A LAND SINGING TWIN ANTHEMS

Once known as Libertas, the presidential mansion in Pretoria is now officially named Mahlamba'ndlopfu (Dawn of a New Era) in Shangaan. The Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging region, South Africa's industrial heart, is now simply called Gauteng (Place of Gold) in Sotho. The Hendrik Verwoerd Dam (named for the architect of apartheid) has become the Gariep Dam, gariep being an ancient African word for wilderness.

Some might say that in the year since Nelson Mandela became President, only the names have changed in the new South Africa, that the blacks in their shantytowns and the whites in their high-walled suburban homes live no differently than...