South Africa: The Language Debate - Lets Talk About Everything Else, in Afrikaans

analysis

Publicly and in the media, you'd swear the only thing Afrikaans speakers talk about or debate in their own language is the language itself. Like an ox wagon jammed in a rut, some language activists have shut down the horizons of conversation and public discourse.

There's a little station in the small West Coast town of Darling where satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys made his home after taking a wrong turn en route to McGregor in 1995. It was clearly pre-GPS, because McGregor is in the opposite direction, in the Breede River, about 220km from Darling. While Pieter Dirk Uys' satirical compass is spot on, his map reading skills clearly leave much to be desired.

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