Maimane admits to having problems with Die Stem

unskinnybob said:
So which one? Afrikaans is the most spoken language in South Africa. Everyone often forgets it's not just a "white" language. If not Mandarin, which is the most spoken language in the world, what? Spanish? Why settle for English which is at number 3? For a country hung up on "colonialism" why settle for the queens English?
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Because a large percentage of South Africans are already proficient in English. Further, it is an almost universal international language, as evidenced by it being an official language of more countries than any other. Doesn't need to be the Queen's, Souf Effrikan English will do just fine. :p

unskinnybob said:
Why do we need one official language? We certainly aren't the only multilingual country in the world.
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No, but we're the country with the 3rd most official languages in the world, behind only Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Why is it silly? Because it's an unnecessary and archaic administrative and practical cock-up.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
Because many people, especially English-speaking people, see it as an international standard, and Afrikaner this and that…
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HapticSimian said:
Because a large percentage of South Africans are already proficient in English. Further, it is an almost universal international language, as evidenced by it being an official language of more countries than any other. Doesn't need to be the Queen's, Souf Effrikan English will do just fine. :p


No, but we're the country with the 3rd most official languages in the world, behind only Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Why is it silly? Because it's an unnecessary and archaic administrative and practical cock-up.
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I hear what you guys are saying and I'm playing devils advocate. But given the sensitive spot we find ourselves at presently cutting languages isn't the best option.

I think most South Africans have made peace with the fact that you have to commerce in English. Academics are probably going to go the same way. So picking one language as "common" language is cool. But let the different cultures keep their language and identity for as long as it's relevant and it matters to them. Language preference and prevalence will probably sort itself out in due time.
 
I am frankly over name changes and emotional stupidity. The next government in charge will change everything to suit their own propaganda. Die stem is a cool anthem and we sang it with pride in school, but emotional ties to an irrational love for a fatherland is a thing of the past. The same has to be said about the ANC naming every 2nd thing after some so called anti apartheid icon and idiot. There is a time when people just get gatvol.
 
unskinnybob said:
I hear what you guys are saying and I'm playing devils advocate. But given the sensitive spot we find ourselves at presently cutting languages isn't the best option.

I think most South Africans have made peace with the fact that you have to commerce in English. Academics are probably going to go the same way. So picking one language as "common" language is cool. But let the different cultures keep their language and identity for as long as it's relevant and it matters to them. Language preference and prevalence will probably sort itself out in due time.
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I wouldn't expect such a change to happen any time soon, but it'd be good to speak about it as an eventual national goal. By all means afford recognition to heritage and culture, but that can be done without having 11 languages elevated to an official level.

We can start with the anthem. Imagine an Idols-type contest with the eventual winning song being put up against the current anthem in a referendum. Set a minimum of a 60% yes vote, and we can even avoid a Sikelelexit. :p
 
HapticSimian said:
I wouldn't expect such a change to happen any time soon, but it'd be good to speak about it as an eventual national goal. By all means afford recognition to heritage and culture, but that can be done without having 11 languages elevated to an official level.

We can start with the anthem. Imagine an Idols-type contest with the eventual winning song being put up against the current anthem in a referendum. Set a minimum of a 60% yes vote, and we can even avoid a Sikelelexit. :p
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I agree that we need to stop naming things after people. It causes way too much emotion. However cultural heritage is important and I personally reckon that SA would be better off if we all spoke more than one language. Language carries a memory of people and their culture, I also get way much more out of the general workers when I tried to give some commands in Sepedi back home. I feel the exact same about the French over here. It just clicks a bit better.
 
Nicodeamus said:
I agree that we need to stop naming things after people. It causes way too much emotion. However cultural heritage is important and I personally reckon that SA would be better off if we all spoke more than one language. Language carries a memory of people and their culture, I also get way much more out of the general workers when I tried to give some commands in Sepedi back home. I feel the exact same about the French over here. It just clicks a bit better.
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I wouldn't have even thought the French would understand Sepedi. :D

Beyond the anthem, I'm talking the long game here though. Having it essentially constitutionally mandated to repeat any and all communication 11 times is extremely laborious if not downright impractical. The ridiculousness is borne out by absolutely nobody even having made the attempt in 22 years. Call centres? English. Restaurant menus? English. Business meetings? English. Technical terms and concepts in higher learning? English. Contracts? English, but you can request an abridged version in your language of choice... I wonder how many of those translations actually convey the terms of said contract accurately. Sure, some lip service is paid here and there with ATM menus and such, but would it not be immeasurably more valuable to start focusing on improving everyone's grasp of one shared language?

