English in Namibia

Abstract

Even though Namibia was never under direct British rule, it has been a country with English as the de jure official language since 1990, the year of independence from South Africa. Surprisingly, the de facto role of English in Namibia has to date not been systematically and comprehensively investigated within the framework of World Englishes. This is a gap the present paper seeks to address. To this end, part one of our study provides insights drawn from a questionnaire-based inquiry into language use in the different domains of private and public life, questions of linguistic and cultural identity, as well as attitudes towards the different languages spoken in Namibia. Part two tentatively identifies some linguistic features on various linguistic levels as potential candidates for structural nativisation. Taken together, the overall results suggest an ongoing change of the status of English spoken in Namibia from English as a foreign language (EFL) to English as a second language (ESL).