The origins and propagation of English in South Africa

The Cape Colony

British ships en route to the East in the 18^th century were frequent visitors to the Cape, which was then an invaluable trading and refreshment station under Dutch control. After the French Revolution of 1789–1791, republican France overran the territories of the royalist Netherlands and laid claim to all its colonies and territories, including the strategically positioned Cape colony. Britain perceived this as a threat to (their interests at) the Cape, and in 1795 a British fleet landed at the Cape, having driven back the Dutch defenders, and laid claim to the territory. The Netherlands briefly re-established sovereignty as the Batavian Republic, upon which the Cape was returned; but in 1806 the Napoleonic Wars again saw the Netherlands subjugated to France, and Britain once more launched a successful assault on the Cape, this time proclaiming a colony and installing a governor. The Cape was formally surrendered to Britain in 1814.

Seeking to establish the Cape as a viable colony, Britain launched a settlement programme in which approximately 4500 Britons were landed at Algoa Bay in the eastern Cape in 1820 and 1821. The 1820 Settlers, as they came to be known, were mainly working class people drawn from all over Britain. While their speech was homogenously L1 English, they spoke a large variety of regional dialects, rather than RP. The Settlers were given land for farming, and came to live in close contact with their Dutch neighbors. Within two generations, the regional dialect distinctions had been levelled (Lanham 1982: 325).

In 1822, English was proclaimed as the sole official language of the Cape Colony, supplanting Dutch in almost all public spheres. The British colony expanded rapidly, and Settlers were dogged by conflict with indigenous peoples, into whose territory the colony was now intruding. Moreover, political tensions between Dutch and English settlers continued to mount, leading to the Great Trek of 1834–1836, in which Dutch settlers left the Cape Colony in large numbers to escape British rule and seek autonomy elsewhere. The ‘Trekkers’ pushed northwards and eastwards, establishing three territories: the ‘South African Republic’, which later became known as Transvaal; the Orange River Sovereignty, later Orange Free State, and Natalia. While Dutch became the official language of these territories, a competency in English remained a hallmark of good education (Lanham 1982: 325).