This is what an isiXhosa-speaking young man I spoke to said to me:
I am worried that for centuries our languages have been a reflection of those cultural distinctions that have made us who we are as a people and, in a sense, have been an element of the many things that have made us strong. Though we have survived centuries of contact and conflict, today we are faced with a crisis that is perhaps more significant than any we have ever faced in our histories. It is the crisis of the loss of our languages, and this crisis has reached a point that if we are not able to effectively pass our languages on to our youth within the next 15 years, we could witness the loss of as much as 85% of the African languages that are still spoken at present.
Under the 1996 Constitution, all of South Africa's official languages "must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably". In practice, English increasingly dominates and is the medium of business, finance, science, the Internet, government, the music industry and much more.
The number of people using a newly found knowledge of different African languages is also dropping while, 17 years into this new South Africa, it should be the opposite. This is cause for concern. Experts at the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town say that at present the vast majority of language experts and lecturers are in their 50s and they are very concerned that there are no others coming after them.
I studied isiZulu at university in KwaZulu-Natal, when I was studying law as a mature student, in the years before coming to Parliament in 1999. Despite making an enthusiastic start and achieving high marks for exams, to my disappointment and shame the isiZulu I learned never dropped successfully from my head to my tongue. In my defence, I was subsequently redeployed into provinces where isiZulu was not a priority.
Other difficulties I encountered, even at university in KwaZulu-Natal, in the rare, brave moments of wanting to practise my isiZulu, included often and unwittingly picking on a foreign student. This was very off-putting. When speaking to ordinary KwaZulu-Natal residents, I would be corrected by people who had a standard-3 education. It seemed my varsity isiZulu just did not say what it was meant to. That was equally confusing! [Time expired.]