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Afrikaans

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Afrikaans
Pronunciation[afriˈkɑːns]
Native toSouth Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Ethnicity
Native speakers
7.2 million (2016)[1]
10.3 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2002)[2]
Early forms
Signed Afrikaans[3]
Official status
Official language in
 South Africa

Provinces:

List
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byDie Taalkommissie
Language codes
ISO 639-1af
ISO 639-2afr
ISO 639-3afr
Glottologafri1274
Linguasphere52-ACB-ba
Idioma afrikáans.png
A map of Afrikaans speakers in southern Africa, shaded by density.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
For peoples and persons from Africa, see Africans. For white Afrikaans speakers, see Afrikaners.
Colin speaking Afrikaans.
Alaric speaking Afrikaans.
Rossouw speaking Afrikaans.

Afrikaans (UK: /ˌæfrɪˈkɑːns/, US: /ˌɑːf-/)[4][5] is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular[6][7] of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect)[8][9] used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and people enslaved by them. Afrikaans gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics during the course of the 18th century.[10] Now spoken in South Africa, Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, estimates circa 2010 of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million.[note 1] Most linguists consider Afrikaans to be a partly creole language.[11][12][13]

Obelisks of the Afrikaans Language Monument near Paarl
Obelisks of the Afrikaans Language Monument near Paarl

An estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin with adopted words from other languages including German and the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa.[note 2] Differences with Dutch include a more analytic-type morphology and grammar, and some pronunciations.[14] There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form.[15]

About 13.5% of the South African population (7 million people) speak Afrikaans as a first language, making it the third most common natively-spoken language in the country,[16] after Zulu and Xhosa. It has the widest geographic and racial distribution of the 11 official languages and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language, although Zulu and English are estimated to be understood as a second language by a much larger proportion of the population.[note 3] It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa—the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape—and the first language of 75.8% of Coloured South Africans (4.8 million people), 60.8% of White South Africans (2.7 million people), 1.5% of Black South Africans (600,000 people), and 4.6% of Indian South Africans (58,000 people).[17]

Discover more about Afrikaans related topics

British English

British English

British English is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".

American English

American English

American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. Since the 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

Dutch Cape Colony

Dutch Cape Colony

The Cape Colony was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and its successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa. Between 1652 and 1691 it was a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795 a Governorate of the United East India Company (VOC). Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the VOC trading with Asia. The Cape came under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and from 1803 to 1806 was ruled by the Batavian Republic. Much to the dismay of the shareholders of the VOC, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.

Dutch dialects

Dutch dialects

Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both cognate with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language. Dutch dialects are remarkably diverse and are found in the Netherlands and northern Belgium.

Holland

Holland

Holland is a geographical region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the counts of Holland. By the 17th century, the province of Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the newly independent Dutch Republic.

Hollandic dialect

Hollandic dialect

Hollandic or Hollandish is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish, Zeelandic, Limburgish and Surinamese Dutch.

Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected by the Kazungula Bridge to Zambia, across the world’s shortest border between two countries.

Creole language

Creole language

A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form, and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fledged language with native speakers, all within a fairly brief period of time. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar. Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.

German language

German language

German, or more precisely High German, is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Western Europe and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary (Sopron).

Khoisan languages

Khoisan languages

The Khoisan languages are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates.

Analytic language

Analytic language

In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of helper words and word order, as opposed to using inflections. For example, the English-language phrase "The cat chases the ball" conveys the fact that the cat is acting on the ball analytically via word order. This can be contrasted to synthetic languages, which rely heavily on inflections to convey word relationships. Most languages are not purely analytic, but many rely primarily on analytic syntax.

Indian South Africans

Indian South Africans

Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the largest ethnically Indian-populated cities outside of India.

Etymology

The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans)[18] meaning "African".[19] It was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" (Kaap-Hollands/Kaap-Nederlands), a term also used to refer to the early Cape settlers collectively, or the derogatory "kitchen Dutch" (kombuistaal) from its use by slaves of colonial settlers "in the kitchen".

History

Origin

The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony, through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects, during the course of the 18th century.[20][21] As early as the mid-18th century and as recently as the mid-20th century, Afrikaans was known in standard Dutch as a "kitchen language" (Afrikaans: kombuistaal), lacking the prestige accorded, for example, even by the educational system in Africa, to languages spoken outside Africa. Other early epithets setting apart Kaaps Hollands ("Cape Dutch", i.e. Afrikaans) as putatively beneath official Dutch standards included geradbraakt, gebroken and onbeschaafd Hollands ("mutilated/broken/uncivilised Dutch"), as well as verkeerd Nederlands ("incorrect Dutch").[22][23]

Den Besten theorises that modern Standard Afrikaans derives from two sources:[24]

  • Cape Dutch, a direct transplantation of European Dutch to Southern Africa, and
  • 'Hottentot Dutch',[25] a pidgin that descended from 'Foreigner Talk' and ultimately from the Dutch pidgin spoken by slaves, via a hypothetical Dutch creole.

Thus in his view Afrikaans is neither a creole nor a direct descendant of Dutch, but a fusion of two transmission pathways.

