No abstract

This study explored the role played by economic, cultural, and political power and influence when a particular dialect was elevated to the status of an official standard language. This was a qualitative study that employed text analysis where journal articles, dissertations, theses, academic books and Parliamentary Joint Constitutional Review minutes were considered for data collection and analysis. In order to supplement the above-mentioned method, 267 research participants involving students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and lecturers from the selected five South African universities, including members of the language authorities, were also invited to participate in the study. Self-administered survey questionnaires and face-to-face interviews were chosen as qualitative methods for data collection. From a dialectal point of view, this study indicated that all official standard languages were dialects before. However, these dialects were considered superior and elevated to the status of official languages because of socio-economic power and political influence. This article further recorded that the status type of language planning in the South African context is quite political in nature, not less linguistic. It was against this background that the researchers claim that there is no official standard language that was not a dialect before.

The study embraced the onomastic possibility of renaming the Sepedi and Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho) language names that have caused and are still causing onomastic confusion to the first language (L1) speakers of the language under scrutiny, and also to the speakers of other languages. The study was conducted in 2019 at five selected South African universities – University of Johannesburg, University of South Africa, University of Limpopo, University of Venda and Tshwane University of Technology – which offered the language under investigation as an L1 module. In addition, language experts (practitioners) at the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) and its sub-structures and the National Department of Arts and Culture, including Limpopo and Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, were also involved in the study. Quota sampling was used to select all the 267 participants in the study. The study found that both Sepedi and Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho) language names are rejected by onomastic principles of naming an official language. An overwhelming majority of the participants opined that this language should be renamed, with the anticipation that the new name will bring peace, unity and solidarity to the L1 speakers of Sepedi.

The primary focus of this article is the onomastic discrepancies that are considered a blatant disregard of Section 6 (1) of the Constitution of South Africa (Act No. 108 of 1996). The article employs a qualitative research approach where text analysis is used, focusing on constitutional documentation, legislative frameworks on language-related matters and higher education policy documentations, as well as language policy documentation from the selected 10 South African universities that offered Sepedi as a first language or conversational module. It is found that there is a constitutional disregard by competent organisations such as universities, financial institutions, Google and language authorities (such as Pan South African Language Board, Sesotho sa Leboa National Language Body and Sesotho sa Leboa National Lexicography Unit), since most of the policies are inconsistent with Section 6 (1) of the South African Constitution, 1996. In summary, the article records that the policies supersede the Constitution, since the language name ‘Northern Sotho/Sesotho sa Leboa’ is the most used name to refer to the official standard language rather than its counterpart, Sepedi.