THE LANGUAGE QUESTION IN SOUTH AFRICA. (To TRH EDITOR OF
THE "SPECTATOR.")
8111,—I think it a great pity that Mr. Lionel Phillips in his paper read at the Royal Colonial Institute on "The Outlook in South Africa" should have gone out of his way to say anything about the language question in the Dominion of Canada. In that country the compromise arrived at long ago has, according to all available testimony, worked well, and I .hardly think that an adverse criticism of it came with much force from a lecturer on South Africa. In your article on "Some South African Problems" in the Spectator of June 16th you observed with a sense of truth and fairness no one can possibly dispute: "Look, again, at Canada. Can it be said that the results of treating the French language
with scrupulous justice have been anything but good ? " But with all due deference to the admirable Canadian prece- dent on the subject of language, may I be allowed to suggest that the language question in South Africa is neither in itself nor in its historical and political bearings exactly on all fours with the same great ques- tion in Canada!' To the French-Canadians of the Quebec valley their language has always meant a classical survival and a.patriotic treasure associated with the best and most glorious traditions of monarchical France. It has also been deeply intertwined with the Roman Catholic religion, a very strong and vital point with them. In Canada that bit of "old France" and of the Old World spirit (so dear to the arclueologica mind and so attractive to the historic sense) which struck De Tocqueville by the way it peeped out in the habits of mind and modes of expression he saw during his travels amongst the French-Canadian peasantry, is something very different from anything which can be conjured up in South Africa. We know how charmed De Tocqueville was to hear the Canadian nuns speaking of " notre bon pere George Quatre," as the ladies of St. Cyr might have spoken of Louis Quatorze, and how fascinated he was when he heard on the Saguenaw a Canadian-Indian singing a song of old France as he rowed him down the river. Here, in truth, was a most interesting and picturesque phase of Colonial Transatlantic history, and we feel inclined to exclaim, "Long may picturesque old France linger in Quebec and in the homesteads of Acadia!" Indeed, has not Longfellow done much amongst English-speaking people to perpetuate that side of French Colonial life ? We turn to South Africa, and what do we find there? Not a language, but a local patois of a mest jejune description, without a line of poetry or a single page of classical learning! To speak frankly, the Afrikander Taal, with its limited vocabulary and offensive nomenclature, is a disgrace amongst dialectical corruptions. All the efforts made hitherto to elevate this language of the kitchen and make it resemble Euro- pean Dutch have been a failure. What is called "High Dutch" at the Cape is simply the Dutch of some of the schools, of the Dutch theological seminaries, and of the Dutch Law Courts, but it is not heard in the market-places; nor, indeed, are the Dutch Members of Parliament acquainted, as a rule, with this
so-called High Dutch. In the Cape Colony it has been extremely difficult, from the point of view of the educa- tionist, to deal with a classical language like English on the one hand, and Dutch text-books on the other, which have no real or even sentimental meaning in a British Colony. To complete the confusion, those who clamour most loudly for Dutch are the descendants of French Huguenots, whose language was stamped out utterly by the Dutch Nether- lands Trading Company at the Cape about two hundred years ago. There is another point on this extremely im- portant language question which, surely, has been over- looked. For the greater part of the nineteenth century English was practically the sole official language in the Cape Colony, and was also spoken very generally in the late Boer States. In the Cape Colony no grievance worth speaking about was ever alleged by the Dutch against the official use of English. The demand for bilingualism arose in this Colony during the time of the Scanlen Ministry, after the Majuba surrender of 1:11, and was a distinct consequence of that surrender. I was living in the Cape Colony at the time, and well remember the perfect surprise with which this trumped- up motion for the use of Dutch in Parliament was received by a large number of Colonists, not excluding the Dutch voters. It was an Afrikander Bond idea, and subsequent events have shown us clearly enough that the " Taal " question has been one of the planks of the Bond platform. Now, Sir, I do say that in view of this political development the language question in South Africa is really very different from that in Canada. In South Africa an attempt has been made to use the Taal question amongst ignorant and uneducated Boers as a political lever against the paramount Power. If we turn over the pages of certain copies in past years of Die Patriot and of the issues of Ons Land now we shall understand this. Supposing that French-Canadians had ever used their language as an instrument of malice and as a medium of disloyalty against England, and had gone so far as to make the language ques- tion itself part and parcel of a political programme meaning a boycotting of British trade and the ultimate expulsion of Great Britain from Canada as a political power, would they have been allowed to retain the privilege of this language, graceful and classical as it was ? The answer will be " No !" In South Africa we are not bound to make further concessions to those men who have already proved themselves utterly incapable of appreciating the spirit in which Great Britain makes concessions. To put the matter strongly and clearly, why should we make a present of a knife to those men who have so openly proved themselves anxious to be our executioners in South Africa ? There is yet another point in the language question in South Africa which does not occur in Canada. If we are going to be scrupulously fair in dealing with this language question we must also consider the vast number of natives coming under our rule. Why should we not acknowledge Kaffir as an official language? It has higher claims than "kitchen Dutch" to the majesty of an official tongue. Then there will be a trilingual difficulty in South Africa! But does not the polyglot condition of South Africa point to the expediency of having one language only in official use,—the English language, the lingua franca of commerce all over the world am, Sir, &c.,
Wirzwa GRESWELL, M.A. Oxon and MA. Cape University.
[Our correspondent puts his case very well, but recollecting Bohemia, we cannot agree.—En. Spectator.]
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