Development

Standard Dutch used in a 1916 South African newspaper before Afrikaans replaced it for use in media
Standard Dutch used in a 1916 South African newspaper before Afrikaans replaced it for use in media

Most of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands and Flanders),[26] with up to one-sixth of the community of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany.[27]

African and Asian workers, Cape Coloured children of European settlers and Khoikhoi women,[28] and slaves contributed to the development of Afrikaans. The slave population was made up of people from East Africa, West Africa, India, Madagascar, and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia).[29] A number were also indigenous Khoisan people, who were valued as interpreters, domestic servants, and labourers. Many free and enslaved women married or cohabited with the male Dutch settlers. M. F. Valkhoff argued that 75% of children born to female slaves in the Dutch Cape Colony between 1652 and 1672 had a Dutch father.[30] Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman argue that Afrikaans' development as a separate language was "heavily conditioned by nonwhites who learned Dutch imperfectly as a second language."[31]

Beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with the Arabic alphabet: see Arabic Afrikaans. Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script, started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850 (alongside the already established Dutch).[20]

In 1875, a group of Afrikaans-speakers from the Cape formed the Genootskap vir Regte Afrikaanders ("Society for Real Afrikaners"),[20] and published a number of books in Afrikaans including grammars, dictionaries, religious materials and histories.

Until the early 20th century, Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect, alongside Standard Dutch, which it eventually replaced as an official language.[32] Before the Boer wars, "and indeed for some time afterwards, Afrikaans was regarded as inappropriate for educated discourse. Rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as 'a kitchen language' or 'a bastard jargon', suitable for communication mainly between the Boers and their servants."[33]

Recognition

"Dit is ons erns" ("This is our passion"), at the Afrikaans Language Monument
"Dit is ons erns" ("This is our passion"), at the Afrikaans Language Monument

In 1925, Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a distinct language, rather than simply a vernacular of Dutch.[20] On 8 May 1925, twenty-three years after the Second Boer War ended,[33] the Official Languages of the Union Act of 1925 was passed—mostly due to the efforts of the Afrikaans language movement—at a joint sitting of the House of Assembly and the Senate, in which the Afrikaans language was declared a variety of Dutch.[34] The Constitution of 1961 reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch, so that English and Afrikaans were the official languages, and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed any mention of Dutch altogether.

The Afrikaans Language Monument is located on a hill overlooking Paarl in the Western Cape Province. Officially opened on 10 October 1975,[35] it was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Real Afrikaners,[36] and the 50th anniversary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa in distinction to Dutch.

Standardisation

The side view of the Pretoria Art Museum in Arcadia, Pretoria, with its name written in Afrikaans and Xhosa.
The side view of the Pretoria Art Museum in Arcadia, Pretoria, with its name written in Afrikaans and Xhosa.

The earliest Afrikaans texts were some doggerel verse from 1795 and a dialogue transcribed by a Dutch traveller in 1825. Afrikaans used the Latin alphabet around this time, although the Cape Muslim community used the Arabic script. In 1861, L.H. Meurant published his Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar ("Conversation between Claus Truthsayer and John Doubter"), which is considered to be the first book published in Afrikaans.[37]

The first grammar book was published in 1876; a bilingual dictionary was later published in 1902. The main modern Afrikaans dictionary in use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT). A new authoritative dictionary, called Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), was under development as of 2018. The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls, compiled by Die Taalkommissie.[37]

The Afrikaans Bible

Main article: Bible translations into Afrikaans

The Afrikaners primarily were Protestants, of the Dutch Reformed Church of the 17th century. Their religious practices would later be influenced in South Africa by British ministries during the 1800s.[38] A landmark in the development of the language was the translation of the whole Bible into Afrikaans. While significant advances had been made in the textual criticism of the Bible, especially the Greek New Testament, the 1933 translation followed the Textus Receptus and was closely akin to the Statenbijbel. Before this, most Cape Dutch-Afrikaans speakers had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel. This Statenvertaling had its origins with the Synod of Dordrecht of 1618 and was thus in an archaic form of Dutch. This was hard for Dutch speakers to understand, and increasingly unintelligible for Afrikaans speakers.

C. P. Hoogehout, Arnoldus Pannevis [af], and Stephanus Jacobus du Toit were the first Afrikaans Bible translators. Important landmarks in the translation of the Scriptures were in 1878 with C. P. Hoogehout's translation of the Evangelie volgens Markus (Gospel of Mark, lit. Gospel according to Mark); however, this translation was never published. The manuscript is to be found in the South African National Library, Cape Town.

The first official translation of the entire Bible into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit, E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet.[39][40] This monumental work established Afrikaans as 'n suiwer en ordentlike taal, that is "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially amongst the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that previously had been sceptical of a Bible translation that varied from the Dutch version that they were used to.

In 1983, a fresh translation marked the 50th anniversary of the 1933 version and provided a much-needed revision. The final editing of this edition was done by E. P. Groenewald, A. H. van Zyl, P. A. Verhoef, J. L. Helberg and W. Kempen. This translation was influenced by Eugene Nida's theory of dynamic equivalence which focused on finding the nearest equivalent in the receptor language to the idea that the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic wanted to convey. The challenge to this type of translation is that it doesn't take into account that there are shifts in meaning in the receptor language.

A new translation, Die Bybel: 'n Direkte Vertaling was released in November 2020. It is the first truly ecumenical translation of the Bible in Afrikaans as translators from various churches, including the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, were involved.[41]

Various commercial translations of the Bible in Afrikaans have also appeared since the 1990s, such as Die Boodskap and the Nuwe Lewende Vertaling. Most of these translations were published by Christelike Uitgewersmaatskappy (CUM).

Classification

The simplified relation between the West Germanic languages
The simplified relation between the West Germanic languages

Afrikaans descended from Dutch dialects in the 17th century. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages.[42] Other West Germanic languages related to Afrikaans are German, English, the Frisian languages, and the unstandardised languages Low German and Yiddish.

