PanSALB and the Lexicography Developments of the South African Official Languages – A Critical Survey

Abstract

Before 1994 South Africa had only two
official languages, i.e. English and Afrikaans. The
1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
declared all the eleven South African languages
official, i.e. English, Afrikaans, Sesotho sa Leboa,
Setswana, Sesotho, Isizulu, Isindebele, Isixhosa,
Isiswati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga. English and
Afrikaans, which used to dominate all walks of life
before 1994, were, and still are, far more developed
than the other nine indigenous Languages in the
country. The new government considered as one of its
top priorities, the development of the nine previously
marginalized indigenous languages to bridge the gap
between these marginalized languages and the other
two languages, i.e. English & Afrikaans. In order to
monitor and to develop all the official languages, the
Constitution provided for the establishment of a Pan
South African Language Board (PanSALB) which,
henceforth, replaced all the previous Language
Boards, which were structured on the basis of race
and ethnicity. To facilitate this development,
PanSALB was given, as one of its various
constitutional assignments, a mandate to establish the
National Lexicography Units for all the eleven South
African official languages to compile dictionaries for
the respective languages. The main objective with this
research is to give critical assessment of the extent to
which the Pan South African Language Board
succeeded in developing lexicography for the South
African official languages. This assessment will be
based on the successes and challenges PanSALB had
in the execution of its mandate during the 18 years of
a liberated South Africa, and the significances of this
to the development of multilingualism in South
Africa.