Why are eleven official languages?

South Africa, much like every other part of the world, has an immensely diverse population. But unlike most of the world it has eleven official languages. While there are many reasons for the surplus of languages I think there is one that stands out: identity. As Neville Alexander suggests in his article Language Politics in South Africa “it is very important that we understand the fluid relationship between global, nation, sub-national group and individual identities” (Alexander, 146). I think he is suggesting that by knowing our identity people are able to build community; and through that people come together to create great nations. Building community is what every nation has to do if they want to compete in the global world and succeed in general. And the easiest place to create community is by “caulking” the divisions. In South Africa there many different cultures, but they can be boiled down into eleven distinct cultures. All of these cultures differ but there most obvious difference is in their language. With this many differences the best way to unify them all is threw empowerment. All eleven cultures and languages are equal, as far as South Africa is concerned; and that is shown through making each of the languages official. It is a subtle yet powerful way of opposing the apartheid divisions by unifying all eleven languages under one flag.

Throughout my time in South Africa I only spoke English and I was completely understood one hundred percent of the time. So the question is, why isn’t English the sole official language? Well I would argue that English is the lingua franca; but by no means the only language deserving of the title “official”. It is the exact same way in America. There is no official language, but English is the most dominate so if one were to visit all they would need to know is English. It seems as though English is a global language for a multitude of reasons, but that means that the culture of the English language is greatly diluted. As an American I never had associated my language as a part of my heritage or culture, but in South Africa it is a prized and primary part of culture. And one of the main ideas behind government and countries in general is unifying differences under one flag. The most obvious way to do that is to make each culture represented in your government/country. In South Africa the government took the most apparent differences between the cultures (language) and made a point to unify them by making them all equally indorsed by the nation

~Joe Mistretta