Why Learning a South African Language Still Depends on Where You Live
Fifty years after the Soweto uprising, South Africa’s language landscape remains shaped by a history in which language, identity, place, and opportunity were deliberately tied together.
In June 2026, South Africa marks fifty years since the Soweto uprising, when school pupils protested against the compulsory use of Afrikaans alongside English as a language of instruction. The political afterlives (nawerkinge) of that decision remain visible in classrooms, universities, workplaces, and public debates about identity. The protests of 16 June 1976 were not simply about which language pupils would use to study mathematics or history. They were also about power, dignity, and the right to learn without having the language of an oppressive state imposed upon them. That history still influences how many South Africans understand Afrikaans, English, and the country’s African languages today.
Under apartheid, language was not treated as a neutral tool for communication. It was connected to race, ethnic identity, schooling, residential location, and political control. The state used an elaborate system of stratification (stratifikasie) to divide people into officially recognised groups and to attach particular African languages to specific homelands. In this model, speaking isiZulu was often treated as evidence that a person belonged to a fixed Zulu identity and should be associated with KwaZulu, while speakers of other languages were similarly tied to separate territories. The result was a political system that made language appear natural and permanent, even though the boundaries between communities, languages, and identities were often far more fluid in everyday life.
The democratic transition of 1994 dismantled the homelands and created a constitutional order that recognised linguistic diversity more openly. South Africa originally recognised eleven official languages, and South African Sign Language later became the twelfth official language, strengthening the legal principle that the country’s linguistic communities deserve recognition. Census data show that isiZulu is the most widely spoken language in households, followed by isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Sepedi, and English. Yet legal equality has not automatically ended the practical hegemony (hegemonie) of English in education, professional life, research, business, and national communication. English remains highly valued because it is associated with mobility, international access, and employment, while Afrikaans retains a strong institutional presence in some regions and academic settings.
This creates an important contradiction. South Africa is often described as multilingual, but the ability to study, work, and participate fully in more than one language remains uneven. The country’s linguistic asymmetry (asimmetrie) is clear when students compare the availability of English and Afrikaans courses with the options for learning African languages outside their traditional provincial strongholds. A student can usually find English or Afrikaans at universities across the country, regardless of where they live or what their first language is. By contrast, access to African-language courses is often restricted by geography, institutional custom, lecturer availability, and assumptions about which language belongs in which province.
Research into the teaching of isiNguni languages at South African universities highlights this problem clearly. Interviews with lecturers in African language departments showed that students’ Grade 12 home-language subjects can still influence whether they are accepted into a university language programme. This form of gatekeeping (hekwagterskap) can limit students who want to learn an African language that they did not study at school but would like to acquire as an additional language. It also means that a student’s linguistic future may depend heavily on the province where they completed their schooling. Although universities may intend to preserve standards and support students who already have some language background, the effect can be to reproduce older regional boundaries rather than encourage broader multilingual learning.
The pattern is especially visible in the way different African languages are distributed across universities. Languages with larger numbers of first-language speakers, such as isiZulu and isiXhosa, are available at more institutions than smaller official languages such as isiNdebele and siSwati. This is understandable from a practical perspective because universities need qualified lecturers, teaching materials, and enough enrolled students to sustain programmes. However, it can produce a form of provincial fragmentation (versnippering) in which some languages remain accessible mainly within the areas where they are historically dominant. A national language system should not allow the size of a speech community alone to determine whether its language has a meaningful future in higher education.
The situation matters because a language is not preserved only by being spoken at home. It also needs to be used in literature, science, law, teacher training, public administration, health communication, technology, and higher education. When a language is absent from these spaces, it can become increasingly marginalised despite having official status. Smaller speech communities are particularly vulnerable to marginalisation (marginalisering) because they may have fewer published resources, fewer university departments, and fewer opportunities for students to become teachers, translators, researchers, or writers in that language. If universities do not create pathways for these languages, official recognition can become symbolic rather than transformative.
