The history of language in South Africa is characterized by linguistic inequality, European domination and imperialist ideology, suppression and denigration of indigenous languages through non-recognition, and entangled interrelationships among education, race, language, and identity. Official policy enforced mono- or bilingualism through the use of European languages, yet multilingualism was the norm for millions of South Africans. This paper reviews the historical context of language issues in South Africa, highlighting the developments in that history that attest to the degree of European domination and marginalization of nonwhites. It presents an overview of the Constitutional provisions that accorded language and education rights to all South Africans and focuses on the key issues that emerged in the early 1990s at the close of the apartheid era. The paper concludes by considering current and future issues, illustrated by insights from research in South African schools that underscores not only progress made as but also the fact that real transformation in terms of linguistic equality is only in its early stages. (Contains 18 references.) (SM)