The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) has welcomed the inclusion of Khoi and San indigenous names within the Home Affairs system as announced by the department. This comes after decades of challenges faced by the Khoi and San community with registering their indigenous names due to the technical orthographies and unique writing system associated with Khoi and San languages, which the Home Affairs system had difficulties capturing.
These limitations created issues for the community, often compelling many to alter the spelling of their names, adopt other forms of writing or in some instances change their name entirely. Such changes frequently resulted in the loss or distortion of cultural meaning and identity.
“The constitution obligates the state to take positive and practical measure to redress the injustices of the past. We believe that this development is a significant and progressive step towards reaffirming the linguistic and cultural rights of the Khoi & San community. As Africans, we believe that our names connect us to those that came before us, they carry our history and identity. Much like our languages, our names form the essence of who we are and how we present ourselves to the world. PanSALB acknowledges this single act by the Department of Home Affairs as a restorative measure that has reaffirmed the dignity of the Khoi & San community and represents an advancement for our collective humanity” said PanSALB Acting CEO, Mr Julius Dantile.
In light of this important breakthrough for the community, PanSALB urges not only the Khoi & San communities but all indigenous African languages communities whose names and surnames are misspelt to ensure that all names submitted to Home Affairs conform to the standard spelling and orthography rules of the language. In the event of uncertainties on the correctness of spelling and orthographies, PanSALB can be contacted to provide support and/or referral to the relevant structures who can assist with the standardised writing system.
About PanSALB
The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) is a constitutional body mandated to create conditions for the recognition, implementation and furtherance of multilingualism in the Republic of South Africa, and the development of previously marginalised languages.
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