Sam’s View

So Michael made me create a seperate category for my Afrikaans posts …which is interesting seeing he had a comment for my “Vader Krismas” post and…yes…he wrote it in Afrikaans. He only knows one Afrikaans sentence and that is what his comment consisted of - so 10/10 for trying :) He does understand a couple of sentences that I say to him. If I need to know the time I ask him in Afrikaans and I, like many South Africans, include Afrikaans words in conversation. This is just force of habit and fortunately, Michael has learnt them and now knows what I am talking about.

Enough Languages for Africa!

This led me to thinking that I should write a little bit about the language (some friends in Australia have asked me a bit about it before). Many confuse it as a language spoken mostly by the black people at home or as the first language of most South Africans. I don’t blame them for these misunderstandings as we have a total of 11 official languages…that is enough to confuse anyone - not least of all myself! The 11 I speak of include (compliments of Wikipedia, as there is no way I would know them off-hand!): English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Swati, Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa. In this regard it is second only to India in number. Even more alarming is that we have a further 8 non-official languages: Fanagalo, Lobedu, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, South African Sign Language, Khoe, Nama and San. Our national Anthem includes 3 of the above-mentioned languages. Sadly, I only know the first two verses.

Some Statistics

Afrikaans is the first language of approximately 60% of South Africa’s whites, and over 90% of the “Coloured” (mixed-race) population. Large numbers of Blacks, Asians, and English-speaking whites also speak it as a second language. Just to put these numbers in context, the total South African population according to a 2001 census is 44.8 million (this is clearly outdated, as the past four years have seen an increase in birth rate, numerous HIV and AIDS-related deaths and a significant percentage of professionals emigrating). The poulation comprises 75% black, 14% white, 9% coloured and 3% Indian and Asian people. Afrikaans is also widely spoken in Namibia and the many South Africans living and working in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are also Afrikaans speakers.

Origins

Afrikaans has its origins in the early Dutch settlers and the slave workforce brought to the Cape region (South Western area of the country) by the Dutch East India Company between 1652 and 1705. A relative majority of these first settlers were from the Netherlands (as it is now known), though many were from Germany, France, Portugal, Scotland and various other countries. The indentured workers and slaves were predominantly South Indian, Malays, Malagasy and, the indigenous Khoi and Bushmen. Although Afrikaans has diverged from Dutch over the past three centuries, it still shares 85 per cent of its vocabulary with the language, and Afrikaans speakers are able to learn Dutch within a comparatively short amount of time. Native Dutch pick up Afrikaans even more quickly, due to its simple grammar.

Some Interesting Afrikaans Facts:

1. Afrikaans has a monument erected in its honour. The Afrikaans Language Monument (”Afrikaanse Taalmonument”) is located near the Western Cape Province town of Paarl (see image above).
2. The letters c, q and x are rarely seen in Afrikaans, and words containing them are almost exclusively borrowings from English, Greek or Latin. This is usually because words with c or ch in Dutch are transliterated as k or g in Afrikaans.
3. Afrikaans has been influential in the development of South African English. Many Afrikaans loanwords have found their way into South African English, such as “veld” (field or “bush”), “braai” (barbie), “boomslang” (tree-snake), and “lekker” (nice). A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as “trek” (travel) and, of course, Apartheid (Apartheid will definitely be addressed in a seperate blog!).
4. The following two sentences are written the same is Afrikaans as they are in English. The pronounciation however, is very different: “My pen was in my hand” is the first and “My hand is in warm water” is the second.

Some Afrikaans Phrases

So hope all you non-South African’s out there found this useful. It is only an introduction, and I hope to build on it at a later stage :)