Discover more about History related topics

Dutch Cape Colony

Dutch Cape Colony

The Cape Colony was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and its successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa. Between 1652 and 1691 it was a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795 a Governorate of the United East India Company (VOC). Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the VOC trading with Asia. The Cape came under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and from 1803 to 1806 was ruled by the Batavian Republic. Much to the dismay of the shareholders of the VOC, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.

Cape Dutch

Cape Dutch

Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, apolitical section of the Cape Colony's Afrikaner population which did not participate in the Great Trek or the subsequent founding of the Boer republics. Today, the Cape Dutch are credited with helping shape and promote a unique Afrikaner cultural identity through their formation of civic associations such as the Afrikaner Bond, and promotion of the Afrikaans language.

Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east, and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium in the North Sea. The country's official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.

Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics, and history, and sometimes involving neighbouring countries. The demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish. The official capital of Flanders is the City of Brussels, although the Brussels-Capital Region that includes it has an independent regional government. The powers of the government of Flanders consist, among others, of economic affairs in the Flemish Region and the community aspects of Flanders life in Brussels, such as Flemish culture and education.

Germany

Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south; it covers an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), with a population of over 84 million within its 16 constituent states. Germany borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its main financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.

Cape Coloureds

Cape Coloureds

Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisted primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian & European descent. Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape.

Khoekhoe

Khoekhoe

Khoekhoen are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of southwestern Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the !Ora, !Gona, Nama, Xiri and ǂNūkhoe nations.

East Africa

East Africa

East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa:

Mughal Empire

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. For some two hundred years, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus river basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India.

Merina Kingdom

Merina Kingdom

The Merina Kingdom, or Kingdom of Madagascar, officially the Kingdom of Imerina, was a pre-colonial state off the coast of Southeast Africa that, by the 18th century, dominated most of what is now Madagascar. It spread outward from Imerina, the Central Highlands region primarily inhabited by the Merina ethnic group with a spiritual capital at Ambohimanga and a political capital 24 km (15 mi) west at Antananarivo, currently the seat of government for the modern state of Madagascar. The Merina kings and queens who ruled over greater Madagascar in the 19th century were the descendants of a long line of hereditary Merina royalty originating with Andriamanelo, who is traditionally credited with founding Imerina in 1540.

Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies, was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800.

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres. With over 275 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.

Geographic distribution

Statistics

The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks Afrikaans at home. .mw-parser-output .div-col{margin-top:0.3em;column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .div-col-small{font-size:90%}.mw-parser-output .div-col-rules{column-rule:1px solid #aaa}.mw-parser-output .div-col dl,.mw-parser-output .div-col ol,.mw-parser-output .div-col ul{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .div-col li,.mw-parser-output .div-col dd{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column} .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}  0–20%   20–40%   40–60%   60–80%   80–100%
The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks Afrikaans at home.
  0–20%
  20–40%
  40–60%
  60–80%
  80–100%
Country Speakers Percentage of speakers Year Reference
 Argentina 650 0.001% 2019 [43]
 Australia 49,375 0.68% 2021 [44]
 Botswana 8,082 0.11% 2011 [44]
 Canada 23,410 0.32% 2016 [45]
 England and  Wales 11,247 0.16% 2011 [46]
 Finland 122 0.002% 2021 [47]
 Ireland 2,228 0.03% 2016 [48]
 Mauritius 36 0.000005% 2011 [44]
 Namibia 219,760 3.05% 2011 [44]
 New Zealand 36,966 0.51% 2018 [49]
 South Africa 6,855,082 94.66% 2011 [44]
 United States 28,406 0.39% 2016 [50]
Total 7,211,537

Sociolinguistics

Some state that instead of Afrikaners, which refers to an ethnic group, the terms Afrikaanses or Afrikaanssprekendes (lit. Afrikaans speakers) should be used for people of any ethnic origin who speak Afrikaans. Linguistic identity has not yet established which terms shall prevail, and all three are used in common parlance.[51]

The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in South Africa: density of Afrikaans home-language speakers. .mw-parser-output .refbegin{font-size:90%;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul{margin-left:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li{margin-left:0;padding-left:3.2em;text-indent:-3.2em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents ul,.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents ul li{list-style:none}@media(max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li{padding-left:1.6em;text-indent:-1.6em}}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns ul{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}   2   1–3 /km2   3–10 /km2   10–30 /km2   30–100 /km2   100–300 /km2   300–1000 /km2   1000–3000 /km2   >3000 /km2
The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in South Africa: density of Afrikaans home-language speakers.
  2
  1–3 /km2
  3–10 /km2
  10–30 /km2
  30–100 /km2
  100–300 /km2
  300–1000 /km2
  1000–3000 /km2
  >3000 /km2
The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in Namibia.
The geographical distribution of Afrikaans in Namibia.

Afrikaans is also widely spoken in Namibia. Before independence, Afrikaans had equal status with German as an official language. Since independence in 1990, Afrikaans has had constitutional recognition as a national, but not official, language.[52][53] There is a much smaller number of Afrikaans speakers among Zimbabwe's white minority, as most have left the country since 1980. Afrikaans was also a medium of instruction for schools in Bophuthatswana, an Apartheid-era Bantustan.[54] Eldoret in Kenya was founded by Afrikaners.[55]

Many South Africans living and working in Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the UAE and Kuwait are also Afrikaans-speaking. They have access to Afrikaans websites, news sites such as Netwerk24.com and Sake24, and radio broadcasts over the web, such as those from Radio Sonder Grense, Bokradio and Radio Pretoria. There are also many artists that tour to bring Afrikaans to the emigrants.

