Pan South African Language Board disheartened by Charlize Theron’s ‘disregard’ for Afrikaans

The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) has responded to Charlize Theron's recent comments about the Afrikaans language.

This after the South African-born and US-based Hollywood star joked about the culture during her interview on the SmartLess podcast, saying “there's about 44 people still speaking” Afrikaans and calling it “a dying language”.

The PanSALB released a statement labelling her comments as disparaging and misleading.

The board shared a report by the Stats South Africa Community Survey of 2018 revealing Afrikaans is the third most spoken language in the country, which makes up 12.2% of the population.

The board implored the The School for Good and Evil star to “pay due regard to the Constitutional imperatives that promote social cohesion” and focus her attention on socioeconomic issues that affect the continent. 

The statement said: "The comments made by Ms Theron perpetuate the persistent misconception that Afrikaans is only spoken by white ‘boere’ South Africans, which could not be farther from the truth as 60% of people who speak the language are black.

“Furthermore, Afrikaans maintains its official status in terms of the Constitution and is utilised in several cross governmental communications and used as a medium of instruction in South African schools. By her own admission, Ms Theron was taught through our schooling system in her mother tongue, which built the foundation of her rather illustrious career.”