The FIFA World Cup 2010 is taking place from June to July 11 in South Africa – a country counting no less than 11 official languages. Here is an opportunity to take a closer look at the linguistic situation of this country whose 11 players… are probably polyglots!

The 11 official languages:

The South African Constitution asserts multilingualism (Article 6) and defines the list of official languages as follows:

– 9 Bantu languages (Niger-Congo languages):

– Songa

– Venda

– Four languages from the Nguni Group: Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu and Swati

– Three languages from the Sotho Group: Sesotho, Sotho and Tswana,

– 2 languages with Germanic origins (Indo-European languages):

– English

– Afrikaans, a variant of Dutch.

Facts, however, account for a very different situation which may be explained by history.

The country has undergone two successive waves of colonization: first to Dutch, to which South Africa owes the Afrikaans language, and then the British, hence the extensive use of English. Whereas these two languages are today far ahead in administration (Justice, Parliament etc.), the native languages of SA are dominated by Zulu and Xhosa – respectively around 23% and 18% of the population.

South African radio hosts a specific channel for each official language, while television airs  mostly in English.

Only two programmes partly air in a Bantu language, out of the three public national channels of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC):

– SABC1: English (60% of the time), Nguni languages (20%), Tsonga or Venda (18%)

– SABC2: English and Afrikaans (60%), Sotho languages (15%), Tsonga or Venda (17%)

– SABC3 only airs in English

The rest of the broadcasting space is mainly composed of foreign stations received by satellite and aired in English or Afrikaans.

National and regional press is also dominated by English and Afrikaans, though some publications exist in Sesotho, Swana, Xhosa and Zulu. The other five Bantu languages – Venda, Songa, Swati, Sotho and Ndebele – are not represented in national publications.

The non official languages:

In addition to the 11 official languages, the country also counts some 200 000 speakers of foreign languages with no direct link to colonization (German, Greek, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Arabic, Hebrew etc.), languages which have no specific status but are acknowledged by the South African Constitution as worth promoting.

Last but not least, South Africa bears three critically endangered African languages:

– Korana, of the Khoe (or Khoisan) language family, which became famous in the movie The Gods must be Crazy, and which according to UNESCO had only 6 speakers left in 2008;

– Xiri, also from the Khoe family, and still spoken by 87 persons in 2000 ;

– N|uu (or Khomani), from the Tuu language family, spoken by only 8 speakers in 2008.

It is worth noting that these languages have been subsiding, not only because of English and Afrikaans, but also because of the nine local Bantu languages.

Linguistic policies and their outcomes

Several structures around the country are in charge of maintaining constitutional multilingualism. Among other measures: the implementation of mothertongue based activities in primary schools and the written obligation for every official document to be published in at least six languages (English, Afrikaans, Songa, Venda, at least one language from the Nguni group, and at least one from the Sotho group).

Yet obviously, English and Afrikaans are still way ahead of all others within the institutions for several reasons:

– The prohibitive cost of translations when eleven languages imply 55 possible language combinations

– The lack of translators

– The idea that linguistic unity is a barrier against ethnic divisions

For the record, the FIFA has made sure that the 30 World Cup referees be assisted by two speakers of the same language in order to ensure quality arbitration. Sub-Saharan Africa has provided three of these referees: Koman Coulibaly (Mali), Jerome Damon (South Africa) and Eddy Allen Maillet (Seychelles). What language will they be speaking?