AUC, CAIRO, EGYPT - Monday, April 1st , 2019 - Russell Kaschula, Professor of African

Language Studies, Rhodes University, discussed the relationship and implications between
language and identity within an African context on Monday, April 1st, at Prince Alwaleed Bin
Talaal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall located at the AUC New Cairo Campus.
Professor Kaschula, seemingly appears to be a white, caucasian man. He starts off his
talk by informing the audience that he actually was born and raised in South Africa, a detail
about his him that he finds to confuse lots of people due to his skin color and accent. He
proceeds to share with the crowd about his upbringing into a bilingual family and his
multicultural ancestry in eastern South Africa. He also discusses the concepts of multilingualism
and multiculturalism through his early experience with his family, saying “It’s not what you eat
that makes you, it’s how you speak.” In that same sense, He asks the compelling question of
“Who am I?” continues on to talk about several categories of which we choose from to identify
ourselves, such as culture, religion, and race.
As expected, the confounding question of “Who am I?” opened doors to Professor
Kaschula’s discussions, as he then gives an example of one of his students who identified as
Jewish but spoke fluent isiXhosa (one of the official South African languages) and is well-known
for that. He also mentions the most popular South African export Trevor Noah and how he
questions everyone’s identities and cultural background and identifies people not within the
norm.
Furthermore, Professor Kaschula also introduced the Whorfian Hypothesis, which is the
idea that language determines your perception of reality and identity. He then presents African
languages that make up over 2000 years and talks about language families in Africa, whereas he
uses the fact that South Africa has 11 official languages to back up his claims. Professor
Kaschula also highlights that South Africa has one of the most diverse language policies in the
world, and that English is most common in workplace but isiZulu and isiXhosa are the most
prevalently spoken. He also states that he believes that power and money determine which
language is considered a nation’s standard, and gives the example of Tanzania switching from
English to Swahili based on president and money flow.
The South African Professor ended his talk with a Q&A session, with questions like
“How did your upbringing influence your choice of study” and “What advice would you give to
people to feel confident enough to embrace both their identities and languages?,” to which he
responded that it was due to his upbringing that he wanted to study languages and become a
lawyer, and that it was important for him to remain true to himself through several periods of his
life. And, when asked “How did Professor Russell’s talk change your perception on your own
language and identity?” attendee Youssif Adam, Master’s Student in Environmental Engineering
at AUC, answered that he felt that it was pretty relevant and similar to what is happening in
Sudan (where he’s from) and how people say that one needs to speak Arabic and not any other
language.