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

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

.Hein Willemse

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

First language movement

The

language movement began in 1875, with the effort by

Stephanus Jacobus du Toit The Reverend Stephanus Jacobus du Toit (9 October 1847 – 29 May 1911) was a controversial South African nationalist, theologian, journalist and failed politician. In his younger years Du Toit did much to promote the Afrikaans language as a s ...

to have Afrikaans recognised as a separate language from

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

. The first Afrikaans newspaper, ''

Die Afrikaanse Patriot ''Die Afrikaanse Patriot'' was the first Afrikaans-language newspaper. The first issue was published in Paarl on 15 January 1876. Initially a monthly magazine, it became a weekly two years later. Even though the first edition had just 50 subscrib ...

'', 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 ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

, 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 The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

churches and ultimately the co-official language of South Africa in 1925.

Third language movement

After

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

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