Coronavirus Health Care Communication in Endangered Languages of Southern Africa

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020 has caused social and economic distress worldwide (Sohrabi et al. 2020). In this wake of new government regulations, national lockdowns and isolation, speakers of minority languages are at risk of being excluded from important health care communication (Sood, 2020). In an attempt to solve this exclusion, the Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF) initiated an international effort to provide health care information in endangered languages of southern Africa. This is a collaborative effort among community members as well as local and international researchers and volunteers. The languages provided for so far in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa are: Afrikaans, OtjiHerero, Himba, Ju|’hoansi, Naro, G|ui, G||ana, Omaheke Ju|’hoansi, Khwedam, Khoekhoegowab and !Xun.

Throughout the process of language material development, it became evident that a one-size-fits-all approach for each language was not going to be feasible nor effective (Hays, 2002). Speaker communities were in different countries, with different living conditions from location to location with varying resources at their disposal (le Roux & White, 2004; Hays, 2009). Therefore, for each location, individual action plans needed to be established to suit the needs of each affected community. For example, some communities lead sedentary lives with access to running water, electricity, permanent housing and internet connection, even if only through a smartphone. Other communities lead more nomadic lives and do not necessarily have access to running water, electricity, network coverage or a permanent dwelling. Such differences are not language specific but rather location specific and therefore one can encounter both scenarios for one language (le Roux, 1999).

Additionally, many contexts called for a bilingual or multilingual approach. For example, in the small town of Platfontein in South Africa there are approximately 8 000 speakers of !Xun. In this context there is also a local radio station and community members have access to running water, electricity and network coverage (Jones, 2019). Community members then elected for audio and video materials in !Xun to be shared via social media and the local radio station, XK-fm. However, laminated posters at selected locations, e.g. outside shops, and booklets for local distribution, were requested in Afrikaans due to low literacy rates in the mother tongue.

In order to cater for these different contexts, a multimodal model was developed for each language and applied to each context to be both communicatively effective and prudent with a limited budget. The three media outputs created in each of the above languages are: 1) an 18 panel A2 booklet, 2) an 18 panel A2 laminated poster, and 3) an animated video including accompanying text in the mother tongue and audio. In-person outputs include local teams travelling to remote villages to deliver information in person as well as, where possible, to provide protective masks and soaps.

This paper reports on the work, done together with local language experts and community members, and reflects upon the process of finding ‘correct’ (Silverstein 1976; Saville-Troike, 2008) ways to communicate the range of issues posed by the pandemic within different local contexts.

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