THE FUTURE OF THE TAAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13030, 22 November 1905, Page 4

THE FUTURE OF THE TAAL.

Amongst the various South African questions which threaten to keep alive the antagonism between Briton and Boer that of language has been commonly regarded as the chief. But although only ■ a short time, has elapsed since the Peace, there are not wanting signs that the prospects of danger from this source have been greatly overestimated. The compromise which has been arrived at, that the Taal shall be used in the teaching of elementary subjects, but that English shall be the medium in the more advanced subjects, is not what „the Boers claimed, and is said to be unsatisfactory to them. But there is a singula* want of enthusiasm and energy in defence of language by the very mep who made such prodigious sacrifices on behalf of nationality. Already the more intelligent appear to realise that English must be the language of

education, and this realisation has dampened the ardour ,of those who believed with Oom Paul that there should be no learning outside of the Scriptures. Miss Olive Schreiner, the best known writer in South Africa, and an ardent pro-Boer, .has always maintained that the Taal is an impossible tongue, and doomed to extinction. She based this opinion upon the fact that it is an undeveloped dialect, quite wanting in power of literary expression; and she pointed out that there was in it absolutely no literature worthy of the name. It would therefore appear certain that with the spread of education in the Boer colonies the imperative necessity of using a tongue by which wider thoughts and broader knowledge can. be expressed will force English upon the most reluctant. It will not take more than, a decade to fill these colonies with young men and women who have passed through schools in which English had been made the key to knowledge. The time is so short that it is hardly possible to conceive of any reaction within the period, particularly as with the quick passage of the months and years the : question more and more settles itself.