A Language of Oppression

 “I know that it is not the English language that hurts me, but what the oppressor do with it, how they shape it to become a territory that limits and defines, how they make it a weapon that can shame, humiliate, colonize.” -- Bell Hooks Teaching to Transgress

A deep thank you to the authors of the various blogs and papers used to formulate this post, you can read more about them through each appropriate hyperlink.

(Warning: Sorry Cath- this post might be longer than you’d like).

A topic presented to us by the legendary Lauren Mongie this week, for the first time I had to evaluate the statement: “Afrikaans is an oppressive language”.

My initial response being “a language in itself is not oppressive, but rather the system and people in Government who use the language as a means of oppression”. Among other responses, we also explored the notion that English itself is in fact, in South Africa, the forefather of oppression in its origin as the language of colonization. In this context- Afrikaans is regarded a native language, a creole of Dutch original to South Africa- Afrikaans was then a local lingua-franca.

But it would appear that English is far more openly invited as a national language than what Afrikaans is among majority of the South African youth of today. A result, perhaps, of the sensitivity and hurt that still lingers around the wounds of Apartheid, in which Afrikaans was indeed used as a method of disadvantaging and separating many native South Africans.
Combining this perspective with the current Language Policy debate at Stellenbosch, my research into this week’s blog post began.

A little bit of context:

In conversing with fellow students who have chosen to picket and protest against Afrikaans at SU, I learnt my first most valuable lesson in understanding problems and fighting for them: ‘Ya first gots to give a little context.

If South Africa were a freshly baked loaf of bread sitting on your table, you’d still be able to smell the aroma of Apartheid. Yes, that’s how recent it was (in the grand scheme of things) and no, unlike fresh bread- there is nothing pleasant about it.

It is by default that Afrikaans as a language is associated with the language and role of the white-man oppressor. In our country, it is hardly incorrect to say that today still language itself can be used as a proxy for race. (NB: race is not the same as ethnicity - #MrsMongie).

A quote by Pastora San Juan Cafferty:

“While ethnic differences are sometimes not accompanied by linguistic differences, it is rare to find two different language groups in society where speakers are not in two different ethnic groups: the ethnic group’s greatest identification then becomes it’s language”.

Given this context, it becomes easier to understand the association of Afrikaans as an oppressive language, given its role in Apartheid, and thus it becomes easier to understand the antipathy found in the students who support the #AfrikaansMustFall campaigns littered around multiple Universities who still employ Afrikaans as a language of instruction.

As a proud member of the #BornFree generation, and an enthusiastic young linguist who has very recently learnt the appreciation of all languages as capsules of culture, knowledge and unique societal values,  I spent some time truly contemplating on how we could discourage this outdated view of Afrikaans as an oppressive language held by many of my peers on campus; for it is my observation that the heated SU Language Policy debate is strongly associated with, what some feel, is the disempowerment of a lingering “Apartheid Culture” in Stellenbosch.

Oddly, I found great insight by none-other than the famous Jack Parrow in an SABC News Interview on the debate of Afrikaans as a language. Jack points out how Afrikaans itself is evolving into a more modern, with a variety of dialects that are grossly different to what is considered “Formal Afrikaans”, that which holds it’s roots up north toward the Transvaal.

Mr. Parrow points out (and I para-phrase in the following quote): “... the mentality of a society and it’s values  are held within a language, but as we modernize as a country, we find Afrikaans changing. Afrikaans is dood was a song about how the original Afrikaans has died, but how many creoles have come from it, and we have made those are own, with new societal values.”

A point that I think is ever so complimented by the language demographic poll of 2011, showing that 40% of Afrikaans speakers are white, 50% colored and 10% black: how can the majority of an "oppressive language" be spoken by those who were themselves oppressed during Apartheid? When there is now freedom to speak the language of your choice- the colored community has chosen to continue speaking Afrikaans, and culturally we can evaluate that they have grossly different cultural values to those of the Apartheid-mentality.

I do not believe Afrikaans is an oppressive language. And while the remnants of the Apartheid mentality may still linger among the Afrikaans speakers of the Apartheid generation- we must consider the progress we have made as a country in only 20 years.

Language and Cultural values are interdependent. While that means that a language perpetuates a culture- we must also acknowledge that the death of one cultural value is naturally replaced with another, more fitting, modern and appropriate value. I think this evolution of Afrikaans is greatly reflected by how the language has developed into the diversity it boasts in sub-dialects today, with artists like Die Antwoord and Bittereinder proving that Afrikaans too is a dynamic and full-bodied, independent, inclusive language too.

I’d like to end with a quote by Zina Mustafa of McGill University, in her article confronting the same topic:

“Understanding that oppression is real, and that we all play a role in perpetuating it, is the first step towards its deconstruction.”

On Language and Identity

In perhaps one of his most renowned quotes, Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do”. A powerful axiom that many have applied to integrate small habits of success into their lives. But if truly we are defined by the sum total of our actions and thoughts, and these thoughts first form in the language of our minds, is the very essence of who we are not in some way affected by our language?

In a stunning and engaging discussion on the interrelatedness of Language and Identity, presented by Lauren Mongie over this past week, I (for this first time) began to grasp the intricacies of language, culture, identity and  just what the amalgamation of our sense of self truly consists of.

While this relationship is by no means new to our quest of understanding the self, I was more drawn to the ways in which our language does influence our sense of identity, as opposed to understanding identity as “something dynamic … not static, and defined rather by the collection of the various roles we play in our society”, as Mongie appropriately described.

Surely if we use our language to express these identities, the concept of such roles in itself is confined by the parameters of the language? This led me to ponder rather on the way in which language influences our identity and sense of self through its inclusion or exclusion of concepts and ideas – a topic more along the line of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories of how our definitions of words emerge from culture & society. But if words are what we use to define roles- then surely roles too emerge from culture and society? Wittgentein continues to argue that to understand and see how language works, one must acknowledge its function in social scenarios. A cool by-product of this notion is known as “Arbitrariness” and you can read more about that here)

(A more fruity explanation on Wittgenstein's theory  here) 

A perfect example to illustrate how the exclusion of concepts found in languages that are in some ways grammatically limited compared to others can be found in the notion of the “subjunctive” in English. In a moving, eye opening Tedx Talk by Phuc Tran, we can find a connection between how a language allows us to grasp concepts and express ourselves in ways that another language does not – for it’s lack of shared Pragmatic knowledge.

I particularly enjoyed Mental Floss’s article on whether or not we would be able to think without a language. After all, if our very definition of roles are defined by words, and words themselves are defined by our conceptual understanding of their meaning, given the arbitrary nature of all human language, surely our very understanding of and identification with our roles in society is fundamentally dictated then, by the language we speak? And surely this would allow for further discovery of self through learning new languages, and with them, the beautiful real of foreign concepts which they unlock.

Perhaps it is safe to say then; that truth can be found beyond Aristotle’s definition of self through action, action which is influenced by thought, and as the above findings have so eloquently connected, thoughts and concepts arise from our ability to comprehend them- an ability tightly related to language. Even if by a few degrees of philosophical relativity, I certainly do think that our language plays a greater role in defining who we are that what we are aware of.