There is nothing to stop people from speaking whatever language they choose to in addition - if enough people do, it will survive. For the rest who might be interested in cultural remnants in a century or three, they can [-]pick up[/-] eh, [-]download[/-] erm... upload a book into their frontal cortex.
 
HapticSimian said:
I wouldn't have even thought the French would understand Sepedi. :D

Beyond the anthem, I'm talking the long game here though. Having it essentially constitutionally mandated to repeat any and all communication 11 times is extremely laborious if not downright impractical. The ridiculousness is borne out by absolutely nobody even having made the attempt in 22 years. Call centres? English. Restaurant menus? English. Business meetings? English. Technical terms and concepts in higher learning? English. Contracts? English, but you can request an abridged version in your language of choice... I wonder how many of those translations actually convey the terms of said contract accurately. Sure, some lip service is paid here and there with ATM menus and such, but would it not be immeasurably more valuable to start focusing on improving everyone's grasp of one shared language?

There is nothing to stop people from speaking whatever language they choose to in addition - if enough people do, it will survive. For the rest who might be interested in cultural remnants in a century or three, they can [-]pick up[/-] eh, [-]download[/-] erm... upload a book into their frontal cortex.
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Look SA needs to be pragmatic about it, the first thing is that we dont have 11 languages, we have a lot less, most of them are mutually intelligible and are often just dialect of the same thing.
You can group Sotho, Tswana and Sepedi together for example and I myself (admirably I am not fluent) cant tell the difference between them. In actual fact I reckon we have around 4-5.

2ndly I reckon we should adopt the Namibian approach, where English is official (it is already official in SA in any case) and regional languages are recognized. Having street names in a different region language like they do in Europe and Namibia for example will kill all this emotion about languages. Namibia for example had the same Apartheid system as we did, but they are not nearly as hung up about race of language.

And 3rdly for education, there is no argument that mother tongue education facilitates learning much better, especially in poorer areas where parents cant speak English to help their kids. My brother for example teachers in a village area in deep north west, he speaks Tswana fluently and is the only white guy from kilometers away. He showed me some of the marks before he started working there. The kids for example passed Tswana relatively the same average as kids from the "whiter school" did that he taught at. However all the other subjects they couldn't score above 30%. The simple reason being that in those areas, English or Afrikaans is hardly spoken at home and they do struggle. When they started to facilitate a bit of Tswana into the class, the marks improved (it is not at a high level yet, given that there are other social factors involved), but it does play a role.

There is a way to bring language into SA in a practical way that is beneficial, but the Volkstaat idea of using language as a means to separate people is a thing of the past.

As for the anthem, it is just symbolic stupidity. I really couldnt give a **** if we sang God save the queen again.
 
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Nicodeamus said:
Look SA needs to be pragmatic about it, the first thing is that we dont have 11 languages, we have a lot less, most of them are mutually intelligible and are often just dialect of the same thing.
You can group Sotho, Tswana and Sepedi together for example and I myself (admirably I am not fluent) cant tell the difference between them. In actual fact I reckon we have around 4-5.
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Still 3-4 too many, in my opinion.

Nicodeamus said:
2ndly I reckon we should adopt the Namibian approach, where English is official (it is already official in SA in any case) and regional languages are recognized. Having street names in a different region language like they do in Europe and Namibia for example will kill all this emotion about languages. Namibia for example had the same Apartheid system as we did, but they are not nearly as hung up about race of language.
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Sure...

Nicodeamus said:
And 3rdly for education, there is no argument that mother tongue education facilitates learning much better, especially in poorer areas where parents cant speak English to help their kids. My brother for example teachers in a village area in deep north west, he speaks Tswana fluently and is the only white guy from kilometers away. He showed me some of the marks before he started working there. The kids for example passed Tswana relatively the same average as kids from the "whiter school" did that he taught at. However all the other subjects they couldn't score above 30%. The simple reason being that in those areas, English or Afrikaans is hardly spoken at home and they do struggle. When they started to facilitate a bit of Tswana into the class, the marks improved (it is not at a high level yet, given that there are other social factors involved), but it does play a role.
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I agree, which is why I'm not trying to make a case for some drastic, overnight change. However long the practical time frame though, it will simply never come to pass if the conversation on benefit and feasibility is never held.

