Is Afrikaans dead?
2006-06-21 15:45
Cape Town - A communication strategist from Johannesburg has angered Afrikaans-speakers by saying that the language should be taken off the ventilator and it should not be allowed to be kept on life support.
Scores of people took on Clive Simpkins on his blog on the Moneyweb site after his statements that Afrikaans's days are over.
Despite government support for mother tongue education, Simpkins disputed Afrikaans as an African language.
He thought there was no more room for Afrikaans in the education system. He said he was shocked to find out that Afrikaans was still a compulsory subject at school.
Several participants in the debate pointed out that Simpkins was wrong about Afrikaans being compulsory and that pupils had a choice between two languages at school, one in which to receive tuition and the other to learn as a language.
According to Simpkins, Afrikaans was totally unusable outside of the country and that it made more sense to learn another indigenous language.