‘Language can be an instrument to bring people together’

To recognise her unending commitment to advancing indigenous African languages and fast-tracking multilingualism in South Africa, the minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, appointed Naledi Maponopono to the board of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB).

PanSALB is committed to promoting multilingualism in South Africa and developing and preserving the country’s 12 official languages. And appointing Maponopono – a PhD candidate in the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) African Languages and Literatures section in the School of Languages and Literatures – seems only fitting. She has dedicated her academic career to studying African languages and literatures.

“PanSALB is a powerful instrument in our democracy, designed to safeguard our languages and I am honoured to contribute,” she said. “This appointment is a testament to my lifelong commitment to advancing indigenous African languages. From the time I started my academic career it was my goal to serve this board eventually.”

A powerful tool for unity

According to McKenzie, Maponopono will be required to provide oversight and strategic direction to the board – ensuring that it fulfils its constitutional mandate of promoting and developing previously marginalised official languages, Sign Language, as well as Khoi, Nama and San languages.

“She is expected to serve impartially and independently, and exercise, carry out and perform her powers, duties and functions in good faith and without fear, favour, bias or prejudice, subject only to the Constitution and the Act,” McKenzie stated in the letter of appointment.

“In a country like South Africa, with a history of radical injustice, language can be an instrument to bring people together.”

As Maponopono’s five-year term as a board member gets under way, she said she has always dreamed of playing a central role in shaping the linguistic landscape of the country, both through research and policy development. This appointment provides her with an opportunity to do so.

And once her term ends, she said, her goal is to be remembered as a board member who used language to unite South Africans under a common purpose: to make the country a better place.

“As the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis suggests, ‘Language shapes our world view’. Each time we learn a new language; we step into someone else’s world and experience their perspective. In a country like South Africa, with a history of radical injustice, language can be an instrument to bring people together,” she said.