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Englishin Southern Africa
Englishin Southern Africa
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Introduction
The previous body of sociolinguistics literature is replete with historical
accounts of the arrival of the English language in southern Africa (see, for
example, Lanham 1982; Gough 1995; Branford 1996; Kamwangamalu
2002; Meierkord 2005). These studies indicate that English-speaking
people made initial contact with southern Africa prior to the period of
formal British colonization of the region. According to Gough (1995: 1),
English explorers and traders who visited southern Africa from as early as
the sixteenth century introduced a vocabulary of the English language
describing the land and peoples they had come into contact with. In
1652, following the ‘discovery’ of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeu
Dias in 1488 as well as Vasco de Gama’s ‘discovery’ of the Cape Sea Route
in 1498, the Dutch East India Company founded a refreshment station
F. Ndhlovu (*)
University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
L. Siziba
English Department, North West University, South Africa
in the region that would later come to be known as Cape Town. The very
first major contact between the peoples of southern Africa and English
speakers happened in 1795, as a repercussion of the Napoleonic Wars.
Cape Town subsequently became a British Colony in 1806 thus marking
the beginning of a South African British culture that was further strength-
ened by the arrival of more settlers in 1820. The British then introduced
a policy of Anglicization in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the Dutch who
had been at the Cape territory since 1652. In the words of Kamwangamalu
(2002: 1):
These struggles for resources and political control between the British
and the Dutch led to dispersions further north and east—what came to
be known as the Great Trek (1835–1846). This was a major exodus of the
Dutch from the Cape, moving into the interior of present-day South
Africa and other territories to the north in search of land where they
could establish their own homeland independent of British rule. The sub-
sequent discovery of gold and diamonds triggered the Anglo-Boer War
(1899–1902), which was essentially a struggle for control of the region’s
mineral wealth amongst the European colonizing powers, eventually won
by the British Empire (Reis Esteves and Hurst 2009). Prior to the Anglo-
Boer War, the Dutch had already established independent polities in the
Eastern Cape (Grahamstown, Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet) and the
then Transvaal region with Dutch/Afrikaans as the main language. The
victory of the British settlers in the Anglo-Boer War changed all of this
and strengthened the foothold of the English language in everyday social,
economic and political life in South Africa.
With time and following the expansion of the British colonial empire,
the English language became entrenched and started to spread to other
parts of southern Africa and to the rest of the African continent. A dis-
tinction has to be made here between South Africa—a country, officially
English in Southern Africa 67
roots of this variety are traceable to the linguistic codes of British work-
ing-class immigrants (Branford 1991; Gough 1995; Kamwangamalu
2002).
The point of greater significance here is that inasmuch as they emerged
out of contact situations with local indigenous languages of South Africa,
these early varieties of South African English also emerged out of the
linguistic repertoires of British migrants who came from a diversity of
regional and social class backgrounds. The South African multilingual
situation simply added another layer onto the already complex English
language profiles from the colonial metropole. A majority of previous
studies on varieties of English in African multilingual contexts have
tended to overemphasize the influence of local language ecologies while
ignoring the equally important point about language diversity that was
exported from the colonial metropole (e.g. Banda 1996; de Klerk 2002;
Wissing 2002).
Owing to the language and culture contact situations that we have
just described, at least five varieties of English have been identified and
documented. Some such varieties include Coloured South African
English, Black South African varieties of English, South African Indian
English, Afrikaans English and White South African English. Each of
these varieties has unique socio-pragmatic features that owe their exis-
tence to the cultural profiles and linguistic repertoires of those commu-
nities in which they are widely used. This is because these varieties
emerged as a result of the British policies classifying the colony’s popula-
tion in line with the ethno-racial-religious categories as developed in the
process of legitimizing and rationalizing colonial rule. The colonially
constructed versions of specific varieties of indigenous languages epito-
mized a systematic and deliberate effort towards developing ‘command
over language’, which would ultimately lead to the development of a
‘language of command’ (Brutt-Griffler 2006). Most of these varieties
also have some reference works such as dictionaries, grammar books and
compendia. All varieties of South African English are covered in
Wikipedia (South African English, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/South_African_English, 2016).
