BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Original version

BBC World Service East Asia

Assignment

Factual

Investigations and journeys into the heart of global events from BBC correspondents.

Assignment: Speaking for themselves

Documentaries

News

Children in Lavender Hill, South Africa

13/07/2023 GMT

Speaking for themselves

BBC World Service - Assignment, Speaking for themselves

In South Africa, cultural activists are determined to reclaim a language – Afrikaaps

In South Africa, cultural activists are determined to reclaim a language – Afrikaaps – to restore the dignity and pride of a once disenfranchised Cape Flats community.

Kaaps is a language widely spoken in the bleak townships of Cape Town, South Africa.  It’s often denigrated as a lesser form of Afrikaans – the language that was used as a tool of white supremacy during the apartheid era.  Spoken predominately by working class people on the Cape Flats, Kaaps is associated with negative stereotypes – its speakers denigrated as uneducated, "ghetto" layabouts involved in gang culture.

But a new, burgeoning movement led by hip-hop artists, academics, writers and film makers is actively changing that perception. They want to reclaim Afrikaaps to restore the linguistic, cultural and racial dignity of a formerly disenfranchised people. The writer Lindsay Johns travels to Cape Town to meet the activists determined to assert the worth and pride of the people who speak Afrikaaps.

Presenter: Lindsay Johns
Producers: Audrey Brown and Tim Mansel 
Mixed by Neil Churchill
Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
Series Editor: Penny Murphy

(Image: Children in Lavender Hill, a township on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Assignment

Speaking for themselves

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service