Nicodeamus said:
There is a way to bring language into SA in a practical way that is beneficial, but the Volkstaat idea of using language as a means to separate people is a thing of the past.
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Of course.

Nicodeamus said:
As for the anthem, it is just symbolic stupidity. I really couldnt give a **** if we sang God save the queen again.
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For you it may be symbolic stupidity, for others it's a symbolic of national pride and unity... or it might be if it wasn't a cobbled together disaster. There are portions of our society that have an understandable - even if disproportionate - dislike for elements of the anthem as it stands. Others, like me, simply dislike the whole damned thing - even the bits we might recall fondly - as an anthem. This whole discussion is only happening because, in my view, that dislike could be the springboard to unifying the country under a new anthem, even if that too would be largely symbolic. The quantifiable benefit might be low, but so would be the risk. Plus, if the government wanted to be a little inventive for once, it could be a very engaging and entertaining exercise.

Of course I'm fully aware that my great-grandchildren will probably still be singing the same damned hackneyed hymn, if they are destined to live here. Doesn't mean I can't just think out loud for a bit. :)
 
Nicodeamus said:
Look SA needs to be pragmatic about it, the first thing is that we dont have 11 languages, we have a lot less, most of them are mutually intelligible and are often just dialect of the same thing.
You can group Sotho, Tswana and Sepedi together for example and I myself (admirably I am not fluent) cant tell the difference between them. In actual fact I reckon we have around 4-5.
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Not really. They have significant overlap sure but even between themselves have a lot of differences. The Sotho spoken in the North-West isn't like the Sotho spoken in the Free-State, other parts of the country and Lesotho, same thing with the other languages. If someone goes hard core speaking "pure" Sesotho/Setswana/Pedi the differences can be quite astonishing.

The only reason they seem mutually intelligible is because black people tend to know more than one African language, usually the ones closest to theirs. Zulus picking up Xhosa, Tswanas picking up Sotho etc.

For example I went to a funeral in Limpopo with my dad recently and the priest spoke Sepedi. I didn't understand a thing (Sotho speaker). I asked my dad about it and he commented on how "off" the word placement seemed, different grammar, idioms and all kinds of words he'd never heard before threw him off and eventually the priest lost him. My dad can speak Sepedi too so it must have been a different dialect.
 
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YeOldeOke said:
Great topic, really. Interesting reading for a change.

The anthem was cobbled together in an honest, if misguided, effort to hold everybody together during a very dangerous time in SA history. But IMHO the effort was misguided, as I said. It tried to include everybody, make everybody feel comfortable by dragging the differences together. /snip
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Great post. I do think it was indeed an effort to minimise the chances of civil conflict. And I get why Maimane stated what he did. But it's difficult all round now to make changes.

I would support a new anthem - except for the fact that it would just create more controversy and racial polarization imo. Who writes it? In what language? In how many languages? What can it make reference to? Etc.
 
HapticSimian said:
No, but we're the country with the 3rd most official languages in the world, behind only Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Why is it silly? Because it's an unnecessary and archaic administrative and practical cock-up.
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Not sure if official, but I believe India has more languages than us as well.

The way to identify a language's prevalence is to measure whether it is still being spoken in the kitchen. If it's still spoken in the kitchen it's still VERY far from dying. I would venture to say Afrikaans is so young and so much in development yet it is impossible to just kill it off. It's spoken by millions and understood by even those who choose not to speak it (at worst to some degree).

For African languages I would say the fact that there's a new indigenous alphabet planned (a really awesome thing) means those languages are only starting to mature now. I suspect that a "picture-based" alphabet will serve African languages much better than a traditional Western alphabet. Much the same as Mandarin and so on are best served with a completely different dynamic as to how to write down something.

For these reasons and for the simple reason too that discarding a language willy-nilly whilst so prevalent yet I don't think it's the best idea to force one language over another. Traditionally it took centuries for conquered regions to change language completely and even then the local language(s) generally remains. It causes no harm to anyone.

Let things take their natural course.

