As the author of the new national anthem Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, C.J. Langenhoven was ‘the man who gave white South Africa a voice’.
Hertzog’s Pact government sought to ensure that both Afrikaners and the Afrikaans language would be given ample support. The SAP had wanted to promote the Afrikaans language and culture without creating tension between Afrikaans and English speakers, but little actually came of the principle of bilingualism while it was in power. In the civil service in 1925 there were still 3 792 officials out of a total of 13 000 who could speak only English, while a mere twelve could converse only in Afrikaans.
In time D.F. Malan, Minister of Internal Affairs in the Pact government, saw to it that more bilingual officials were appointed to the civil service, which meant that the number of Afrikaans speakers increased. By 1931 the ethnic composition of the civil service had changed: it consisted of 36% Afrikaans-speakers and 64% English speakers, but there were considerably more English speakers in the higher-paid positions.
The descendant of German missionaries, Christian Frederik Louis (C. Louis) Leipoldt (1880-1947) was a medical doctor and Afrikaans poet. As medical inspector of schools in the Transvaal after Union, he drew attention to the shocking state of ill-health among armblanke children. In 1937 he published his memoir, Bushveld Doctor.
In the early 1920s the Afrikaans language and culture were still in their developmental phase. From the turn of the century, however, writers such as C. Louis Leipoldt, C.J. Langenhoven, Totius and Eugène Marais had shown that Afrikaans had the potential to be a lively and expressive medium. With the recognition of Afrikaans as an official language on 27 May 1925, its long evolution from spoken to written language was at last complete. A select committee of Parliament found that Afrikaans had developed sufficiently to be used as a legal and administrative medium. In Parliament a two-thirds majority was easily obtained on the acceptance of Afrikaans as an official language, although a significant number of English speakers – especially in Natal – could not disguise their indignation with regard to statutory bilingualism.
The Hertzog government also contributed £25 000 towards the creation of an Afrikaans dictionary, the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal. With government support the translation of the Bible into Afrikaans, which had been started in 1919, progressed so well that it was completed and published in 1933. By the late 1920s there was thus evidence of a distinct cultural drive as far as Afrikaans and the Afrikaner were concerned. This was to continue in the 1930s but a political angle was now added: a revival of the republican ideal, although it was seen as a long-term goal that had to be attained peacefully.
