Page 25 - UNAM Virtual Graduation e-Book (April2021)

FACULTY OF LAW

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LAW
(PUBLIC LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE)

CANDIDATE: HARRIS Christian

CURRICULUM VITAE

Christian Harris was born at Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi region. He completed
his senior secondary school at Caprivi Senior Secondary School in the Zambezi
region. His qualifications include Baccalaureus Juris (B.juris), Bachelors of Laws
(LLB), Masters of Laws (LLM) (University of Namibia) and an Advanced Diploma
in Management (Southern Business School). He started his professional career as a Development Planner
(Research and legislation) at the then Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare and is presently employed
as a Chief Legal Officer at the Ministry of Justice. He has also worked as a part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Law
of the University of Namibia and as an occasional marker-tutor for law related subjects at the Namibia University
of Science and Technology. Mr. Harris’s research interests include, but are not limited to the following: Human
rights in general, language rights, minority rights, environmental law, the relationship between politics and the
law as well as history.

CANDIDATE’S DISSERTATION

LINGUISTIC RIGHTS IN AFRICA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SURVIVABILITY OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES OF
NAMIBIA

The doctoral study was undertaken and completed under the supervision of Professor. John Baloro (University
of Namibia) as Main Supervisor and Dr. Ndatega Asheela-Shikalepo (University of Namibia) as Co-Supervisor.

The call for the protection and promotion of languages, especially minority languages has gained prominence
in recent years largely due to awareness campaigns by academics and human rights organisations. The United
Nations through its agency the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)
continues to promote linguistic and cultural diversity as well as multilingualism. To this effect, the UN recognises 21
February as ‘International Mother Tongue Day. Alarmingly, about 90% of the world’s languages are expected
to die out within the next 100 years or so if mechanisms to reverse this impending tragedy are not adopted by
various states across the world. The study therefore focused on the language situation in Africa in general and
Namibia in particular. It should be noted that the study was interdisciplinary in nature. It encompassed areas of
sociology, linguistics, anthropology, history, political science and law. Because of its interdisciplinary approach,
the study discussed issues of language and nation state, language loss, international law and language rights
among other things. Desktop research methodology and to a lesser extent face to face interviews were the
main methods used to acquire data for the study. The study revealed two crucial findings: These are: (1) there
is no specific international legal instrument that recognises the right to language. (2) The study further found
that Namibia recognises the right to language under its Constitution, however, there is no specific law nor
a language body that specifically protects and promotes local languages. The author thus recommended
that the Namibian National Language Policy as crafted in 1981 be reviewed and updated. The author further
recommends that African languages be used in all educational settings. This will encourage language scholars
to develop new vocabulary and new scientific terminologies to represent new thoughts and philosophies
articulated in African languages.

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