According to Statistics Canada, 2000, 14: "Language is an important part of an ethnic group's cultural identity. It is embedded with the values, beliefs and norms of the groups who use it. For many migrants, maintaining one's first language and passing it on to the next generation is perceived as important to both cultural and personal well-being."

Our family recently became NZ citizens, and are proud to be citizens of this fantastic country.

During the Citizenship Ceremony last year, the Mayor encouraged all the new New Zealanders to share their culture and tradition with the rest of New Zealand. The Minister of Internal Affairs, in a congratulatory letter, wrote "Your new citizenship does not mean that you will forget your country of birth, which will always be important to you. I hope that you will continue to share your traditions and your culture with all of us - they are an important part of the shared wealth of our country."

In the light of the large number of South African-born citizens, residents and holders of work visas that reside in the Christchurch area, we felt that there is an opportunity for us to share our culture, music and cuisine with New Zealand.

Because our home language is Afrikaans, we are also aware that there are no Afrikaans books, Afrikaans magazines or Afrikaans music in the library.

We raise our 6-year old daughter to be bilingual: speaking, reading and writing. It is important for us that she be able to communicate fluently with her family living in South-Africa, as well as myself. It has been proven that bilingualism increase brain development in children. South African parents find that it is not easy to do that without being able to borrow books in Afrikaans from the library.

The results of the census of 2006 should reveal more specific demographic details of the amount of Afrikaans-speaking New Zealanders living in Christchurch and Canterbury, but here are some basic statistics:

According to Statistics New Zealand there were
41 676 South African born citizens living in NZ during 2006, compared to
26 061 South African born citizens living in NZ during the 2001 census.

26 982 Afrikaans speaking people living in NZ during 2006, compared to
12 783 Afrikaans speaking people living in NZ during the 2001 census.

According to an article in the Press, Saturday, 23 December 2006, that discussed migrant communities living in Christchurch, a figure of 3 500 South Africans were mentioned. My estimate is that 30% - 40% of those South-Africans could be Afrikaans speaking, and there are more making Christchurch their new home.

In April 2004, my husband and I submitted a report entitled "The Need for Afrikaans Media in the Christchurch City Library" in which we established that Afrikaans people would appreciate:

1. Monthly magazines, possible titles being
women's magazines - Sarie, Leef or Finesse
travel magazine - Weg, (in English available as Away)
décor magazine - Tuis

Afrikaans magazines are in high demand in our community - the small number of available issues are rotated between individuals.

2. Afrikaans CD's
As well as classic Afrikaans / South African movies.

3. Fiction and Afrikaans literary works.
Those by well-known authors, but also from the newer generation of Afrikaans authors. Also detective stories and Christian literature.

4. Books of South-African interest.
Cookery books about traditional food, books on SA travel and tourism, dictionaries (bilingual English-Afrikaans as well as explanatory dictionaries) would be welcome additions. Books in English on South-African culture would also be great. It is interesting to see how many Kiwi's are very interested in traditional cooking.

5. Afrikaans children books and Afrikaans children music.
Without Afrikaans media, our children will grow up illiterate in their mother tongue. I know of a number of Kiwi children born of Afrikaans parents, and some of these parents indicated that they would love to expose their babies / toddlers / young children to Afrikaans books and music.

6. Shelf space.
We need a shelf for Afrikaans books that people are willing to donate to the library

7. A number of Kiwi's marry Afrikaans speaking people and they sometimes order Afrikaans course material from South-Africa to learn to speak and understand their spouse's language. It would be great if the library could have a language course as well for these purposes (or for other members of the community wishing to study a different language)

8. The elderly.
The number of elderly Afrikaans-speaking people will grow, and will benefit from Afrikaans media.

During a visit to South Africa in November last year, I was surprised by the large assortment of Afrikaans magazines on the shelves, new publishers of Afrikaans books (such as Lapa Uitgewers) and many new Afrikaans singers. The language is definitely alive and thriving.

It is great that Afrikaans is now part of the bi-lingual/multicultural Resources in the Christchurch Libraries.

Marietjie Swart