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Multilingual Moments of Truth:
Moments that Define a Person’s Future
Perception of Multilingualism
Dwayne BAILEY
Director, Translate.org.za
(Pretoria, South Africa)
What is a Multilingual Moment of Truth
Walk up to a counter at an airport as an irate customer who has just lost her
baggage. How the airline employee handles the issue could be the defining
moment for you and that airline. You could change your opinion from hate to
love depending on your experience. Depending on that moment of truth.
We also have these moments of truth in language, we might not be aware of
them, but they do exist. The moment a child decided to forget their mother
tongue and speak only a dominant language, that is a moment of truth.
Thinking back on your own life there are these moments, good and bad. Some
examples that Translate.org.za has seen out in the field:
• A teacher telling a passionate Afrikaans linguist that they should
choose another career as there is no money in languages;
• Reading a novel that switches on love for your language;
• A praise singer singing the praises of a president in Xhosa;
• Walking into a library to see an empty Zulu shelf, confirming that
your language really is only for conversing at home;
• Writing a Xhosa poem and seeing every word underlined in red.
This paper covers a number of activities that Translate.org.za, as well as
other members of ANLoc (The African Network for Localisation), have
undertaken that try to change these moments of truth into positive moments
for multilingualism.
Translate.org.za is a South African non-profit organization focused on
removing the barriers that exist in technology that prevent people from
working in their mother tongue. The organisation also works to increase the
volume of content and content platforms that allow mother tongue speakers to
produce local language content.
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