By the late 1800s, social stratification in the White communities could be categorized as follows: British (immigrant), colonial, Dutch and European Jew (Lanham 1982: 327). British immigrants and Natal colonials occupied the upper ends of the hierarchy, with British and Natal accents being perceived as having the highest status. Cape colonial English and second language varieties had much lower status; indeed, the first language Cape colonial variety and the Afrikaans English variety were ‘not differentiated … in the ears of the majority in the mining city’ (Lanham 1982: 327).

British interests in the mineral and other industries in Southern Africa, and the desire to expand the British empire, saw the occupation of the Boer republics from the late 1870s. This culminated in the South African War of 1899–1902, in which the British prevailed. The Boer republics were annexed to the British crown, and given the status of Crown Colonies. This led to a further influx of English first language speakers to the former Boer republics, and increased status for English. The four crown colonies—the Cape, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal—formed the Union of South Africa, under British rule, in 1910. British colonials, and English, dominated the political scene until after World War II. Mining, a chiefly British interest, was the dominant industry, with the home-born, successful, upper-class Englishman setting the standard to aspire to (Lanham 1982: 329). Locally, the prestigious Natal variety of English set the standard for South African English, while Cape colonial English and the second language Afrikaans-English variety remained stigmatized, relatively low status varieties.

South African Dutch, which became known as Afrikaans in 1924, retained official language status and remained a significant home language, but was dominated in the cities and in all public spheres by English (Watermeyer 1996: 103). Resistance to British rule and English increased, giving rise to Afrikaner nationalism, which openly promoted loyalty to Afrikaans and hostility to English. In White society, English and Afrikaans speakers became more and more divided, and during World War II the Afrikaner Nationalist Party aligned itself with Nazi Germany, making the rift even deeper (Lanham 1996: 25).

In 1948, the Afrikaner Nationalist Party triumphed over the English United Party in national (‘Whites only’) elections, and set about increasing the status of Afrikaans in public spheres. The Nationalist Party dominated South African politics until 1994, imposing Afrikaans as the de facto first official language of the country, and limiting the influence of English, particularly in African education (Lanham 1996: 26). However, the English first language community remained significant, English remained legally equal to Afrikaans, and continued to dominate in commerce, higher education and industry (Mesthrie 2002: 22). All White pupils had to learn both official languages as school subjects: the usual pattern was for the home language to be learnt as ‘first language’, and the ‘other official language’ was to be learnt as second language. This meant that most Afrikaans L1 speakers gained some competency in English.

The apartheid policies of the National Party government had disastrous consequences in all areas of life. It was the attempted imposition of Afrikaans as a joint medium of instruction with English in Black secondary schools that led to the tragic Soweto riots of 1976, and resistance to Afrikaans was greatly increased. In terms of language status, English benefited from this. English was the lingua franca of the struggle (strengthening its position for the role it was later to play in the country), and became the sole medium of instruction in nearly all Black secondary schools. Thus, English played a dominant role in the education sector, with each province setting its own standards for the teaching of English – the variety associated with middle to upper class in each region was accepted as the provincial standard.