Through AFP
JOHANNESBURG: Oscar-winning actor Charlize Theron has sparked a firestorm in her local South Africa for suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch settlers, was once heading for oblivion.
“There is about 44 other folks nonetheless talking it — it is indubitably a death language, it is not an excessively useful language,” the 47-year-old actor mentioned Monday on a US podcast, “Smartless.”
Through Thursday South Africans took to Twitter to voice outrage or enhance.
“Wow what a disrespectful remark to the tens of millions of South Africans of every age, races…that talk Afrikaans as their first language,” mentioned @Juleanor.
“Thanks Charlize Theron – that…racist language is death and should not also be identified,” mentioned @SaboSizwe, by contrast.
Certainly one of 11 legit languages in South Africa, Afrikaans is usually utilized by round 12 p.c of the inhabitants of just about 60 million.
Regulations implementing Afrikaans performed a job within the oppression of black voters throughout the apartheid technology, and the language stays arguable in some sectors of society nowadays.
A lawmaker from the opposition radical leftist Financial Freedom Combatants (EFF) birthday party tweeted in enhance of Theron’s remarks, however the Freedom Entrance Plus (FF Plus), a small rightwing and predominantly white Afrikaner birthday party, mentioned she was once inaccurate.
“She isn’t up to the moment with what’s going on in her nation of beginning,” it mentioned in a observation.
The Hollywood megastar was once born in Benoni, a suburb 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Johannesburg, and moved to the US nearly 30 years in the past.
She mentioned she did not talk English till she was once 19 as a result of “no one” in her predominantly Afrikaans neighbourhood spoke it.
Afrikaans is descended from Dutch spoken by way of settlers who started to reach in South Africa within the mid-Seventeenth century.
Its centuries-long historical past in South Africa has sparked debate as as to whether it must be thought to be an indigenous or imported language.
It’s the nation’s the 3rd maximum spoken language after Zulu, which is utilized by round 25 p.c of the inhabitants, and Xhosa, spoken by way of just about 15 p.c, in step with legit statistics.
In 2020, a court docket overturned a call by way of certainly one of South Africa’s greatest universities, the College of South Africa (UNISA), to abolish categories taught in Afrikaans.
JOHANNESBURG: Oscar-winning actor Charlize Theron has sparked a firestorm in her local South Africa for suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch settlers, was once heading for oblivion.
“There is about 44 other folks nonetheless talking it — it is indubitably a death language, it is not an excessively useful language,” the 47-year-old actor mentioned Monday on a US podcast, “Smartless.”
Through Thursday South Africans took to Twitter to voice outrage or enhance.
“Wow what a disrespectful remark to the tens of millions of South Africans of every age, races…that talk Afrikaans as their first language,” mentioned @Juleanor.
“Thanks Charlize Theron – that…racist language is death and should not also be identified,” mentioned @SaboSizwe, by contrast.
Certainly one of 11 legit languages in South Africa, Afrikaans is usually utilized by round 12 p.c of the inhabitants of just about 60 million.
Regulations implementing Afrikaans performed a job within the oppression of black voters throughout the apartheid technology, and the language stays arguable in some sectors of society nowadays.
A lawmaker from the opposition radical leftist Financial Freedom Combatants (EFF) birthday party tweeted in enhance of Theron’s remarks, however the Freedom Entrance Plus (FF Plus), a small rightwing and predominantly white Afrikaner birthday party, mentioned she was once inaccurate.
“She isn’t up to the moment with what’s going on in her nation of beginning,” it mentioned in a observation.
The Hollywood megastar was once born in Benoni, a suburb 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Johannesburg, and moved to the US nearly 30 years in the past.
She mentioned she did not talk English till she was once 19 as a result of “no one” in her predominantly Afrikaans neighbourhood spoke it.
Afrikaans is descended from Dutch spoken by way of settlers who started to reach in South Africa within the mid-Seventeenth century.
Its centuries-long historical past in South Africa has sparked debate as as to whether it must be thought to be an indigenous or imported language.
It’s the nation’s the 3rd maximum spoken language after Zulu, which is utilized by round 25 p.c of the inhabitants, and Xhosa, spoken by way of just about 15 p.c, in step with legit statistics.
In 2020, a court docket overturned a call by way of certainly one of South Africa’s greatest universities, the College of South Africa (UNISA), to abolish categories taught in Afrikaans.
