s indigenous languages. We remain committed to ensuring the indigenous languages are used in all sectors of society.
2024 was a productive year, with a number of podcasts being recorded with various language activists across society. ILAF actively participated in the build up to the general elections, encouraging the youth to participate and share their views on democracy and voting, through videos recorded in their mother tongue. ILAF had a groundbreaking conversation on SAfm on the significance of Honourable Chief Justice Mandisa Maya’s appointment and the implications of using the indigenous languages in courtrooms.
I am excited to announce some of ILAF’s new initiatives. The first being this newsletter. The newsletter is expected to be an annual publication, highlighting the incredible work and achievements of our members. The newsletter will serve as a means of connecting language activists with the aim of initiating future collaborative projects.
ILAF is set to host its first conference in 2025, discussing language transfer across generations with the purpose of maintaining and revitalizing the indigenous languages. This conference is aimed at ensuring community language activists, language practitioners, researchers and academics are provided with an opportunity to showcase their work, highlight challenges and propose practical solutions. Further information will be available on the ILAF website.
ILAF is a communications partner of the 17th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics, hosted for the first time on the African continent, organised by the University of the Western Cape, under the theme Transformative Justice through a Forensic and Legal Linguistics Lens. IsiXhosa and Afrikaans will be track languages of the conference and delegates are encouraged to present in the languages. The conference is set to address the language challenges facing South Africa’s legal system and profession with the aim of improving access to justice.
I hope that the highlights in this newsletter, our forthcoming planned conferences and initiatives ignites your spirit and fight for linguistic equality in your sector of society. Let us work together to ensure our languages are promoted, used, developed and maintained.
We look forward to engaging with you on our various social media platforms. May 2025 bring you boundless opportunities and memorable moments.
Warm wishes,
Zakeera
Dr Zakeera Docrat (ILAF Chairperson)
Language expert purchases an ILAF t-shirt at a language conference
2024 Indigenous Language News from Members
Dr Zakeera Docrat was elected to the board of the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL), from May 2024. Dr Docrat is the first board member to be elected from outside Europe. Her election to the board is based on her expertise in the discipline of legal linguistics. The primary function would be to grow the discipline in Africa through the European network, led by the AALL.
Dr Zakeera Docrat (ILAF Chair) and Prof Russell Kaschula (ILAF member) presented a paper together with colleagues, Dr Annelise de Vries, Prof Hermie Coetzee and Karien Brits at the 5th Regional Conference of the Association of Forensic and Legal Linguistics. The conference was held at Aston University in Birmingham, United Kingdom from 24-27 June 2024. The paper titled: Adopting a case based approach for the linguistic revitalisation of South Africa’s monolingual legal profession: A multilingual approach to legal education; is part of a broader ongoing collaborative project where the co-authors are documenting and proposing a multilingual teaching and learning approach for the LLB degree.
Mr Abram Mashatole and Dr Pamla Letsoalo co-authored a chapter which was published in a book titled Implementing and Promoting Multilingualism: speaking through different tongues in South African Higher Education. All the chapters in the book were published in indigenous languages. Mr Mashatole, Dr Pamla Letsoalo and Dr Mapelo Tlowane led a university wide workshop aimed at showcasing and promoting multilingual pedagogies over the month of July at the University of Limpopo. Dr Letsoalo, Dr Tlowane and Mr Mashatole are committed ILAF Steering Committee members.
Colloquium on Multilingualism and Multilingual Education
The Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA), University of Pretoria, recently hosted a colloquium on multilingualism and multilingual education. The aim was to deliberate on linguistic diversity and the prospects of multilingual education with experts in the field and enrich dialogue on multilingual education. Prof Funke Omidire, opened the colloquium by discussing various models for promoting multilingual education, advocating for a contextually relevant approach. She emphasized the need for positive attitudes towards home languages among parents and teachers. Ms. Janine de Bruin, Language of the Heart: The Role of Mother-Tongue Learning in Fostering Identity and Involvement shared findings from a school project in which the learners co-created storybooks related to a Life Skills topic in their home languages. The books were launched as part of a mini-library. Professor Ingrid Gogolin, University of Hamburg, Germany, presented on Multilingual Literacies: Empowering the Next Generation. She shared valuable insights into language proficiency that will empower learners in the future. Dr Mark Chetty, representing Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana clarified the meaning and purpose of Mother-Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTBBE) stating that it aims to provide quality education to learners who speak African languages using the most appropriate medium. Prof Rinelle Evans, Navigating the Multilingual Classroom with English as the instructional rudder used the analogy of a sailing ship to explain how teachers facilitate the multilingual classroom space. She revealed the current pedagogical practices of teachers in multilingual classrooms and how they negatively impact learners’ participation and comprehension. Dr Ruth Aluko, presented the role distance education can play in institutionalizing multilingual education at teacher training institutions. She explained the meaning, benefits, key issues and limitations of distance education. Professor Liesel Ebersöhn, Director, Centre for the Study of Resilience was the discussant and moderator of the breakaway session. Consolidated findings will be published soon. Prof Rinelle Evans is an ILAF member. Her work focuses on multilingualism in classrooms.