Afrikaans has been influential in the development of South African English. Many Afrikaans loanwords have found their way into South African English, such as bakkie ("pickup truck"), braai ("barbecue"), naartjie ("tangerine"), tekkies (American "sneakers", British "trainers", Canadian "runners"). A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as aardvark (lit. "earth pig"), trek ("pioneering journey", in Afrikaans lit. "pull" but used also for "migrate"), spoor ("animal track"), veld ("Southern African grassland" in Afrikaans, lit. "field"), commando from Afrikaans kommando meaning small fighting unit, boomslang ("tree snake") and apartheid ("segregation"; more accurately "apartness" or "the state or condition of being apart").

In 1976, secondary-school pupils in Soweto began a rebellion in response to the government's decision that Afrikaans be used as the language of instruction for half the subjects taught in non-White schools (with English continuing for the other half). Although English is the mother tongue of only 8.2% of the population, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of a majority of South Africans.[56] Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto.[57] The Black community's opposition to Afrikaans and preference for continuing English instruction was underlined when the government rescinded the policy one month after the uprising: 96% of Black schools chose English (over Afrikaans or native languages) as the language of instruction.[57] Afrikaans-medium schools were also accused of using language policy to deter black African parents.[58] Some of these parents, in part supported by provincial departments of education, initiated litigation which enabled enrolment with English as language of instruction. By 2006 there were 300 single-medium Afrikaans schools, compared to 2,500 in 1994, after most converted to dual-medium education.[58] Due to Afrikaans being viewed as the "language of the white oppressor" by some, pressure has been increased to remove Afrikaans as a teaching language in South African universities, resulting in bloody student protests in 2015.[59][60][61]

Under South Africa's Constitution of 1996, Afrikaans remains an official language, and has equal status to English and nine other languages. The new policy means that the use of Afrikaans is now often reduced in favour of English, or to accommodate the other official languages. In 1996, for example, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reduced the amount of television airtime in Afrikaans, while South African Airways dropped its Afrikaans name Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens from its livery. Similarly, South Africa's diplomatic missions overseas now display the name of the country only in English and their host country's language, and not in Afrikaans. Meanwhile, the constitution of the Western Cape, which went into effect in 1998, declares Afrikaans to be an official language of the province alongside English and Xhosa.[62]

In spite of these moves, the language has remained strong, and Afrikaans newspapers and magazines continue to have large circulation figures. Indeed, the Afrikaans-language general-interest family magazine Huisgenoot has the largest readership of any magazine in the country.[63] In addition, a pay-TV channel in Afrikaans called KykNet was launched in 1999, and an Afrikaans music channel, MK (Musiek kanaal) (lit. 'Music Channel'), in 2005. A large number of Afrikaans books are still published every year, mainly by the publishers Human & Rousseau, Tafelberg Uitgewers, Struik, and Protea Boekhuis. The Afrikaans film trilogy Bakgat (first released in 2008) caused a reawakening of the Afrikaans film industry (which had been moribund since the mid to late 1990s) and Belgian-born singer Karen Zoid's debut single "Afrikaners is Plesierig" (released 2001) caused a resurgence in the Afrikaans music industry, as well as giving rise to the Afrikaans Rock genre.

Afrikaans has two monuments erected in its honour. The first was erected in Burgersdorp, South Africa, in 1893, and the second, nowadays better-known Afrikaans Language Monument (Afrikaanse Taalmonument), was built in Paarl, South Africa, in 1975.

When the British design magazine Wallpaper described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages" in its September 2005 article about the monument,[64] South African billionaire Johann Rupert (chairman of the Richemont Group), responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine.[65] The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, was an English-speaking South African.

Mutual intelligibility with Dutch

Main article: Comparison of Afrikaans and Dutch

An estimated 90 to 95% of the Afrikaans lexicon is ultimately of Dutch origin,[66][67][68] and there are few lexical differences between the two languages.[69] Afrikaans has a considerably more regular morphology,[70] grammar, and spelling.[71] There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages,[70][72][73] particularly in written form.[71][74][75]

Afrikaans acquired some lexical and syntactical borrowings from other languages such as Malay, Khoisan languages, Portuguese,[76] and Bantu languages,[77] and Afrikaans has also been significantly influenced by South African English.[78] Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the other way round.[75] Mutual intelligibility thus tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch.[75]

In general, mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is far better than between Dutch and Frisian[79] or between Danish and Swedish.[75] The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach, attempting to visualise the language distance for Anglophones once remarked that the differences between (Standard) Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English.[80]

Discover more about Geographic distribution related topics

Argentina

Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of 2,780,400 km2 (1,073,500 sq mi), making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. It shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and a part of Antarctica.

Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected by the Kazungula Bridge to Zambia, across the world’s shortest border between two countries.

Canada

Canada

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. It is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. The country is sparsely inhabited, with most residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Finland

Finland

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, across from Estonia. Finland covers an area of 338,455 square kilometres (130,678 sq mi) with a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. Finnish and Swedish are the official languages, Swedish is the native language of 5.2% of the population. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to the boreal in the north. The land cover is primarily a boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes.

Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 kilometres off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island, as well as Rodrigues, Agaléga and St. Brandon. The islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, along with nearby Réunion, are part of the Mascarene Islands. The main island of Mauritius, where most of the population is concentrated, hosts the capital and largest city, Port Louis. The country spans 2,040 square kilometres (790 sq mi) and has an exclusive economic zone covering 2,300,000 square kilometres.

Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Bophuthatswana

Bophuthatswana

Bophuthatswana, officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana, was a Bantustan that was declared (nominally) independent by the apartheid regime of South Africa in 1977. However, its independence, like the other Bantustans was not recognized by any country other than South Africa.

Bantustan

Bantustan

A Bantustan was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa, as part of its policy of apartheid. By extension, outside South Africa the term refers to regions that lack any real legitimacy, consisting often of several unconnected enclaves, or which have emerged from national or international gerrymandering.

Eldoret

Eldoret

Eldoret is a principal town in the Rift Valley region of Kenya and serves as the capital of Uasin Gishu County. The town was referred to by white settlers as Farm 64 and colloquially by locals as 'Sisibo'. As per the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, Eldoret is the fifth most populated urban area in the country after Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru and Ruiru. Lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) at the airport to more than 2,700 metres (8,900 ft) in nearby areas. The population was 289,380 in the 2009 Census, and it is currently the fastest growing town in Kenya with 475,716 people according to 2019 National Census. Eldoret was on course to be named Kenya's fourth city, but was edged out by Nakuru in 2021.

Belgium

Belgium

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,528 km2 (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of 376/km2 (970/sq mi). Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.

Current status

Use of Afrikaans as a first language by province
Province 1996[81] 2001[81] 2011[81] 2016[81]
Western Cape 58.5% 55.3% 49.7% 45.7%
Eastern Cape 9.8% 9.6% 10.6% 10.1%
Northern Cape 57.2% 56.6% 53.8% 55.7%
Free State 14.4% 11.9% 12.7% 10.7%
KwaZulu-Natal 1.6% 1.5% 1.6% 1.0%
North West 8.8% 8.8% 9.0% 7.0%
Gauteng 15.6% 13.6% 12.4% 9.9%
Mpumalanga 7.1% 5.5% 7.2% 4.8%
Limpopo 2.6% 2.6% 2.6% 2.2%
 South Africa 14.4%[82] 13.3%[83] 13.5%[16] 12.1%

Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a loss of preferential treatment by the government for Afrikaans, in terms of education, social events, media (TV and radio), and general status throughout the country, given that it now shares its place as official language with ten other languages. Nevertheless, Afrikaans remains more prevalent in the media – radio, newspapers and television[84] – than any of the other official languages, except English. More than 300 book titles in Afrikaans are published annually.[85] South African census figures suggest a growing number of speakers in all nine provinces, a total of 6.85 million in 2011 compared to 5.98 million a decade earlier.[86] The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) projects that a growing majority will be Coloured Afrikaans speakers.[87] Afrikaans speakers experience higher employment rates than other South African language groups, though as of 2012 half a million remain unemployed.[86]

Despite the challenges of demotion and emigration that it faces in South Africa, the Afrikaans vernacular remains competitive, being popular in DSTV pay channels and several internet sites, while generating high newspaper and music CD sales. A resurgence in Afrikaans popular music since the late 1990s has invigorated the language, especially among a younger generation of South Africans. A recent trend is the increased availability of pre-school educational CDs and DVDs. Such media also prove popular with the extensive Afrikaans-speaking emigrant communities who seek to retain language proficiency in a household context.

After years of slumber, Afrikaans language cinema is showing signs of new vigour. The 2007 film Ouma se slim kind, the first full-length Afrikaans movie since Paljas in 1998, is seen as the dawn of a new era in Afrikaans cinema. Several short films have been created and more feature-length movies, such as Poena is Koning and Bakgat (both in 2008) have been produced, besides the 2011 Afrikaans-language film Skoonheid, which was the first Afrikaans film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. The film Platteland was also released in 2011.[88] The Afrikaans Film industry started gaining international recognition via the likes of big Afrikaans Hollywood film stars, like Charlize Theron (Monster) and Sharlto Copley (District 9) promoting their mother tongue.

Afrikaans seems to be returning to the SABC. SABC3 announced early in 2009 that it would increase Afrikaans programming due to the "growing Afrikaans-language market and [their] need for working capital as Afrikaans advertising is the only advertising that sells in the current South African television market". In April 2009, SABC3 started screening several Afrikaans-language programmes.[89] Further latent support for the language derives from its de-politicised image in the eyes of younger-generation South Africans, who less and less often view it as "the language of the oppressor". Indeed, there is a groundswell movement within Afrikaans to be inclusive, and to promote itself along with the other indigenous official languages. In Namibia, the percentage of Afrikaans speakers declined from 11.4% (2001 Census) to 10.4% (2011 Census). The major concentrations are in Hardap (41.0%), ǁKaras (36.1%), Erongo (20.5%), Khomas (18.5%), Omaheke (10.0%), Otjozondjupa (9.4%), Kunene (4.2%), and Oshikoto (2.3%).[90]

Many native speakers of Bantu languages and English also speak Afrikaans as a second language. It is widely taught in South African schools, with about 10.3 million second-language students.[1] Even in KwaZulu-Natal (where there are relatively few Afrikaans home-speakers), the majority of pupils opt for Afrikaans as their first additional language because it is regarded as easier than Zulu.[91]

Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside South Africa, for example in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia, and the United States.[92]

Discover more about Current status related topics

Eastern Cape

Eastern Cape

The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha.

Northern Cape

Northern Cape

The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay.

Free State (province)

Free State (province)

The Free State, formerly known as the Orange Free State, is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Boer republic called the Orange Free State and later Orange Free State Province.

