FYI. This item appeared in two South African papers. (Links from Google alert)... DZO
Business Day (South Africa) Posted to the web on: 17 August 2005 "African languages 'need help'" http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A80589 Pretoria News "SA's mother tongue 'tragedy'" August 17, 2005 http://www.pretorianews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=665&fArticleId=2839713 IT IS tragic that some South African children spoke English but were unable to speak in their mother tongue, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said yesterday. There was a notion that people who could not speak English had a lower IQ, she told guests at a Business Unity SA meeting. "We need to find a way of moving away from the notion that it is only when you speak English that you know what you talking about," she said. "It almost makes people who do not speak English be stereotyped as somehow having a lower IQ and you can imagine how many do we then discard if you take that approach." Political parties such as the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) had challenged government to do more to protect Afrikaans, which they say was being marginalised by government in favour of black languages. FF+ leader Pieter Mulder last month said SA's 1500 single-medium Afrikaans schools had diminished to about 300. Of SA's 21 universities, five had been mainly Afrikaans and now only two used the language as the common medium of instruction. One of the tasks given to her, Mlambo-Ngcuka said, is restoring the country's traditions and linguistics, "anything from zangoma to volkstaat and anything in between". "I cannot imagine an English child living in England unable to speak English," she said. "We are beginning to have South African children who live in SA who can't speak an African language." She urged mothers to speak to their children in African languages. -Sapa ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hmocj63/M=362335.6886444.7839734.2575449/D=groups/S=1705019987:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124363713/A=2894362/R=0/SIG=138c78jl6/*http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/arts_culture/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=GRP&RTP=http://groups.yahoo.com/";>What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
