U.S. English Foundation Research

SOUTH AFRICA

Language Research

8. Miscellaneous: What else can be found about languages and minorities?

Updated (January 2007)

SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGE RIGHTS BULLETIN HAS BEEN LAUNCHED

The Pan South African Language Board has launched a bulletin that will report monthly on the development of language rights issues in South Africa. It will be compiled in cooperation with the University of Free State (ULM) and will give an annual overview of the issues as reflected mainly in the local print media.

A university representative, Theo Du Plessis, said that they had been issuing three bulletins as a pilot project the past three years; they collected data from Afrikaans and English newspapers supplied only at the university. These bulletins covered various language rights aspects including language rights complaints, research on languages, and language litigation. Further, from this year on, data from certain selected African-language newspapers would also be included in the bulletin.

Edward Sambo, acting head of the Language Board, noted that the bulletin, especially the monthly issue, would be valuable to the working of the board because until now, the Board had heard of language issues at a late stage - mostly only after they had happened.3

Sambo said the pilot bulletins had helped in showing that complainants lost interest in their cases because they took too long, and that there had been a "sharp decline" in the number of complaints brought to them. Therefore, the board had also launched a research project for this year to investigate the reasons for the decline in complaints especially about indigenous languages.

Source: Business Day, January 24, 2007

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A366399

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