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Language The life and breath of every human being is, his mother tongue and Tamil is no different to those indentured labor that arrived in Natal. At the time of their arrival in South African the Tamils from arrived from the Madras Presidency spoke fluent Tamil and were roughly categorized into three groups :
The Tamil language dates back some 5000 years and is recorded in history. The language has since been declared a classical language thanks to the Indian Government. The Tamilians of India and South Africa share a common identity for a number of reasons. The medium of instruction in educational institution and medium of communication in business is Tamil, where as in South African our medium of education from the time of arrival of our forefathers was English and later Afrikaans. If the medium was done through our mother tongue we would not have not lost the beauty of our language. The Tamil Nadu province is the only province that can assist Tamils in KwaZulu-Natal to uphold their language and cultural heritage. Since our grandparents originated from India there is still an emotional relationship with the people of Tamil Nadu. Although most of the South Africans are unable to trace their maternal and paternal grass root in India we still endeavor to maintain cultural, linguistic and religious ties with Tamil Nadu. This is so because during the height of apartheid we were not permitted to travel and learn about our rich cultural heritage. We had only our forefathers to enrich us with their knowledge many of whom had very limited information on the language and further the Tamil language was not used as a means to communicate with other race groups in Natal.. They were not able to obtain assistance from qualified Tamil teachers from Tamil Nadu due to the voluntary obedience of sanctions by the Tamil people. As this was the only medium of communications many learnt the language and a need was identified to teach young children. Having being deprived of education in our mother tongue at state school levels , several private Tamil Schools were established . Although these were based as part of Adult Basic Education Training no examinations were written. As a result of this venture several Tamil Schools mushroomed and operated as independent entities. Because of the apartheid special notices written in the Tamil language was placed as notice boards at Railway stations, toilets , subways etc to prevent them from using facilities reserved for the white community. One of the sign boards near the Harbor subway still exists to date. As the influence of English and Afrikaans gained momentum through government schools in South Africa and the loss of contact with Tamil Nadu , the language slowly but surely lost its appeal. Young people no longer spoke Tamil and its appeal continued to wane among the community. This was further exacerbated by the fact that sanctions were applied in South Africa and Tamil movies were no longer brought to the country. The more than 12 cinemas that operated in the Indian suburbs around Durban , ceased to operate. This has had a serious impact as Tamilians were now subjected to other forms of entertainment such as English movies. Through the grace of Tamil organizations and individuals many have ben trained in Tamil Nadu to teach Tamil in South Africa. Many Tamilians have now seen the need the learn the language and are now ensuring that their children learn the language. A concerted effort is being made to extend the program wider to all communities. The South African Government has also introduced Tamil lessons to schools that are predominantly in Indian areas. More than 60 000 children have taken up this offer including African children. Our assessment is that more and more Tamil people are desperate to learn the language. The South African Tamil Federation has with the assistance of Tamil organizations have developed a special curricula for our schools. The President of South Africa, Mr Thabo Mbeki has acknowledged that Tamil must be taught at schools and has given us tremendous moral and political support. Since the visit of the President to our Tamil New Year celebrations more and more people are showing a keen interest to learn Tamil. One of the pitfalls of teaching Tamil in schools is that there are insufficient trained teachers to take this course forward. Many of them have a basic matric qualification and can only assist in training children. We are hoping that with renewed contact with Madras University and Virtual University we will be able to make a better impact. We are hoping that the Tamil Nadu Government will able to assist us in furthering our commitment to educate our people in Tamil. We are very firmly focused in ensuring the promotion of spoken Tamil. The availability of reading material in Tamil has also contributed to the loss of the language. We have now developed our own syllabus to assist with teaching the language in government schools as well as at our private run schools. Go to page: [The South African Indian] Language [Culture] [Religion] |
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