Zimbabwe Rule of Law Journal |61 knowledge6 and a source of power, social mobility and opportunities.7 The constitutional protection of language rights recognises, affirms and accommodates linguistic diversity. Second, the legal protection of language rights help address the problem of discrimination of linguistic minorities based on language that has been prevalent in the history of most African states including Zimbabwe. According to Skutnabb-Kangas, the promotion and protection of linguistic human rights is an attempt to apply the concept of human equality so as to cover the use of language and, hence, make any linguistic discrimination visible and problematic, and abolish such discrimination.8 Africa’s pre-colonial and post-colonial history shows how political power relations9 introduced inequality in terms of language use to African languages that otherwise had the same linguistic value.10 Again, the post- colonial drive towards national unity, social integration and construction of a national identity in most African countries led to language policies that favoured the use of one official lingua franca for purposes of administrative efficiency to the exclusion of other languages.11 According to Bamgbose, most African countries adopted the language as-a-problem orientation that favoured one language and to take an active part in the community and its activities. To deprive a man of such participation amounts to depriving him of his identity.’ 6 KL Dooley & LB Maruska ‘Language rights as civil rights: Linguistic protection in the post- colonial democratic development of Canada and South Africa,’ (2010) 3 Journal of global change and governance 1 2 argue that “Language is the means by which knowledge is transferred between individuals, between individuals and the state (and vice versa), and between individuals and subsequent generations through educational practices and various forms of culture left as nationalistic directives for each new generation to carry on the traditional ‘mother tongue’ of their particular national group.” 7 S Makoni & B Trudell ‘Complementary and conflicting discourses of linguistic diversity: Implications for language planning’ (2006) 22(2): 14-28 Per Linguam 21. 8 T Skutnabb-Kangas ‘Linguistic human rights, past and present,’ in T Skutnabb-Kangas & R Phillipson (eds) Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination (1994) 98-99 summarised linguistic human rights as follows: a. Every social group has the right to identify positively with one or more languages and to have such an identification accepted and respected by others. b. Every child has the right to learn fully the language(s) of his/her group. c. Every person has the right to use language(s) of his/her group in any official situation. d. Every person has the right to learn fully at least one of the official languages in the country where s/he is a resident, according to her/his own choice. 9 T Skutnabb-Kangas, ‘Multilingualism and the Education of Minority Children’ in T Skutnabb-Kangas & J Cummins (eds), Minority Education: From Shame to Struggle (1988) 12. 10 K Henrard Devising an adequate system of minority protection: Individual human rights, minority rights and the right to self-determination (2000) 244. 11 See M Beloff, ‘Minority Languages and the Law’ (1987) Current Legal Problems 140.