JONATHAN JANSEN: Why the Afrikaans debate has ended with a whimper
Afrikaans students and English students now encounter higher learning on the common ground of a second language, which also happens to be a universal language
And so eventually the debate on Afrikaans in universities ended not with a bang but a whimper in the Constitutional Court last week. Decades of intense struggles to maintain a few exclusive Afrikaans universities, at one point, and then to retain Afrikaans as a primary language of instruction, at a later point, all came to a screeching halt in the court of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
I lived through the worst of those debates on three historically Afrikaans university campuses; a placard at the University of Pretoria, Praat Afrikaans of hou jou bek (Speak Afrikaans or shut up), still disturbs me. It is therefore a relief that the language question has finally been put to bed...
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