The Citizen reports someone changed South Africa’s language demographics for Afrikaans-speaking people to 44 on Wikipedia on Thursday after Theron’s allegation.

This comes after the 47-year-old actor said Monday on the US podcast SmartLess that “about 44 people still speak Afrikaans".

“It’s definitely a dying language, not a very useful language.”

The Monster actress said only 44 people in South Africa are still speaking Afrikaans.

Charlize Theron has sparked a firestorm in South Africa after saying that Afrikaans was heading for oblivion. | @News24Arts https://t.co/KOEKxQavnx

— News24 (@News24) November 18, 2022

While Wikipedia has corrected the deliberate amendment of the Afrikaans language from 44 back to more than 17 million, Theron’s comments has drawn angry and fierce reaction on social media.

READ MORE: Charlize is wrong - Number of Afrikaans-speaking people is actually growing, says Language Council

South Africans react

Marc Turok shared his sentiments on Twitter about Charlize Theron’s remarks.

“44 are the number of her family members that are in touch with her still speaking Afrikaans? Others are probably not in touch with her or don’t have a large profile in Hollywood!  Maybe invite her to visit us and do a fresh tour through all the rural towns and game reserves soon.”

“Millions of disrespectful comments are disrespectful to South Africans of all ages and races who speak Afrikaans as their first language,” said @Juleanor.

In contrast, @SaboSizwe wrote, “Thank you Charlize Theron. Racist language is dying and should not be allowed.

The Benoni-born superstar, Charlize Theron, has incurred the ire of the Pan South African Language Board after labeling Afrikaans a ‘dying’  language.

During her appearance on the SmartLess podcast, the 47-year-old actress and producer addressed the topic of her mother tongue saying jokingly that ‘about 44 people still speak Afrikaans’, before calling it an ‘unhelpful language' . She then added insult to injury by saying the language is “dying out”.

Algoa FM reports the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) has on Friday 18 November, released an official statement in response to her comments:

PanSALBhas noted with concern the disparaging comments made by South African born actress, Ms Charlize Theron, wherein she disregards the Afrikaans language as ‘dying out’ and ‘not very useful’ and only spoken by 44 people. The comments are not only disheartening but are disturbing as they are inaccurate and misleading.

According to Stats SA’s Community Survey of 2018, Afrikaans is the 3rd most spoken language in the country making up 12,2% of the population.

These comments made by Ms Theron perpetuate the persistent misconception that Afrikaans is only spoken by white ‘boere’ South Africans, which could not be further from the truth as 60% of the people that speak the language are black. Furthermore, Afrikaans maintains its official status in terms of the Constitution and is utilised in several cross-governmental communications and used as a medium of instruction in South African schools. By her own admission, Ms Theron was taught through our schooling system in her mother tongue, which built the foundation of her rather illustrious career.

Ms Theron is held in such high regard by the country of her birth and as the Pan South African Language Board we implore her to pay due regard to the Constitutional imperatives that promote social cohesion and continue the commendable work of using her platform to highlight some of the critical socio-economic issues that affect the continent, including the importance of participating in public life using one’s mother tongue.

Charlize has yet to respond to the backlash over her comments.

The Citizen