Abstract:
Since 1994 the official language status in South Africa went from two state
languages to eleven. This caused English to stand out as the lingua franca of the
wider community and resulted in government using English as the preferred medium
of communication. This is especially the case in the business of law. The legal
practice from the private, public and academic sectors is anglicising at a rapid rate
which means that Afrikaans is diminishing as a legal language and that the nine
additional official languages are not being developed entirely to function at a higher
level. In the light of Anglicisation it begs the question whether it is still useful to teach
Afrikaans as a legal language at tertiary institutions. This article explores the matter
by focusing on the following: the importance of language within the legal profession,
the history of Regsafrikaans, Anglicisation within the legal profession, English as the
only language of record and the expediency of Afrikaans as a legal language. The
authors arrive at the conclusion that it is indeed still important to teach Regsafrikaans
to law students and recommend that law faculties should keep or reinstate this
subject as part of their LLB curriculum.
