The Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 ( ), was an Act of the

Parliament of South Africa The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature. It is located in Cape Town; the country's legislative capital city, capital. Under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameralism, bicameral Parliamen ...

that included

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 ...

as a variety of the

Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...

. The Act commenced on 27 May 1925, but deemed to have had effect since the creation of the Union in 1910, having the effect of making Afrikaans an official language of the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...

since that date.

Background

Ambiguity

The South Africa Act of 1909—the constitution of the Union—declared the English and Dutch languages to be the state's official languages. Part 8, section 137, of the South Africa Act read:

Provision

Doubts soon arose about the status of the

Afrikaans language Afrikaans is a 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 that speaks the Patagonian dialect. It evolved from the Dutc ...

and whether its status as a Dutch

daughter language In historical linguistics, a daughter language, also known as descendant language, is a language descended from another language, its mother language, through a process of genetic descent. If more than one language has developed from the same pro ...

implied it to be on equal footing. The single substantive provision of the Official Languages Act reads:

Repeal

The South Africa Act and the Official Languages Act were repealed by the Constitution of 1961, which reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch. Subsequently, English and Afrikaans were the official languages, and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed any mention of Dutch altogether.

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

* " Official Language of the Union Act, 1925" at

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{{Authority control 1925 in South African law Repealed South African legislation