More on the subject; for mine the specific wording of the Afrikaans within our current national anthem is beautiful wording no matter which way you look at it.

Still, I can fathom that it may trigger some bad memories. If people are allowed to sing "kill the boer kill the farmer" in native tongue or not I simply expect that those who are Afrikaans may sing Die Stem if they so please.

Apartheid is being fouled for much more than it was. It was segregation and it was expected people would look after their own. Those that ended up working for white people chose to do so. The really bad thing, and worst thing of apartheid, was to initially move these people to other areas. Other than that they were predominantly left alone so they could rule over themselves.
 
If die stem goes then nkosi must go.

Let's make it English and move on
 
Knyro said:
Not really. They have significant overlap sure but even between themselves have a lot of differences. The Sotho spoken in the North-West isn't like the Sotho spoken in the Free-State, other parts of the country and Lesotho, same thing with the other languages. If someone goes hard core speaking "pure" Sesotho/Setswana/Pedi the differences can be quite astonishing.

The only reason they seem mutually intelligible is because black people tend to know more than one African language, usually the ones closest to theirs. Zulus picking up Xhosa, Tswanas picking up Sotho etc.

For example I went to a funeral in Limpopo with my dad recently and the priest spoke Sepedi. I didn't understand a thing (Sotho speaker). I asked my dad about it and he commented on how "off" the word placement seemed, different grammar, idioms and all kinds of words he'd never heard before threw him off and eventually the priest lost him. My dad can speak Sepedi too so it must have been a different dialect.
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That has been observed yes, I for example found it very difficult to learn the language, mainly because the speakers of the language couldn't tell me what exactly they were speaking. In Pretoria for example you have Northern Ndebele, which is almost identical to Tswana.

Some people say Samaya senthle
others say Sepela gabotshi,

do excuse my spelling.

others would mix it up totally. Some say this is Tswana or sepedi or even Zulu. Either way there is no fixed boundary on these languages, but the fact is that they can be grouped somehow and allow for regional dialects (which is what Germany is doing by the way). They teach hochdeutsch in schools, but allow for regions to apply some adjustment.
 
HapticSimian said:
For you it may be symbolic stupidity, for others it's a symbolic of national pride and unity... or it might be if it wasn't a cobbled together disaster. There are portions of our society that have an understandable - even if disproportionate - dislike for elements of the anthem as it stands. Others, like me, simply dislike the whole damned thing - even the bits we might recall fondly - as an anthem. This whole discussion is only happening because, in my view, that dislike could be the springboard to unifying the country under a new anthem, even if that too would be largely symbolic. The quantifiable benefit might be low, but so would be the risk. Plus, if the government wanted to be a little inventive for once, it could be a very engaging and entertaining exercise.

Of course I'm fully aware that my great-grandchildren will probably still be singing the same damned hackneyed hymn, if they are destined to live here. Doesn't mean I can't just think out loud for a bit. :)
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Honestly, the SA anthem is already a symbol of unity, if you want to piss off sections of the white community then try and scrap the stem. If you let it stay there then you will find that most whites probably dont even know that it is die stem and probably dont even know the words. Emotion is just used around election times, it is the way the ANC has been gaining votes and the DA seems to be tapping into the market again.

Also an anthem wont be 'unifying' SA in any way, I also dont really know what is meant with "unity". It sounds to me more like a nationalistic social engineering project, which is emotional but when evaluated it does absolutely nothing to put bread on the table, SA has tried to many of these stupid things in the past and it had disastrous consequences.
 
Nicodeamus said:
That has been observed yes, I for example found it very difficult to learn the language, mainly because the speakers of the language couldn't tell me what exactly they were speaking. In Pretoria for example you have Northern Ndebele, which is almost identical to Tswana.

Some people say Samaya senthle
others say Sepela gabotshi,

do excuse my spelling.

others would mix it up totally. Some say this is Tswana or sepedi or even Zulu. Either way there is no fixed boundary on these languages, but the fact is that they can be grouped somehow and allow for regional dialects (which is what Germany is doing by the way). They teach hochdeutsch in schools, but allow for regions to apply some adjustment.
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No it isn't, if anything it is similar to Zulu.

These guys are BSing you. It should be glaringly obvious if a person is speaking Sotho/Tswana/Sepedi within a sentence or two.
 
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