The Afrikaans language movement is one of three efforts that have been organised to promote

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

.Hein Willemse

''theconversation.com'', April 27, 2017.

First language movement

The

language movement began in 1875, with the effort by Stephanus Jacobus du Toit to have Afrikaans recognised as a separate language from Dutch. The first Afrikaans newspaper, '' Die Afrikaanse Patriot'', was first published in 1876.

Second language movement

The second language movement arose after the defeat of the Boers in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902. Spreading from the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

, it led to the ascendancy of Afrikaans over Dutch and replaced the latter as the

medium of instruction A medium of instruction (plural: media of instruction, or mediums of instruction) is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. If the first language of students is different from the offic ...

in schools, the language of the Dutch Reformed churches and ultimately the co-official language of South Africa in 1925.

Third language movement

After

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

ended in 1994, the status of Afrikaans in South Africa was much reduced, and went from equal only to English to just one of 11 official languages, which led to a de facto increased dominance of English in the public sphere. Attempts to reverse this relative marginalisation of Afrikaans have been described as the third language movement.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2017 Language policy in South Africa Afrikaans

First language movement

Second language movement

Third language movement

See also

References