English in Southern Africa 71
also largely influenced by the colonial and apartheid social and educa-
tion policies of the late nineteenth century that overhauled different
colonial categories of population into ‘peoples’ who were to be kept
separate in line with the old imperial principle of ‘divide and rule’
(Childs 1990).
Coloured English
This is a variety of English spoken by the South African ethnic group
referred to as Coloureds. In Southern Africa the term Coloureds is an
ethnic label for people of mixed ethnic origin who possess ancestry from
Europe, Asia and various Khoisan and Bantu ethnic groups. In South
Africa particularly, this group emerged when the Dutch-speaking male
settlers coerced and violated Khoisan and Bantu women through infor-
mal sexual unions. Like most ethnic groups in South Africa, Coloureds
use English as their dominant second language after Afrikaans. Prior to
the Anglicization process that started in 1795, the Coloured community
spoke Dutch/Afrikaans as their mother tongue. As a result a specific vari-
ety of English heavily influenced by Coloured Afrikaans emerged from
the 1960s to the 1970s (McLean and McCormick 1996). In the words of
Lanham and Macdonald (1985: 17), ‘typical Coloured English is marked
in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and usage by features which
mark the extreme form of Afrikaans English and […] [e]xtreme SAE’. It
is important to note that the shift to English did not result in the total
abandonment or decline in the use of (Coloured) Afrikaans, which still
remains the first language (or mother tongue) for many within the South
African Coloured community. This means most Coloured people in
South Africa are bilingual (in English and Afrikaans), while others are
even multilingual as they are competent speakers—or at the very least,
have a working knowledge—of other major South African Bantu lan-
guages, such as Zulu or Xhosa. The current democratic political dispensa-
tion, which began in 1994, has, however, accelerated the spread and the
growing social value of English amongst most South African ethnic
groups, including the Coloureds.
74 F. Ndhlovu and L. Siziba
Afrikaans English
This is a variety of English used by the Afrikaner (formerly known as
‘Boer’, which is Dutch/Afrikaans for ‘farmer’) communities in South
Africa and Namibia. White South Africans differ significantly from other
white African groups, because they have developed a sense of European-
style nationhood by having established a distinct language, culture and
faith of their own in Africa. These are perceived as national symbols that
Afrikaners use to legitimize their claim to South African nation-
hood (Elmes 2001). The English variant used by this ethnic group heav-
ily borrows from their first language, in this case Afrikaans. Linguistically,
Afrikaans English is a mixture of both Afrikaans and English syntaxes
and lexicons. The vocabulary of the language reflects more than just
words but the existing sociocultural environment in which the language
is used, that is, a multilingual society. Afrikaans has provided a number
of significant contributions to South African English more broadly. Elmes
(2001: 85) notes that ‘about half [of ] the words in the national lexicon
that are distinctively South African originate in Afrikaans: words such as
“kloof ” (valley), “veld” (open country) and “dorp” (village)’. Overall, the
sociolinguistic and pragmatic nuances of Afrikaans English are strongly
influenced by the Afrikaans language, which is the first language of the
majority of people who speak this variety of English.
To conclude the discussion on English in South Africa, it is worth not-
ing that following the advent of democracy in 1994, one of the immedi-
ate tasks of the new South African government was to redress skewed
apartheid language policies by instituting a human-rights inspired policy
that recognizes 11 official languages (English, Afrikaans, Sepedi, SeSotho,
Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isi-
Zulu). This provision is written in the National Constitution (Act 108 of
1996), which ‘enshrines plurilingualism’ (Beukes 2004: 5). However, the
de facto position is one where English and Afrikaans still remain
entrenched as the languages of widest communication in official domains
such as education, the media and the law courts. These two languages are
also the only visible ones in the linguistic landscape in places such as
supermarkets and signage and in the labelling of most consumer goods
and services.
