Education, multilingualism and bilingualism in Botswana

Abstract

Botswana is a multilingual country. It has about 28 languages (see Anderson, Lars-Gunnar & Tore Janson. 1997. Languages in Botswana. Gaborone: Longman Botswana). Although multilingualism breeds bilingualism or vice versa, bilingualism in Botswana is not as extensive and as widespread among the 28 languages. It is mostly concentrated amongst certain groups of people and a limited number of languages. This paper interrogates the pattern of bilingualism in Botswana and the role that education plays in shaping it. Further, the paper examines the extent to which the pattern of bilingualism in Botswana fits into Liddicoat, Anthony. 1991. Bilingualism and bilingual education. NLIA Occasional Paper 2. 1-21 folk and elite bilingualism categories. The paper argues that even though bilingualism in Botswana is fostered by education, it is not elite. Most bilinguals in Botswana are speakers of minority languages who feel obliged to learn English and Setswana. There are not many speakers of English who also speak Setswana and not many speakers of Setswana who also speak the minority languages. The paper hights one of the inadequacies of multilingualism, its inability to create equality and interrelationship between languages. This paper argues that the pattern of bilingualism found in Botswana is asymmetrical and is heavily influenced by the socio-economic-cultural power relations that exist in the country. Thus, the pattern of bilingualism that is found in Botswana does not support multilingualism, instead it is detrimental to it.