This article argues that the external history of South African English (SAfE) points towards the merits of conceptualizing SAfE as the product of a three-stage koinéization process, the last stage of which takes place contemporaneously with the establishment of Johannesburg. This is at odds with the standard position, which views SAfE as an early-to-mid 19th-century variety with its characteristic features having been fixed during the earlier colonization of the Cape and Natal. This reconceptualization is, in turn, usefully employed to solve Trudgill's (2004) so-called "South African puzzle'': in essence, the postulation of SAfE as a late 19th-century English explains why START-Backing has occurred in SAfE but not in the closely related Australasian varieties.

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This paper, selectively based on the results of Aziakpono (2007), examines the beliefs of isiXhosa-speaking students and in the process reveals their attitudes toward various languages of learning and teaching (LOLT) issues at Rhodes University, South Africa. The relevant data were gathered using a survey questionnaire and interviews (individual and focus group).The results reveal that respondents have a generally positive attitude toward English as LOLT, based mainly on instrumental motivations. More importantly, there was a positive attitude toward the use of isiXhosa alongside English. The expressed motivations for the use of isiXhosa in this regard were both instrumental and integrative in nature. The majority of respondents who supported a bilingual arrangement did not, however, believe that a fully-fledged bilingual policy would be practical, mainly because of the multilingual nature of Rhodes University. They felt, rather, that providing English and isiXhosa exam question papers, bilingual tutor support and isiXhosa definitions of discipline-specific technical terms would facilitate learning.

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