English in Southern Africa 75
English in Zimbabwe
The English language came to Zimbabwe in the late 1890s following formal
British colonial occupation of the territory that they named Southern
Rhodesia. The language was then propagated and spread through the colo-
nial system of education, which was largely pioneered by several Christian
(Protestant) missionary organizations including the London Missionary
Society, the Wesleyan Methodist Society, the Roman Catholic Church, the
Methodist Episcopal Church, the Anglicans, the American Methodists and
the Dutch Reformed Church (Doke 1931; Chimhundu 1992; Ranger 1985,
1989). Operating under the umbrella body known as the Southern Rhodesia
Missionary Conference (SRMC), these missionary organizations carved
amongst themselves spheres of influence across the entire Zimbabwe plateau
where they each set up mission stations and mission schools that served both
as centres for spreading Christianity and harbingers for the propagation of
colonial education. Although the SRMC invented (created) new versions of
indigenous African languages to be used as languages of ‘command’ (Brutt-
Griffler 2006), nevertheless, English became the main medium of instruction
from elementary to tertiary education. To this day, English retains the colo-
nially inherited status of being the country’s de facto official language. Unlike
South Africa, Zimbabwe does not have well-documented varieties of English
that follow ethnic or linguistic divides. This may be attributed to the British
system of colonial education that promoted and advanced the use of Standard
(British) English in the country. To this day, English is used as the medium of
communication in the following spheres of Zimbabwean national life: educa-
tion, business and law, politics, economy and the mass media. As a result,
English is spoken across the entire spectrum of the Zimbabwean society,
regardless of ethnic or other affiliation.
English in Education
The provisions of the policy on the teaching/learning of languages make it
mandatory for English to feature both as a subject and as a medium of
instruction in Zimbabwean schools. English is a compulsory subject at sec-
ondary school level from Form 1 up to Form 4. Because of its dominance
76 F. Ndhlovu and L. Siziba
Evidence from the Zimbabwe Languages Association states that the present
Education Act of 1987 is characteristically colonial because it promotes
English at the expense of developing African languages. English has
remained entrenched as the medium of instruction as well as the key to
qualification for education and training at all levels and therefore as the key
to employment, upward social mobility, and international dialogue.
(Government of Zimbabwe 1999: 161)
As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, all the available evidence
does confirm that English is the de facto language of education in
Zimbabwe. This is in spite of the fact that the National Constitution of
the Republic of Zimbabwe confers official status to 16 languages that
include Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Khoisan, Nambya, Ndau,
Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sign Language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda
and Xhosa (Government of Zimbabwe 2013).
English in the Media
English turns out to be the predominant language in Zimbabwe’s print
and electronic media. The country’s major daily and weekly newspapers
(both independent and state-owned) all publish in English. On radio and
English in Southern Africa 77
i. in Zimbabwe
ii. in a country in which the common law is Roman-Dutch and English is
an official language; or
iii. if he is a citizen of Zimbabwe, in a country in which the common law is
English and English is an official language. (Government of Zimbabwe
1996)
The annual national budget statement, the monetary and fiscal policy
review statements as well as the President’s state of the nation address deliv-
ered in Parliament are always in English. As the country’s de facto official
language, English is also used in conducting local and international busi-
ness and trade. In short, English is the language of administration as it is
also widely used in official correspondence at national, regional and local
governance levels in Zimbabwe. English is also sometimes used by political
elites to distance or demarcate themselves from the masses—what Myers-
Scotton (1990) calls ‘elite closure’. According to Myers-Scotton:
Elite closure is a strategy by which those persons in power maintain
their powers and privileges via language choices. This is accomplished in
two general ways: (a) through linguistic divergences from the masses in
terms of the linguistic varieties known by the elite and (b) through sup-
port of official language policies as well as unofficial usage allocations that
designate a linguistic variety known largely only by the elite as necessary
for participation in situations which yield power (Myers-Scotton 1990:
25).
Therefore, current policy frameworks and everyday practices in both
formal and non-formal public domains show that English is the de facto
official language of Zimbabwe.
The status and political significance of English in South Africa and
Zimbabwe (and across the entire southern African region) is determined
by both practice and formal national language policies. In both countries,
language policy has always been associated with attempts to discourage
perceived centrifugal and secessionist tendencies supposedly stemming
from the underlying ethnic/linguistic diversity, thus promoting a situa-
tion where English has emerged as the de facto language of the widest
communication in the mainstream domains of language use. Therefore,
although linguistic diversity is indeed a sociolinguistic reality in both
South Africa and Zimbabwe, and although both countries have legislated
multilingual language policy frameworks, the effect of such policies is
invisible in the mainstream domains of civil service, law and administra-
tion, business and commerce, the media, and general public discourse
(Ndhlovu 2008). English dominates in these spaces.
