Charlize Theron: She said Afrikaans are “dying” and caused a stir

A storm of reactions in her hometown South Africa brought by the Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron which argued that Afrikaans, the language derived from Dutch settlers, is headed for oblivion.

“There are about 44 people who still speak the language – it’s definitely a dying language, not very useful” the actress said last week on the American podcast Smartless.

Many South Africans with their posts on Twitter expressed outrage and argued that the language, one of South Africa’s 11 official languages, is spoken by 12% of the population.

“What a disrespectful comment on the millions of South Africans of all ages, all races…who speak Afrikaans as their first language!” one Twitter user commented.

Jawaahier Petersen, an Afrikaans soap opera actor in South Africa, told News24: “I wouldn’t say the language is dying. I think we’re at a nice stage in our country now, it’s almost like we’re having a renaissance of the Afrikaans language.”

“People say they own the language, but it doesn’t belong to a certain group of people, the language belongs to the people who speak it. I don’t think it is dying, the standard or standard version of the language has now taken a new form and this is a beautiful development for this country,” he estimated, as reported by the Athens News Agency.

However, several Twitter users agreed with Charlize Theron, noting that “Africans have a strong association with apartheid” and that “they were once used to oppress Africans”.

“Thank you Charlize Theron, this… racist language is dying and we shouldn’t even acknowledge it,” read one comment.

“Charlize Theron is a legend. Indeed Afrikaans is a dead language. It belongs to the past. It was a tool to oppress Africans,” notes another user.

The actress was born in Benoni, a suburb 40 kilometers east of Johannesburg and moved to the US almost 30 years ago. She said she didn’t speak English until she was 19 because “no one” in her neighborhood knew English, but the Afrikaans language.

“Afrikaans became the language that polarized people under apartheid”

“Afrikaans is an African language that was created here in Africa, but it became the language that polarized people under apartheid,” Professor Pitika Ntuli, an artist and cultural analyst, told the BBC.

The imposition of the language in schools was the main reason behind the 1976 Soweto uprising against the apartheid regime, in which at least 170 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed, he said.

It is the mother tongue of 13% of South Africans, mainly white South Africans descended from Dutch, German and French settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 17th century as well as residents of different ethnic origins.

During apartheid, only English, Dutch and Afrikaans were official state languages ​​and indigenous languages ​​were banned, but when white rule ended in 1994 South Africa adopted 11 official languages.