KwaZulu-Natal

KwaZulu-Natal

KwaZulu-Natal is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu and Natal Province were merged. It is located in the southeast of the country, with a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean and sharing borders with three other provinces and the countries of Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho. Its capital is Pietermaritzburg, and its largest city is Durban. It is the second-most populous province in South Africa, with slightly fewer residents than Gauteng.

North West (South African province)

North West (South African province)

North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana.

Gauteng

Gauteng

Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'.

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area. It shares borders with the South African provinces of Limpopo to the north, Gauteng to the west, the Free State to the southwest, and KwaZulu-Natal to the south. The capital is Mbombela. Mpumalanga was formed in 1994, when the area that was the Eastern Transvaal was merged with the former bantustans KaNgwane, KwaNdebele and parts of Lebowa and Gazankulu. Although the contemporary borders of the province were only formed at the end of apartheid, the region and its surroundings has a history that extends back thousands of years. Much of its history, and current significance is as a region of trade.

Limpopo

Limpopo

Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature is situated in Lebowakgomo.

Mass media in South Africa

Mass media in South Africa

The mass media in South Africa has a large mass media sector and is one of Africa's major media centres. While South Africa's many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language is English. However, all ten other official languages are represented to some extent or another. Afrikaans is the second most commonly used language, especially in the publishing sector.

Paljas

Paljas

Paljas is an Afrikaans language South African film that was released in 1997. Paljas was written by Chris Barnard and directed by Katinka Heyns. It is based on the book of the same name.

Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes Film Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world. Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. The festival was formally accredited by the FIAPF in 1951.

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a South African and American actress and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actresses, she is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2016, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Grammar

Main article: Afrikaans grammar

In Afrikaans grammar, there is no distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs 'to be' and 'to have':

infinitive form present indicative form Dutch English
wees is zijn or wezen be
hê het hebben have

In addition, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject. For example,

Afrikaans Dutch English
ek is ik ben I am
jy/u is jij/u bent you are (sing.)
hy/sy/dit is hij/zij/het is he/she/it is
ons is wij zijn we are
julle is jullie zijn you are (plur.)
hulle is zij zijn they are

Only a handful of Afrikaans verbs have a preterite, namely the auxiliary wees ("to be"), the modal verbs, and the verb dink ("to think"). The preterite of mag ("may") is rare in contemporary Afrikaans.

Afrikaans Dutch English
present past present past present past
ek is ek was ik ben ik was I am I was
ek kan ek kon ik kan ik kon I can I could
ek moet ek moes ik moet ik moest I must (I had to)
ek wil ek wou ik wil ik wilde/wou I want to I wanted to
ek sal ek sou ik zal ik zou I shall I should
ek mag (ek mog) ik mag ik mocht I may I might
ek dink ek dog ik denk ik dacht I think I thought

All other verbs use the perfect tense, het + past participle (ge-), for the past. Therefore, there is no distinction in Afrikaans between I drank and I have drunk. (In colloquial German, the past tense is also often replaced with the perfect.)

Afrikaans Dutch English
ek het gedrink ik dronk I drank
ik heb gedronken I have drunk

When telling a longer story, Afrikaans speakers usually avoid the perfect and simply use the present tense, or historical present tense instead (as is possible, but less common, in English as well).

A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative; it is classified in Afrikaans as ontkennende vorm and is something that is absent from the other West Germanic standard languages. For example,

Afrikaans: Hy kan nie Afrikaans praat nie, lit. 'He can not Afrikaans speak not'
Dutch: Hij spreekt geen Afrikaans.
English: He can not speak Afrikaans. / He can't speak Afrikaans.

Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans. While double negation is still found in Low Franconian dialects in West Flanders and in some "isolated" villages in the centre of the Netherlands (such as Garderen), it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans. The following is an example:

Afrikaans: Ek wil nie dit doen nie.* (lit. I want not this do not.)
Dutch: Ik wil dit niet doen.
English: I do not want to do this.

* Compare with Ek wil dit nie doen nie, which changes the meaning to "I want not to do this." Whereas Ek wil nie dit doen nie emphasizes a lack of desire to act, Ek wil dit nie doen nie emphasizes the act itself.

The -ne was the Middle Dutch way to negate but it has been suggested that since -ne became highly non-voiced, nie or niet was needed to complement the -ne. With time the -ne disappeared in most Dutch dialects.

The double negative construction has been fully grammaticalised in standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show:

Afrikaans Dutch (literally translated) More correct Dutch Literal English Idiomatic English
Ek het (nie) geweet dat hy (nie) sou kom (nie). Ik heb (niet) geweten dat hij (niet) zou komen. Ik wist (niet) dat hij (niet) zou komen. I did (not) know that he would (not) come. I did (not) know that he was (not) going to come.
Hy sal nie kom nie, want hy is siek.[note 4] Hij zal niet komen, want hij is ziek. Hij komt niet, want hij is ziek. He will not come, as he is sick. He is sick and is not going to come.
Dis (Dit is) nie so moeilik om Afrikaans te leer nie. Het is niet zo moeilijk (om) Afrikaans te leren. It is not so difficult to learn Afrikaans.

A notable exception to this is the use of the negating grammar form that coincides with negating the English present participle. In this case there is only a single negation.

Afrikaans: Hy is in die hospitaal, maar hy eet nie.
Dutch: Hij is in het ziekenhuis, maar hij eet niet.
English: He is in [the] hospital, though he eats not.

Certain words in Afrikaans arise due to grammar. For example, moet nie, which literally means "must not", usually becomes moenie; although one does not have to write or say it like this, virtually all Afrikaans speakers will change the two words to moenie in the same way as do not shifts to don't in English.