Indigenous Languages Action Forum News: What Happened in 2024?
Author, Dr Sindiwe Magona at an exhibition of her literary works (Amazwi South African Literature Museum) June 2024
Exhibition of Magona’s Literary Works At Amazwi South African Literature Museum:
A Conscience for the Nation
ILAF was invited by Dr Sindiwe Magona to the exhibition of her literary work in her village. The exhibition was prepared by Amazwi South African Literature Museum as an outreach program to Gungululu village in Tsolo, Magona’s birthplace. This was the museum’s mobile outreach program. It formed part of their celebration of the author’s significant contribution to literature. ILAF gifted Magona with an ILAF t-shirt last year when the author turned 80. The outreach program to Gungululu was to mark World Read Aloud Day. The children impressed Magona with praise poetry as well as performing some of the author’s works. “The children were able to interact with an author who resembles their grandmothers,” she said. She taught them about the importance of self-love as part of motivating them to know the reason they are alive. Magona highlighted her recent work which is about a Xhosa children’s game called “Cumbelele.” A child pinches the back of another child’s hand until they say it is too painful and then they stop. She said this helps children to grow up as children who understand boundaries and respect other people’s bodies. During the year ILAF visited Magona’s exhibition in Makhanda at Amazwi. The museum exhibition of her literary journey and complete works was the highest honour of her life. “I could not imagine what they meant when they first approached me about it. They displayed some of my writing notes as well.” She wrote Mother to Mother in English and then translated the book to isiXhosa. “That is something I will never do again. It is too much work. It is better to write it isiXhosa or English rather than to write the same story twice.” It is better to write in isiXhosa or English and have it translated. Her children’s books are available in all South African languages.. Magona has written over 100 children’s books with many of them written in isiXhosa. Magona is a member of ILAF. She is passionate about intergenerational language transfer. She believes that it is important to read to a child even from the womb. She further advocates for indigenous language speakers to purchase indigenous language books as people do not spend on indigenous literature. It was insightful to tour the Magona exhibition with her.
PanSALB Multilingual Awards
ILAF joined Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) in the celebration of the rollout of Mother Tongue Based Bilingual Education. The event was hosted in East London on International Mother Language Day, February 21, 2024. Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, decried the number of South African parents who are indigenous language speakers yet communicate to their children in English. She said: “All you hear in these malls is: Come here baby?” The Minister was celebrating the pioneering work of the Eastern Cape that has shown results that Mother Tongue Based education is best for children whose first language is not English. The gathering had attracted linguists and scholars from across the country as far as Limpopo and Mpumalanga. They came to learn from the successful work of the Eastern Cape as they needed to implement it in their provinces. Some of the speakers included Professor Somadoda Fikeni. He highlighted the cultural displacement children faced through loss of language. He said children become foreigners in their own cultures. Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana expressed her gratitude for the support she had received after an arduous journey to make education accessible to indigenous language learners. Following the conclusion of the formal programme we were able to secure an exclusive interview with Mr Mahlubandile Qwase from the premier’s office. We recorded his first-hand account of the beginnings of Mother Tongue Based Bilingual education in the Eastern Cape through the dedicated work of Dr Mbude-Mehana. Click here for the full story.
Minister of Basic Education: Angie Motshekga
ILAF secured a partnership with PanSALB for notable events. We provide communication support through amplifying the event through social media platforms where we interact with indigenous language users in a less formal manner than they are able to. This secured ILAF an invitation to the PanSALB Awards hosted in Durban. The developers of the free online UNISA Multilingual Proverbs Dictionary walked away with the most awards of the night. They won four awards. Their dictionary went viral last year in 2023 after we posted it on our website and social media. Here is our interview with the developers before the dictionary became popular among indigenous language scholars. We recorded a short video after they collected their awards. The other notable winner from our sister organization, Afrikaanse Taalraad, was Ms Ria Olivier for Afrikaans. Somizi Mhlongo stole the night as the celebrity host of the awards and used the opportunity to call for the PanSALB awards to be televised. He echoed Minister Motshekga’s sentiments about the tragedy of language loss because indigenous language speaking parents do not communicate with their children in their mother tongues. We captured the moment on video and it went viral on our Tiktok page which was only a few days old at the time. It sparked a debate among parents.
