Develop a campaign to celebrate Afrikaans turning 100 years old as an official language. The challenge? Getting everyone to join the celebration — even those who don’t speak or particularly like the language.
Instead of saying “Happy Birthday” toAfrikaans, we celebrated its words. Why? Because while only 21% of SouthAfricans speak Afrikaans, nearly 100% use Afrikaans words in daily life. Fromslang to everyday expressions, Afrikaans has become part of the nationalvocabulary. By focusing on the words themselves, we created a campaign that wasinclusive, unifying, and avoided the political sensitivities often associatedwith the language.