The Dutch word het ("it" in English) does not correspond to het in Afrikaans. The Dutch words corresponding to Afrikaans het are heb, hebt, heeft and hebben.

Afrikaans Dutch English
het heb, hebt, heeft, hebben have, has
die de, het the
dit het it

Discover more about Grammar related topics

Afrikaans grammar

Afrikaans grammar

This article describes the grammar of Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia which originated from 17th century Dutch.

Infinitive

Infinitive

Infinitive is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited".

Grammatical conjugation

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection. For instance, the verb break can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.

Preterite

Preterite

The preterite or preterit is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense. In general, it combines the perfective aspect with the past tense and may thus also be termed the perfective past. In grammars of particular languages the preterite is sometimes called the past historic, or the aorist. When the term "preterite" is used in relation to specific languages, it may not correspond precisely to this definition. In English it can be used to refer to the simple past verb form, which sometimes expresses perfective aspect. The case of German is similar: the Präteritum is the simple (non-compound) past tense, which does not always imply perfective aspect, and is anyway often replaced by the Perfekt even in perfective past meanings.

Double negative

Double negative

A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation. Portuguese, Persian, French, Russian, Greek, Spanish, Old English, Italian, Afrikaans, Hebrew are examples of negative-concord languages. This is also true of many vernacular dialects of modern English. Chinese, Latin, German, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish and modern Standard English are examples of languages that do not have negative concord. Typologically, it occurs in a minority of languages.

Low Franconian

Low Franconian

Low Franconian, Low Frankish, Netherlandic is a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties closely related to, and including, the Dutch language. Most dialects and languages included within the category are spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium (Flanders), in the Nord department of France, in western Germany, as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia.

West Flanders

West Flanders

West Flanders is the westernmost province of the Flemish Region, in Belgium. It is the only coastal Belgian province, facing the North Sea to the northwest. It has land borders with the Dutch province of Zeeland to the northeast, the Flemish province of East Flanders to the east, the Walloon province of Hainaut in the southeast and the French department of Nord to the west. Its capital is Bruges (Brugge). Other important cities are Kortrijk in the south and Ostend (Oostende) on the coast, Roeselare and Ypres (Ieper). The province has an area of 3,197 km2 (1,234 sq mi) which is divided into eight administrative districts (arrondissementen) containing 64 municipalities. As of January 2019, West Flanders has a population of 1,195,796.

Garderen

Garderen

Garderen is a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It is located in the municipality of Barneveld, in the forests of the Veluwe. The village has 1,994 inhabitants.

Middle Dutch

Middle Dutch

Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarching standard language, but all dialects were mutually intelligible. During that period, a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed, which had not yet existed during Old Dutch. The various literary works of the time are often very readable for speakers of Modern Dutch since Dutch is a rather conservative language.

Phonology

Main article: Afrikaans phonology
A voice recording of Die Stem van Suid-Afrika ('The Voice of South Africa'), the former national anthem, read in poetic form

Vowels

Monophthong phonemes[93][94]
Front Central Back
unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
short long short long short long short long short long
Close i (iː) y yː u (uː)
Mid e eː ə (əː) œ (œː) o (oː)
Near-open (æ) (æː)
Open a ɑː
  • As phonemes, /iː/ and /uː/ occur only in the words spieël /spiːl/ 'mirror' and koeël /kuːl/ 'bullet', which used to be pronounced with sequences /i.ə/ and /u.ə/, respectively. In other cases, [iː] and [uː] occur as allophones of, respectively, /i/ and /u/ before /r/.[95]
  • /y/ is phonetically long [yː] before /r/.[96]
  • /əː/ is always stressed and occurs only in the word wîe 'wedges'.[97]
  • The closest unrounded counterparts of /œ, œː/ are central /ə, əː/, rather than front /e, eː/.[98]
  • /œː, oː/ occur only in a few words.[99]
  • [æ] occurs as an allophone of /e/ before /k, χ, l, r/, though this occurs primarily dialectally, most commonly in the former Transvaal and Free State provinces.[100]

Diphthongs

Diphthong phonemes[101][102]
Starting point Ending point
Front Central Back
Mid unrounded ɪø, əi ɪə
rounded œi, ɔi ʊə œu
Open unrounded ai, ɑːi
  • /ɔi, ai/ occur mainly in loanwords.[103]

Consonants

Consonant phonemes
Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Dorsal Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t t͡ʃ k
voiced b d (d͡ʒ) (ɡ)
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ (ɹ̠̊˔) χ
voiced v (z) ʒ ɦ
Approximant l j
Rhotic r
  • All obstruents at the ends of words are devoiced, so that e.g. a final /d/ is realized as [t].[104]
  • /ɡ, dʒ, z/ occur only in loanwords. [ɡ] is also an allophone of /χ/ in some environments.[105]
  • /χ/ is most often uvular [χ ~ ʀ̥].[106][107][108] Velar [x] occurs only in some speakers.[107]
  • /r/ is usually an alveolar trill [r] or tap [ɾ].[109] In some parts of the former Cape Province, it is realized uvularly, either as a trill [ʀ] or a fricative [ʁ].[110]

Discover more about Phonology related topics

Afrikaans phonology

Afrikaans phonology

Afrikaans has a similar phonology to other West Germanic languages, especially Dutch.