Winner: Ria Olivier (Afrikaans Taalraad) with Siki Dlanga (ILAF)
Celebrity: Somizi Mhlongo, PanSALB Multilingualism Awards (MC)
The South African democracy turned 30 this year. We ran a campaign where we called on young South Africans to submit 1-minute long videos where they share their motivations for voting. The video had to be in an indigenous language of their choice, furthermore, it had to be non-political. The competition ran for 2 months and ended shortly before the election day. Weekly winners were announced. Khulumani translation services were the official translators and graders of the election videos since they have translators from all official languages. Each week the winner won R1000, second and third place won R500 each. The last week before the election day was rated according to each video’s social media popularity. The participants were largely unemployed youth with 3 winners being students. The win was a confidence booster and a reason to love their languages.
Youth Voting competition
We attended Amazwi Children’s Literature Conference in Makhanda in June. The conference was almost entirely in English and was about English books. Renowned author, Dr Sindiwe Magona, was the keynote speaker for the conference. There were 3 important presentations about indigenous languages. Puku Books and Nal’ibali each presented their work with indigenous language story books. ILAF interviewed Madoda Ndlakuse who is based in the Eastern Cape after his excellent presentation on their work in Uitenhage with children. He teaches children to write their own stories. One of those children read their story on one of the most important Xhosa radio stations. We were able to forge stronger bonds with Puku Books and Nal’ibali through their agents at the conference. A folk singer and storyteller inspired by her own loss of language and the future of language retention performs iintsomi, traditional Xhosa folk tales that include singing during storytelling. Her performance of iintsomi has taught her that adults enjoy iintsomi as much as children.
The African Languages Association of Southern Africa (ALASA) Conference was hosted in Durban in July by the University of KwaZulu-Natal this year where two multilingual books were launched. Our patron, Professor Monwabisi Ralarala, led the process of translating the South African constitution in all the indigenous languages. It is available on the ALASA website. ALASA also launched the African Languages in Practice book and African Literature beyond the Western gaze.
ILAF was thrilled to learn about the appointment of Honourable Justice Mandisa Maya as Chief Justice of South Africa since she is an advocate for indigenous language use in courts. We secured an SAFM interview for Dr Zakeera Docrat, the Chair of ILAF who is a forensic linguist. A fruitful discussion took place with Koketso Sechane on The Meeting Point celebrating Chief Justice Maya’s emphasis on indigenous languages and her appointment as the new Chief Justice.
ILAF member and University of the Western Cape Professor Sisanda Nkoala hosted 140 years of the Black Press at UWC in collaboration with the University of Cape Town. Professor Andre Ondendaal gave the keynote address. Ondendaal spoke about the inspirational work of John Jabavu the pioneer of the early black press, a mere youth in his early 20s. “Dubula ngosiba” meaning ‘shoot with a pen’ was a slogan popularized by early black writers in protest to colonial media as they wrote in isiXhosa. Mathata Tshedu, the second keynote speaker, left the audience with this statement: “Why did Jabavu name his paper: Izimvo Zabantsundu (Views of Black People) instead of Izimvo ZamaXhosa (Views of Xhosa People) given that he was Xhosa?” ILAF participated on a panel discussion on Lessons from the Early Black Press for Indigenous Language and Community Media. The unanswered question was who funded Jabavu as indigenous independent newspapers continue to struggle with funding.
Dr Hleze Kunju during our interview with him at the event talked about the importance of persistence in language development. Indigenous newspapers such as Isolezwe were criticized by language users when they started but today they are thriving. Pioneers must not be intimidated by critics. They must endure criticism before they thrive.
Social Media Platforms
One of our social media followers sent us a message to share that through engaging with our platform, it led him to his dream job. He is a news anchor at Intokozo FM. We have assisted many organisations, businesses, publishers and institutions through our social media to find suitable indigenous language assistance. A game developer also thanked us for connecting them with a translator as they developed a multilingual game.
Visit our YouTube channel to listen to our podcasts. Be inspired by our indigenous language conversations with activists, creatives, scholars, filmmakers, authors, publishers, app developers, linguists and indigenous writing systems.
2025 is the year we will host our very own conference for the first time, further details will be made available on our website and social media platforms. Do not hesitate to tag us or reach out to us about any indigenous language needs, news or events. ILAF wishes you a safe and joyful end to the year. Dream big!
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