The National Language Summit recently held in Cape Town represents a significant milestone in South Africa’s ongoing journey towards meaningful multilingualism. Bringing together government leaders, academics, language practitioners, business and civic society, the Summit served as a critical platform to assess the state of the country’s linguistic landscape and to chart a way forward. Its outcomes reflect both a recognition of long-standing challenges and a renewed commitment to practical, transformational, collaborative and impactful solutions.
Three decades after the historic signing of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa on 10 December 1996 at Sharpeville, South Africa’s constitutional promise of multilingualism remains largely unrealised. While the Constitution recognises twelve official languages (including recognition of the heritage of the Khoi and the San indigenous languages of the country) and promotes linguistic equity, implementation has been uneven, eclectic and, in many instances, inadequate. Unfortunately, this Summit was convened against the backdrop of a widely publicised incident during the swearing-in of the Cabinet, which exposed systemic language inequalities. The incident served as a stark reminder that language exclusion continues to undermine access to education, justice, healthcare and basic services.
The evidence presented at the Summit paints a sobering picture. Approximately 73% of state institutions do not have adequate budgets for language services, and only three government departments currently have dedicated senior officials responsible for language implementation as prescribed by the Use of Official Languages Act (2012). These findings underscore the structural nature of the problem and confirm that multilingualism remains an aspirational ideal rather than a resourced and enforced priority.
A central theme that emerged from the Summit is therefore the persistent gap between policy and implementation. The Summit called for a decisive shift towards accountability, resourcing and enforcement. Language policy must move beyond compliance frameworks to measurable, lived outcomes that improve citizens’ daily interactions with all institutions in all spheres of life.
One of the key outcomes of the summit is the adoption of a formal declaration which articulates a shared and renewed national commitment to advancing multilingualism. The declaration is a roadmap for the development of a new comprehensive and inclusive national language policy and the establishment of a national task team that will be responsible for driving implementation. Undergirded by accountability and resource allocation, the declaration was received and acknowledged by the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture.
Education was highlighted as a critical site for transformation. The Summit reaffirmed the importance of mother-tongue-based bilingual education, particularly in the early years of schooling, as a foundation for cognitive development and epistemological success. It also underscored the need to extend the use of African languages into higher education and specialised domains. This requires systematic investment in terminology development, curriculum design, and the training of multilingual educators.
Equally significant was the Summit’s focus on inclusivity and linguistic justice. The deliberate inclusion of Khoi and San languages signals a shift towards recognising historically marginalised communities and restoring their linguistic heritage. This approach moves beyond token representation and embraces co-creation, ensuring that affected communities actively shape the policies and frameworks that impact them.
The role of digital technology emerged as a key enabler of multilingualism in the context of rapid advances in artificial intelligence and digital economies. The Summit underscored the importance of investing in digital language resources, AI solutions and human language technologies that can scale the use of African languages across multiple domains.
To this end, the strategic role of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) as a research infrastructure set up to develop the foundational digital building blocks for all official languages was viewed as central. SADiLaR enables the development of digital multilingual corpora, speech technologies, natural language processing tools and other infrastructure necessary for African languages to participate meaningfully in the digital knowledge economy. The Summit affirmed that the future of multilingualism is inseparable from technological innovation.
The Summit valorised the view that language is a form of social capital, one that can contribute to economic growth, social cohesion and national development. It affirmed the notion that multilingualism is not a constraint, instead presenting it as a strategic asset in a diverse and dynamic society.
The National Language Summit has set the stage for a new phase in the national quest to achieve the full expression of the country’s multilingual commitment as expressed in the Constitution (1996). The turning point is defined by accountability, implementation, and impact. The establishment of a national task team, the adoption of a formal declaration, and the development of a new policy roadmap signals a shift from dialogue to action.
