Challenges of the implementation of language policies in southern Africa: what is the way forward?

Abstract

At the attainment of independence, most African governments adopted the colonisers’ foreign languages as official languages to be used in business, the judiciary, education, local government and parliament. Examples of foreign languages that have dominated local languages in Africa are English, French and Portuguese. This paper argues that indigenous languages in Southern Africa, which is the focus of the survey, have low variety status vis-à-vis foreign languages for a variety of reasons, the major being the challenges faced in the implementation of the language policies in these countries. While the survey found that there are language policies in the country studied, it can be concluded that having a language policy in place is not congruent to its implementation and its desired effects. The study recommends adopting the Tanzanian language policy model that formalised Swahili as a national language for all purposes. To all intents and purposes, the Swahili model has been a resounding success.