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When the first truly democratic election in South Africa in 1994 was
won by the African National Congress (ANC) and Nelson Mandela stepped
into the Presidential position after many long years of isolation on
Robben Island, everyone was pretty sure that things were set for a big
change. But none expected to go to bed in one place and wake up in
another Yet millions did. Historically, South Africa has been host to a vast number of nationalities and cultures. Before officially colonized in 1652 by the Dutch explorer Jan van Riebeeck, it was home to a large number of black nations. Yes, nations. Not tribes, as many may think, but nations. They had their own cultures, their own languages and -- fairly often -- partook in the age old tradition of killing each other, much like their European counterparts. They also mostly arrived here from elsewhere (being Central Africa) and took over vast tracts of land from the San people. And then along came the Dutch, with the English and French not far behind. In short, before long what was going to be little more than a way station at the southern tip of the Dark Continent became a country flooded by a huge diversity of cultures. History happened and we get to the fateful 1994 elections some way down the track. After the elections and the shift in the power balance of the country from minority to majority, one of the first adjustments made to the laws of the country was to re-evaluate the official languages spoken in South Africa. It went from two being English and the Dutch derived Afrikaans to eleven. Yep, count them -- Eleven: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sepedi (or Northern Sotho), Sotho Tswana, Swazi, Venda and Tsonga. This caused something of a system shock, especially to the public television broadcaster, who now faced the nightmare of producing daily news broadcasts in all the languages listed. Of course, these languages all held historical significance. Notably, the San language is conspicuously absent from the list. It does appear on the new national coat of arms as the motto (!ke e: /xarra //ke) but no one can pronounce what it says. Perhaps thats why San isnt an official language. And the changes did not end there South African coat of arms As with most countries that were once colonies of European nations, a fervent desire to reidentify the country broke out. The quickest method to do this was, obviously, changing place names other than getting a new flag, of course. Genocide was another option and, being a white South African, I am very happy to say that it was a path not decided on. But I digress. Back to new names for old places. One night the residents of Pretoria, the capital city went to bed, only to wake up the next morning strangely relocated to a place called Swane which still looked a hell of a lot like Pretoria, strangely enough. I used to drive along D F Malan drive to get to work, and almost got lost when it was suddenly called Beyers Naude drive. I had to supply all my friends with old directions with new names to reach my house. Continued On Next Page (Names and their meanings, Page 2) ... AUTHOR: Walt Pretorius  TAGS: Culture election africa BOOKMARK: Digg it | Add to Del.ICIO | Add to FARK ACTIONS: Comment Save Print Register free acount 
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