AS part of its Constitutional mandate, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) launched the Language Activism Month. The campaign, which is aimed at encouraging South Africans to speak and live their languages and create a more multilingual society, will run until 28 February.

All the activities will be running with the hashtag #SpeakItLiveIt, encouraging all to not just speak their mother tongues, but live the languages.

“As we celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism, it is important that we also reflect on the Republic’s use of all official languages and other languages as enshrined in the Constitution,” said PanSALB chief executive officer Dr Rakwena Mpho Monareng.

It is hoped that, through this campaign, South Africans will acknowledge the importance of preserving African languages while promoting multilingualism.

South Africans can participate in the campaign by speaking their languages, reading a book in their mother tongues and posting their activities on their social media sites using the #SpeakItLiveIt.

“Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing humanity’s tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education, but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding tolerance and dialogue,” Monareng said.