Law and Language in a Multilingual Society

Terence McKenna, in Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, said that he did not believe thatthe world is made of quarks or electro-magnetic waves, or stars, or planets, or of anysuch things. ’I believe’ he said, ‘the world is made of language.’ It would have beenmore correct to have said that the world is made of languages, many of them.The subject, Law and Language in a Multilingual Society, raises critical issues notonly for us in this country but also for others because language is part – the greaterpart – of one's culture. A people without a culture is said to be like a zebra withoutstripes. Culture, and not race, nationality, religion or border (natural or political),determines one's identity. As one of the founding fathers of the Afrikaans language,Rev SJ du Toit, wrote in 1891: language is a portrait of the soul and life of a nation;and it mirrors the character and intellectual development of a people (my translation).Unfortunately language tends to divide, more particularly, a multilingual society. Lawis supposed to close the divide but more often than not widens it and is used todeepen divisions. This is because the ruler determines the law and, consequently,the language of the law, in the belief that the use of language can be enforced fromabove. Law and language, like oil and water, do not mix although the former isdependent on the latter.