South Africans given controversial Afrikaans quiz before boarding Ryanair plane

South African authorities are investigating reports that South Africans living in the United Kingdom have been required to complete a general knowledge test in Afrikaans when flying on Irish low-cost airline Ryanair.

Afrikaans is the third most spoken language in the country, with about seven million native speakers in the country (13,5% of the population). Afrikaans is a controversial language as it (along with English) was the official language of the country during the Apartheid regime. South Africa’s black majority views Afrikaans as an unfriendly language of the oppressor – or even a language of white racists – as it was forced down their throats at local schools.

That’s not a requirement for entry, says the British High Commission and Irish embassy. United Kingdom’s Embassy in South Africa wrote in Twitter: “This is not a UK government requirement.”

Despite the online controversy and the disapprove of the authorities, Ryanair insists it is within its rights.

One South African said she had traveled to Dublin and had been asked to complete the test during check-in at London’s Stansted Airport before she could be issued a boarding pass.

She claimed she was told the form would prove she was South African because there had been an increase in fraudulent South African passports.

She said: “The form was given to me in Afrikaans, I asked for it in English. And the response was that if I was unable to complete the form, then it proved I was not South African.”

Ryanair told News24 on Friday that it had a responsibility to “ensure that passengers are correctly documented for travel to their destination”, in terms of Section 40 of the UK Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.

“Due to the recent increase in passengers attempting to travel on fraudulent South African passports, our handling agents may request passengers travelling on a South African passport, and who are flagged during procedural security profiling, to complete a simple questionnaire, as an additional safety assessment to confirm whether they are correctly documented before travel,” it said.

“As language proficiency is the least intrusive further safety assessment method, this questionnaire is conducted through Afrikaans, one of South Africa’s most prevalent official languages.”