Millions in SA 'speechless'
2008-03-05 21:28
Johannesburg - Millions of South Africans do not enjoy freedom of expression because their languages do not have the same status as English or Afrikaans, said Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan on Wednesday.
He was speaking at a language conference in Woodmead, Johannesburg.
Jordan said: "Despite being recognised as official languages, it is a matter of deep concern that it is virtually impossible to find a book store in any of our shopping malls that distributes literature in the indigenous African languages."
He said it was easier to find a book in French, German or Portuguese than it was to find a book written in Pedi, Tsonga, Tswana, Zulu or Xhosa.
"The effect is that those people who speak these as their home language cannot fully realise their right to freedom of expression... the capacity to both write and read in one's home language gives real meaning to freedom of expression."
Jordan invited South African publishers to rise to the challenge of publishing in African languages.
Have to use other languages
He said this would help with the exclusion of millions of African people, and their inability to express themselves in their mother tongues.
"People using the language of their choice and equality among languages are inextricably linked.
"Large populations are unable to participate in national discourse and debate because the languages used are not their own," said Jordan.
Closer co-operation between students in South Africa and those in other parts of the continent would enable African students to work together and develop language development strategies, procedures and models.
This would help launch the indigenous languages "on a journey to join others on the information highway", and help foster cross-border publishing.
Jordan said the development of Human Language Technologies (HLT) in South Africa, would assist with the language-barrier problem.
"HLT can facilitate multilingualism and fast-track the development of previously marginalised indigenous languages.
These enabling technologies may range from sophisticated high-level machine translation systems, to voice-activated educational or commercial systems which can be used by non-literate people."
He said the technologies would be included in education and training, in the public service and commerce.
- SAPA