Another issue concerns the varieties of language that universities accept in teaching and assessment. Some academics argue that students should learn a recognised standard version of isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, or isiNdebele because formal language rules make it easier to produce consistent textbooks, examinations, dictionaries, and academic writing. Others argue that students should be allowed to use the varieties they speak in their homes and communities. The dispute is really about standardisation (standaardisering) and whether a standard language should be treated as a useful shared norm or as the only legitimate form of expression. A strict approach can exclude students whose everyday speech differs from the official classroom variety, even when they are confident and capable speakers of the language.
A more inclusive approach does not mean that grammar, spelling, or academic standards should disappear. It means recognising that African languages, like English and Afrikaans, contain a wide range of regional, social, and urban forms. Students arrive at university with different experiences and different linguistic histories. Their repertoire (taalrepertoire) may include a home language, a school language, a township variety, English, Afrikaans, a heritage language, and forms of code-switching developed through everyday life. Treating this diversity as a weakness can discourage participation, whereas treating it as a resource can help universities create more realistic and welcoming language programmes.
Admission policies deserve particular attention. Relying too heavily on a Grade 12 home-language certificate assumes that a person’s school subject fully represents their ability or potential to learn another language. A better system would assess actual proficiency (vaardigheid) through placement tests, bridging courses, oral assessments, and introductory modules for beginners. Such a model would allow students from any province to begin learning isiZulu, isiXhosa, Xitsonga, siSwati, Sesotho, or another official language without having to prove that they already belong to the relevant language community. It would also recognise that many South Africans grow up in multilingual environments but may not receive formal recognition for every language they understand or use.
Government policy already provides a foundation for this broader approach. South Africa’s 2020 Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions calls on universities to strengthen the use of all official languages in teaching, learning, scholarship, and institutional communication. The challenge lies in the operationalisation (operasionalisering) of these commitments through budgets, staffing, terminology development, digital resources, and practical academic programmes. Universities cannot expand African-language teaching simply by adding ambitious statements to policy documents. They need trained lecturers, dictionaries, technical vocabulary, translation systems, publishing support, language laboratories, and opportunities for students to use the languages beyond a single classroom.
The expansion of mother tongue-based bilingual education in schools makes this university question even more urgent. The Department of Basic Education has been extending mother tongue instruction beyond the early primary years, using African languages alongside English rather than presenting the two as opposing choices. This approach recognises that learners can develop strong literacy and conceptual understanding through their home languages while still gaining access to English. It also challenges the assumption that African languages are suitable only for cultural expression or basic communication. For the system to work over the long term, universities must be prepared to train teachers, develop advanced academic materials, and support graduates who can use African languages confidently in professional and scholarly settings.
A national strategy should therefore encourage African languages to move across provincial borders. Xitsonga could be taught as an additional language in KwaZulu-Natal, while siSwati could become available to learners in the Free State or Gauteng. Universities could cooperate on shared online courses, exchange lecturers, create common teaching resources, and offer joint qualifications. This would replace isolation with reciprocity (wederkerigheid) and make language learning a normal part of national life rather than a regional exception. English and Afrikaans already travel across provincial boundaries; African languages should be given the same opportunity.
The broader goal is not to reduce the value of English or Afrikaans. Both languages have deep histories in South Africa and remain important for millions of people. The aim is to ensure that African languages are not treated as local possessions available only to first-language speakers in selected places. A more inclusive system would allow South Africans to learn one another’s languages, encounter different cultural traditions, and participate more fully in a shared national conversation. Fifty years after Soweto, meaningful linguistic equality requires more than official recognition. It requires access, investment, imagination, and the belief that every South African language can cross borders, enter universities, and contribute to the country’s future.
Key Afrikaans Vocabulary
nawerkinge afterlives
stratifikasie stratification
hegemonie hegemony
asimmetrie asymmetry
hekwagterskap gatekeeping
versnippering fragmentation
marginalisering marginalisation
standaardisering standardisation
taalrepertoire repertoire
vaardigheid proficiency
operasionalisering operationalisation
wederkerigheid reciprocity
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