CNN
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Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron is going through fierce complaint in South Africa after announcing her mom tongue, Afrikaans, is “a demise language.”
The “Monster” and “Tully” megastar made the feedback on Monday’s episode of the “Smartless” podcast, announcing that the language that she grew up talking was once fading out.
Theron, 47, who printed she handiest realized to talk English fluently when she moved to the US at 19, stated there’s “about 44 other folks nonetheless talking” Afrikaans.
“It’s unquestionably a demise language, it’s no longer an excessively useful language,” she instructed hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.
Theron’s remarks quickly sparked a social media debate in South Africa. Whilst some branded her ill-informed, others agreed that Afrikaans was once a “lifeless language.”
“Charlize Theron is a legend!” one Twitter commentator wrote. “Certainly Afrikaans is a lifeless language. It belongs prior to now. It’s a device as soon as used to oppress Africans.”
Any other Twitter consumer stated: “This commentary was once made through Charlize Theron to soothe Hollywood. I don’t concur along with her. As with every different languages, the Afrikaans language will have to be preserved.”
Tim Theron, a South African actor and director of no relation to Theron, commented underneath a clip of the podcast shared on Instagram: “We’re extraordinarily pleased with Charlize and the whole thing she has accomplished … however we’re additionally very pleased with our variety and our wonderful and lovely legit languages, of which Afrikaans is one.
“It’s no longer a ‘demise language’, and it’s no longer handiest spoken through 44 other folks. It’s spoken through tens of millions of other folks, there are new songs and poems being written on a daily basis, films made and so forth.”
CNN has contacted Theron’s representatives for additional remark.
On Thursday, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), which was once set as much as advertise multilingualism within the nation, spoke back with a commentary calling Theron’s feedback “aggravating,” including that stats display Afrikaans is the 3rd maximum spoken language within the nation.
“Those feedback made through Ms Theron perpetuate the chronic false impression that Afrikaans is handiest spoken through white ‘boere’ South Africans, which might no longer be further from the reality as 60% of the folks that talk the language are black,” the commentary stated.
The PanSALB went on so as to add that Theron was once held in prime regard through South Africa and had to “proceed the commendable paintings of the use of her platform to spotlight one of the vital vital socioeconomic problems that impact the continent together with the significance of collaborating in public existence the use of one’s mom tongue.”
Afrikaans, a language first presented through Dutch colonial settlers and imposed on non-whites through the apartheid regime, is certainly one of 11 legit languages identified in South Africa. It comprises phrases from Asian Malay, Malagasy, Khoi, San, Xhosa, French and Portuguese.