The Intellectualisation of the Indigenous Languages of South Africa: Challenges and Prospects

There is growing consensus among language planning scholars that, in developing languages such as those of Africa, there is a need for a deliberate effort to effectuate and accelerate the process of language intellectualisation. Intellectualisation of the African languages should be seen within the context of national development initiatives. This paper examines the situation in South Africa where the government is obliged by the Constitution to develop all official languages, especially the indigenous languages. Although all nine indigenous languages have been partially developed, that is, they have written forms, literary works, dictionaries and terminology lists, they are lagging farbehind in the area of modern terminology as compared to the neo-colonial languages. During the apartheid regime, the indigenous languages were only important in so far as they served as tools for the division of the African people into conflicting and competing so-called ethnic groups. Despite many problems, with a clear national language policy and plan, intellectualisation in South Africa is more likely to succeed than in most developing countries. Research that is being conducted on strategies towards language intellectualisation provides a strong sense of optimism that this process of language intellectualisation will achieve increasing degrees of momentum, support and success.