Petition to recognise Afrikaans as an indigenous language

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The Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, continues to defend his Department’s language policy framework for higher education, which classifies Afrikaans hatefully and unconstitutionally as an “foreign” language.

The DA will not relent in our struggle for the recognition of Afrikaans as an indigenous language.

The DA, together with every person who signs this petition, hereby demands the following from the Minister of Higher Education and Training:

1. The Department of Higher Education and Training must immediately amend the Language Policy Framework for Higher Education to recognize Afrikaans as an indigenous South African language. The Policy Framework currently only recognises languages ​​belonging to the “Southern Bantu language family” as indigenous. This definition is unscientific, contrary to the Constitutional Court’s ruling in the Unisa case, and hurtful and hateful towards the diverse Afrikaans-speaking language community.
2. After the Policy Framework has been amended to recognise Afrikaans’ legitimate status as an indigenous South African language, Minister Nzimande must publicly and unconditionally apologize to the Afrikaans-speaking community for the way in which he undermined their Constitutional rights to dignity, mother tongue education and equality.
3. After Afrikaans’ status as an indigenous language has been recognised, Minister Nzimande must request all public universities – including the University of Stellenbosch – to adapt their language policies in accordance with Afrikaans’ status as a full-fledged indigenous language so that mother tongue instruction in Afrikaans is expanded rather than restricted.

Please sign this petition!