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Hollywood star Charlize Theron has faced a mountain of criticism for calling her mother tongue Afrikaans \u201ca dying language\u201d.<\/p>\n
Theron joked it was spoken by \u201cabout 44 people\u201d and was \u201cnot very helpful\u201d.<\/p>\n
She made the comments\u00a0on the SmartLess podcast, saying she grew up in South Africa speaking only Afrikaans before learning English aged 19, which is why she speaks it with an American accent.<\/p>\n
Some of the millions who speak Afrikaans in South Africa were furious.<\/p>\n
Steve Hofmeyr, who sings in Afrikaans, says the language boasts some of the best swear words and\u00a0tells TimesLive that Afrikaans is \u201calive and well\u201d. He also decried the move to change the teaching medium from mainly Afrikaans to English at universities that were historically Afrikaans.<\/p>\n
South African website News 24 quotes another critic, the actor Tim Theron, saying Afrikaans is\u00a0\u201cnot dying\u2026 there are new songs and poems being written every day, movies made etc\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some commenters on Twitter accused have Charlize Theron of\u00a0being \u201cashamed of her roots\u201d<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0seeking validation from black people<\/a>, while others welcomed her words because\u00a0\u201cAfrikaans has a strong association with apartheid\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and was\u00a0\u201conce used to oppress Africans\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Afrikaans is highly politicised in South Africa because of its role during the decades of white-minority rule when a series of racist policies, known as apartheid, were introduced to suppress the country\u2019s black majority.<\/p>\n \u201cAfrikaans is an African language that was formed here in Africa, but it became a language that polarised people under apartheid,\u201d Prof Pitika Ntuli, an artist and cultural analyst, tells the BBC.<\/p>\n The imposition of the language in schools was the main reason behind the 1976 Soweto uprising against the apartheid regime, in which at least 170 people were killed, mostly schoolchildren.<\/p>\n It is the mother tongue of 13% of South Africans \u2013 mainly white South African descendants of Dutch, German and French settlers who arrived in the 17th Century \u2013 as well as mixed-race people, who are known as coloureds in the country.<\/p>\n During apartheid only English, Dutch and Afrikaans were official state languages and indigenous languages were suppressed, but when white-minority rule ended in 1994 South Africa adopted 11 official languages. These are Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Siswati, Tshiven\u1e13a and Xitsonga.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the language but I loathe the fact that it was used to oppress us, that it represents oppression and evokes traumatic memories and experiences,\u201d\u00a0says the BBC\u2019s Audrey Brown.<\/p>\n Many South Africans today say not enough progress has been made towards true language equality, including students who are campaigning for more university classes in African languages.<\/p>\n But that does not mean Afrikaans is a dying language, says Prof Pitika Ntuli.<\/p>\n Like Hofmeyr, he loves how expressive and poetic and Afrikaans can be. Plus it is \u201cvery good for insulting people \u2013 that\u2019s why it is so beautiful,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlize Theron must come back and stay here for a bit of time, it might help her!\u201d<\/p>\n DISCLAIMER: <\/strong>The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n