However, to fully explain the position of English in the southern African
language economy, we also need to situate the debate within broader
80 F. Ndhlovu and L. Siziba
The aftermath of the Soweto uprising saw Afrikaans emerge, in the minds
of Black South Africans, as the language of oppression, and English as the
language of liberation against apartheid. From that time onwards up until
the birth of democratic South Africa in 1994 English has never looked
back. Rather the language has become far more hegemonic than any other
language in the land.
1991; Graddol 2006; Gough 1996). However, much of the focus on the
African indigenization of English in previous research has been on linguistic
processes, such as semantic extensions, and lexical and syntactic transfers
from local languages into English. In this section, we seek to build on and
extend the discussion in new directions on the ownership and appropriation
of English in southern Africa by focusing on two sociolinguistic aspects: the
pragmatic and symbolic dimensions of English. These two explanatory para-
digms are pertinent to understanding how the perceived social capital of
English is often strategically deployed in communicating ideas about free-
dom, independence, cultural affirmation and discourses on the possibilities
of social transformation and change in postcolonial African countries.
First is the symbolic dimension of language, which has been widely
discussed by pioneering social theorists: Pierre Bourdieu (1991), Norman
Fairclough (1992), Braj Kachru (1986) and Ruth Wodak (1989). In his
seminal book on Language and Symbolic Power (1991), Bourdieu defines
symbolic power as that which exists because the person who submits to it
believes that it exists. In the context of the discussion on symbolic
functions of English in postcolonial Africa, the realization that power and
language are interlinked is indicative of the need for us to transcend
purely formal language studies by looking more ‘critically at the ways in
which language is implicated in societal power relations [because lan-
guage] is never neutral; it empowers and disempowers’ (De Kadt 1991:
1). In Zimbabwe, the deployment of English in communicating
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) propa-
ganda from year 2000 onwards (see Ndhlovu 2011, 2015) exemplifies
the widespread strategic appropriation of the symbolic power that is resi-
dent and firmly located in the English language. As Galbraith noted
almost half a century ago, ‘the supreme and most insidious exercise of
power lies in shaping people’s perceptions, cognitions and preferences in
such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things’ (in
De Kadt 1991: 2).
Therefore, instead of seeing a remnant of the colonial legacy, most
postcolonial African elites see in English an effective tool for putting
across their case and for being heard, because the English language car-
ries a symbolic power that African indigenous languages do not have.
So far, leaders like Robert Mugabe and his close allies in ZANU PF
English in Southern Africa 85
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that the English language assumed the hege-
monic status of language of access to political power and social and
economic opportunities in southern Africa from the early years when it
was introduced by the first waves of British immigrants. The superior
and preponderant position of the English language that was imposed
through the Anglicization policy that followed British occupation of
English in Southern Africa 87
the Cape Colony continues to this day. Therefore, it can be argued that
the social and political history of English in southern Africa reflects the
history of the global spread of the Anglophone version of Euro-
American modernity such as colonial imperialism, Western models of
development (‘progress’) and Christianity as the ‘normative’ religion.
For this reason, we conclude that any discussion on the English lan-
guage in southern Africa and the African continent in general has to be
always located within broader social, political and economic contexts of
world history dating back to the onset of the expansion of the so-called
Western civilization.
Notes
1. The countries that fall within southern Africa are those that belong to the
regional economic and political organization known as the Southern
African Development Community (SADC). Prior to 1992, SADC was
known as the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference
(SADCC), established in 1980.
2. The Nziramasanga Commission was set up by the Government of
Zimbabwe in 1998, to inquire into the state of the country’s education
system. This commission was made up of 12 members and named after
the chair of the commission, Dr. C.T. Nziramasanga.
3. The term sociological minority, also known as a subordinate minority,
refers to a group that does not constitute a politically dominant section of
the total population of a given society. It is not necessarily a numerical
minority but may include any group that is disadvantaged with respect to
a dominant group in terms of social status, education, employment,
wealth and political power.
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English in Southern Africa 89
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Silva, P., Dore, W., Mantzel, D., Muller, C., & Wright, M. (1996). A dictionary
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