The event in the University’s South Campus Auditorium was organised by the Faculty of Humanities’ School of Language, Media and Communication (LMC) in partnership with the Cultural Rights and Linguistics (CRL) Rights Commission.
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From left, Dr Zakhile Somlata (Languages and Literatures HoD), Dr Jacqui Luck (Deputy Dean of Humanities), Commissioner Xolisa Donna Makoboka, Prof Pamela Maseko (Humanities Executive Dean), Dr Portia Tswanani (CRL Rights Commission), Lidon Chauke (Linguistics & Applied Linguistics lecturer) & Gideon Brunsdon (Geosciences lecturer).
From left, CRL Commissioner Xolisa Donna Makoboka and Professors Subeshini Moodley and Pamela Maseko
Addressing the theme, Using Technology for Multilingual Learning: Challenges and Opportunities, CRL Commissioner Xolisa Donna Makoboka warned that language survival is increasingly shaped by the digital sphere.
The limited presence of indigenous languages online, she noted, signals their vulnerability. Yet technology also offers tools to develop indigenous-language apps, digitise oral histories and expand multilingual academic resources. She urged young people to take pride in their linguistic identities and to strengthen their languages’ digital presence.
Commissioner Makoboka stressed the value of mother tongue-based education in early schooling, explaining that a strong foundation in one’s first language supports the acquisition of others.
“Language is a repository of memory, a carrier of ancestral wisdom, a transmitter of culture and a foundation of identity,” she said.
Origins and collaboration
In her welcome address, Professor Subeshini Moodley Director of the School of LMC traced the origins of International Mother Tongue Day to the deaths of four students in Dhaka, Bangladesh, who were killed while demanding recognition of Bangla as a state language.
“This collaboration with the CRL Rights Commission needs to grow into ongoing programmatic interaction and beyond annual commemorations. Mobilising intellectual engagement in these spaces ensures the participation of youth voices in these discussions,” she said.
From policy to practice
Dr Zakhile Somlata, Head of the Department of Languages and Literatures, reflected on the shift from the pre-democratic recognition of only English and Afrikaans to South Africa’s current 12 official languages. While the Constitution mandates practical measures to elevate their use, he argued that policy alone is insufficient.
“More work to be done in all domains to transform multilingualism from policy ideals into a practical reality,” he said.
In higher education, he noted progress such as the establishment of language centres and the forthcoming Multilingual Hub at Mandela University. Recognising students’ linguistic and cultural resources, he said, affirms identity and promotes equitable access. He cited the University’s distinction as one of the first to award a PhD written entirely in isiXhosa.
“When we recognise and use the resources that students bring to the University, we empower them to navigate local and global challenges with confidence,” he said.
Language, power and redistribution
Professor Pamela Maseko, Executive Dean of Humanities, examined the link between language and power. Although 12 languages hold official status, she argued that recognition without redistribution of power is inadequate.
“Recognition is not redistribution. Recognition is acknowledgement, whereas redistribution means sharing spaces of power,” she said.
Universities risk marginalising knowledge systems when they overlook the intellectual traditions embedded in students’ languages.
She noted that Mandela University recognises English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa as languages of learning and teaching, with a commitment to developing African languages for academic use.
“African languages were intellectually robust long before colonial intervention and had cultural and scientific terminology to name concepts in botany, zoology, cosmology, ornithology for example, only for colonialism and apartheid to de-intellectualised them.
“What is required now is not reinvention, but their re-intellectualisation and scientific development within contemporary academic contexts,” she said, emphasising that English is not knowledge itself, but a language through which knowledge is conveyed, and any language has the ability to convey knowledge.
Digital dependency and knowledge ownership
Prof Maseko also warned that digital technologies can reproduce inequality when infrastructure and data ownership remain concentrated outside Africa. This creates dependency and limits control over narratives and knowledge.
She cited the example of 19th-century Eastern Cape newspapers digitised abroad, with local scholars required to pay for access. Such cases raise questions about ownership, profit and the positioning of African languages in global systems.
“Feeding information into global digital systems without ownership or control risks reproducing unintended dependency,” she cautioned.
Digital inclusion in practice
A closing panel explored practical strategies for digital inclusion, including the creation of a multilingual YouTube channel to support language learning by Ntombebongo Peteni, from the Faculty of Education.
The panel agreed that technology can entrench exclusion or advance inclusion, depending on how it is designed and governed. In the digital era, multilingualism involves not only translation but also access, participation and power.
The programme also featured an opening prayer by representatives of the Khoi and San Houses and a performance by the Xhosa Student Society, celebrating South Africa’s linguistic diversity and reaffirming the importance of actively sustaining mother tongues.