Question NW3774 to the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
14 December 2023 - NW3774
Schreiber, Dr LA to ask the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
(1) Whether the Government regards and upholds the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, also known as the Barcelona Declaration of 6 June 1996, as its lodestar document; if not, with which specified articles and/or aspects of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights does the Government disagree; if so, (2) Whether his department is committed to ensuring that national departments, entities, and national public institutions uphold and implement the principles contained in the declaration through the Use of Official Languages Act, Act 12 of 2012; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
Reply:
(1). PanSALB commemorates Linguistic Human Rights during Human Rights Month, March of each year with various empowerment workshops including the Linguistic Human Rights Public Lecture. This year, PanSALB hosted the public lecture at the Dr. Neville Alexander Building, University of Cape Town on 31 March 2023.The keynote speaker was the retired Judge of the Constitutional Court, Judge Albie Sachs.
PanSALB participates in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) in which it contributes to Articles 13 through 17 which put emphasis on the revitalization, use, development, and transmission to future generations of their languages, oral traditions, writing systems and literatures.
PanSALB further promotes the teaching and learning of Indigenous languages through corpus planning, status planning, and acquisition planning through its various initiatives that include dictionary compilation programmes, spelling and orthography rules, and terminology development. All these programmes are based on the principle that language development occurs when the language is used. Therefore, the concepts of language development and language use are inseparable, as for one to develop a language one must use it.
(2). Section 8(1)(b) of the PanSALB Act empowers the Board to request any organ of state to supply it with the information on any legislative, executive, or administrative measures adopted by it relating to language policy and language practice. In case the organs of the state (especially the language units of the national departments) do not submit the required reports as stipulated in section 8(d) of the Use of Official Languages Act, the Board may invoke section 8(6) of the PanSALB Act which provides that the Board may summon any person to give evidence before it, or to produce any official document or such other information or object as may be necessary for the performance of the Board’s functions.