Foreign languages: SADC’s greatest hindrance to regional development

Lazarus Sauti

Language is the key to inclusion. It is at the center of human activity, self-expression and identity. Recognising the primary importance that people place on their own language fosters the kind of true participation in development that achieves lasting results, according to the United Nations, Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The UN specialised agency goes on to say: “People’s languages are vitally important to them. Through language, people communicate, share meaning and experience their sense of individual and community identity. Loss of language and culture is frequently accompanied by large human and social costs, including poverty, poor health, drug and alcohol abuse, family violence and suicide.

“Recognising the profound importance that people place on their languages is, therefore, a core insight for tackling poverty and hunger. It is an important part of the move away from “top down” models of development that have been shown not to work, and towards participatory development models, which often do.”

To save time, language is powerful. It is a medium for transmitting culture and social reality.

When language is mastered and nurtured within its natural cultural sphere, it unlocks creativity and a nation’s potential for socio-economic growth.

For example, Western countries have anchored their development in their native languages. Asian Tigers or Asian Dragons (a term used in reference to the highly free and developed economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) have done the same.

Sadly, the region of Southern African Development Community relies on foreign tongues as official languages of communication.

Of the 11 official languages recognised in the Constitution of South Africa, nine are African, leaving aside the debate whether Afrikaans is an African language or not, but English is the official language of business, politics and media.

Namibia is a multilingual (English, German, Afrikaans and Oshiwambo) country, but since 1991 English is the only official language, though only 3 per cent of the population speaks it as a home language.

In Botswana, almost 90 per cent of citizens speak Setswana, but English is official language.

As for Zimbabwe, the new constitution officially recognises 16 languages, but depressingly, it is yet to be translated into these languages.

Angola and Mozambique, as in most SADC countries, have several languages, but Portuguese is the official languages in both countries.

This over-dependence on colonial languages (English and Portuguese) is, therefore, not only making SADC countries fluent beggars but also hindering political, economic, social, technological, environmental as well as legal development.

Colonial languages, without doubt, institutionalise foreign value system, and therefore, hijack the psychological structure of Africans. Without doubt, the mediating presence of foreign languages in the region is an entrapping existence that is stalling socio-economic transformation.

Dr Kimani Nehusi, a progressive African historian, concurs: “The domination of African communities and society by European languages is the major cause of the continued stultification of development and the failure to restore African languages to a position of centrality in the conduct of all African affairs; political, economic, legal, social and educational.”

Consequently, political leaders in the regional grouping should come up with strategies as well as policies that restore the dignity of Africans, their languages and culture.

Significantly, they must also link the local language strategies and policies to multilingualism – the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. “Multilingualism contributes to national and regional strength as it not only gives one access to different cultures and literatures, but also allows one to compete for jobs in a much wider market,” add scholars, Professor Nobuhle Hlongwa and Professor Nhlanhla ‘Bacwali’ Mkhize.

One country that showcases multilingualism is India. Of the world’s 3 000 languages, 700 are from India. The country has 10 scripts, and over 50 per cent of its publications are in mother languages.

Unfortunately, none from the SADC region have own scripts. Because of this reason, mother tongues in SADC member-states have been relegated to the lowest level of education that is not used for normal written purposes. Local languages are occasionally used in few newspapers, hymn books, novels, pamphlets, flyers, radio and television programmes.

None of local languages in SADC countries are also used to publish research in the physical sciences. Frankly, no country can maintain a global competitive edge by education educating its children, especially in their formative years, through a medium they can barely understand.

SADC intellectuals and policy makers working in tandem with like-minded intellectuals of all hues as well as the men and women of the village, the organic intellectuals, should, thus, strengthen participation of local actors in local content and research production.

Local actors, at least, understand and can share insights into the politics, economic activities, social organisation and cultural values of a locality, all of which are important for poverty reduction.

In 2005, a key study entitled “With the Support of Multitudes, Using Strategic Communication to fight Poverty through PRSPs”, Jointly published by the Information and Communication for Development, United Kingdom Department for International Development, and the Development Communication Division, External Affairs, The World Bank, looked at how poverty reduction along with development strategies deploy communications.

It recommended that poverty reduction plans should include a strong emphasis on engaging with local languages. Accordingly, SADC member-states must move towards more recognition of local language issues at policy level if the region is to transform and compete globally.