ABSTRACT Under a democratic dispensation in South Africa, which recognises eleven official languages, language is still used to divide and segregate people and different cultures. The examples of how languages have divided South Africa from colonial times to the current dispensation are evident in archival collections housed by the country’s public archives services. A qualitative study was undertaken to identify all the languages of the different archival collections held by the public archives services in South Africa. Utilising a postmodernist ontology, this paper investigates the challenges pertaining to the large volumes of collections where access is restricted due to language barriers with limited assistance to provide translation services.

中文翻译：

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档案的非殖民化：语言作为访问南非公共档案的推动因素和障碍

摘要 在承认 11 种官方语言的南非民主制度下，语言仍然被用来划分和隔离人民和不同的文化。语言如何将南非从殖民时代划分为当前分配的例子在该国公共档案服务机构收藏的档案馆藏中很明显。进行了一项定性研究，以确定南非公共档案服务机构持有的不同档案馆藏的所有语言。利用后现代主义本体论，本文研究了与大量馆藏有关的挑战，这些馆藏由于语言障碍而限制访问，提供翻译服务的帮助有限。