This is a draft of the first of six instalments designed to form the basis of lessons for Heritage Day (24th of September), on Languages.
Your comments will assist. _____ Slide 1 Lesson for Heritage Day, 2014: Languages Introduction Each language is a work of art, as priceless as any work of art that can be imagined. All languages are part of the general human heritage. Languages are kept alive by the speakers and the writers of the language. Each language is a collaborative project of People's Power. There is no centre and no hierarchy. Language authority rests with the ordinary speakers. Each language is produced (and constantly reproduced) in a form of organisation that is nowadays called a "distributed network". It can be imagined as a diagram: Creation of language happens in real life. The creation of the language and the use of the language are one and the same. The work is its own reward. The artefact that is produced - language - belongs to all. The many languages of the world are open gateways. They are not barriers. Languages that are spoken by large numbers of Africans, in different countries on our continent are: Kiswahili, French, English, Arabic and Portuguese. Of these, only Kiswahili is a purely African language. Across the continent, translation of an African language into another African language is often done via a European language, and this is a problem. Because there is no central authority, a dictionary is only a collection and a record of words as they are used. But dictionaries - single-language dictionaries - make a language stronger. In South Africa there are eleven official languages. Most of them are not well served with dictionaries, or with the publication of written literature. The upward mobility of people that has followed upon our South African democratic breakthrough has resulted in a flight to English in particular, as the most extensive language in the country, and as people think, in the world. This is a problem. But it remains the case that all of our official languages are spoken, and all of them are the first, or home, language of significant numbers of South Africans. The codification of language into dictionaries, and the creation of literature in the languages, makes the language of the people stronger. African children, like children everywhere, need to be taught, in the first years of their schooling, in the language that they know from home. Later, they need to be taught their own language as a subject, like other subjects. South Africa has a programme to achieve these aims, gradually. African languages, like all other languages, need writers to write them, and readers to read them. In our South African circumstances, these are revolutionary, nation-building tasks. We build our nation by giving life to our heritage. Heritage Day is September the Twenty-fourth -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