Die Stem van Suid-Afrika

Die Stem van Suid-Afrika

Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, also known as "The Call of South Africa" or simply "Die Stem", is a former national anthem of South Africa. There are two versions of the song, one in English and the other in Afrikaans, which were in use early on in the Union of South Africa alongside God Save the Queen and as the sole anthem after South Africa became a republic. It was the sole national anthem from 1957 to 1994, and shared co-national anthem status with "God Save the King/Queen" from 1938 to 1957. After the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, it was retained as a co-national anthem along with "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" from 1994 to 1997, when a new hybrid song incorporating elements of both songs was adopted as the country's new national anthem, which is still in use.

Front vowel

Front vowel

A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherwise make it a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called bright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than the back vowels.

Central vowel

Central vowel

A central vowel, formerly also known as a mixed vowel, is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.

Back vowel

Back vowel

A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels.

Close vowel

Close vowel

A close vowel, also known as a high vowel, is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth as it can be without creating a constriction. A constriction would produce a sound that would be classified as a consonant.

Close front unrounded vowel

Close front unrounded vowel

The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-e in American English. Although in English this sound has additional length and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel, some dialects have been reported to pronounce the phoneme as a pure sound. A pure sound is also heard in many other languages, such as French, in words like chic.

Close front rounded vowel

Close front rounded vowel

The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is /y/, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Across many languages, it is most commonly represented orthographically as ⟨ü⟩ or ⟨y⟩ but also as ⟨u⟩ ; ⟨iu⟩/⟨yu⟩ ; ⟨уь⟩ ; or ⟨ү⟩.

Close back rounded vowel

Close back rounded vowel

The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨u⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u.

Mid vowel

Mid vowel

A mid vowel is any in a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned midway between an open vowel and a close vowel.

Mid front unrounded vowel

Mid front unrounded vowel

The mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound that is used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid front unrounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid, but it is normally written ⟨e⟩. If precision is required, diacritics may be used, such as ⟨e̞⟩ or ⟨ɛ̝⟩. In Sinology and Koreanology, ⟨ᴇ⟩ is sometimes used, for example in the Zhengzhang Shangfang reconstructions.

Mid central vowel

Mid central vowel

The mid central vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ə⟩, a rotated lowercase letter e, which is called a "schwa".

Dialects

A warning sign in Afrikaans: Gevaar Slagysters or "Danger, Traps".
A warning sign in Afrikaans: Gevaar Slagysters or "Danger, Traps".

Following early dialectal studies of Afrikaans, it was theorised that three main historical dialects probably existed after the Great Trek in the 1830s. These dialects are the Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape dialects.[111] Northern Cape dialect may have resulted from contact between Dutch settlers and the Khoi-Khoi people between the Great Karoo and the Kunene, and Eastern Cape dialect between the Dutch and the Xhosa. Remnants of these dialects still remain in present-day Afrikaans, although the standardising effect of Standard Afrikaans has contributed to a great levelling of differences in modern times.[112]

There is also a prison cant, known as Sabela, which is based on Afrikaans, yet heavily influenced by Zulu. This language is used as a secret language in prison and is taught to initiates.[112]

Kaapse Afrikaans

See also: Kaaps

The term Kaapse Afrikaans ("Cape Afrikaans") is sometimes erroneously used to refer to the entire Western Cape dialect; it is more commonly used for a particular sociolect spoken in the Cape Peninsula of South Africa. Kaapse Afrikaans was once spoken by all population groups. However, it became increasingly restricted to the Cape Coloured ethnic group in Cape Town and environs. Kaapse Afrikaans is still understood by the large majority of native Afrikaans speakers in South Africa.

Kaapse Afrikaans preserves some features more similar to Dutch than to Afrikaans.[113]

  • The 1st person singular pronoun ik as in Dutch as opposed to Afrikaans ek
  • The diminutive endings -tje, pronounced as in Dutch and not as /ki/ as in Afrikaans.
  • The use of the form seg (compare Dutch zegt) as opposed to Afrikaans sê

Kaapse Afrikaans has some other features not typically found in Afrikaans.

  • The pronunciation of j, normally /j/ as in Dutch is often a /dz/. This is the strongest feature of Kaapse Afrikaans.
  • The insertion of /j/ after /s/, /t/ and /k/ when followed by /e/, e.g. kjen as opposed to Standard Afrikaans ken.

Kaapse Afrikaans is also characterised by much code-switching between English and Afrikaans, especially in the inner-city and lower socio-economic status areas of Cape Town.

An example of characteristic Kaapse Afrikaans:

Dutch: En ik zeg (tegen) jullie: wat zoeken jullie hier bij mij? Ik zoek jullie niet! Nee, ga nu weg!
Kaapse Afrikaans: En ik seg ve' djille, wat soek djille hie' by my? Ik soek'ie ve' djille nie! Nei, gaat nou weg!
Afrikaans: En ek sê vir julle, wat soek julle hier by my? Ek soek julle nie! Nee, gaan nou weg!
English (literal): And I say to you, what seek you here by me? I seek you not! No, go now away!
English: And I'm telling you, what are you looking for here? I'm not looking for you! No, go away now!

Oranjerivierafrikaans

The term Oranjerivierafrikaans ("Afrikaans of the Orange River") is sometimes erroneously used to refer to the Northern Cape dialect; it is more commonly used for the regional peculiarities of standard Afrikaans spoken in the Upington/Orange River wine district of South Africa.

Some of the characteristics of Oranjerivierafrikaans are the plural form -goed (Ma-goed, meneergoed), variant pronunciation such as in kjerk ("Church") and gjeld ("money") and the ending -se, which indicates possession.

Patagonian Afrikaans dialect

A distinct dialect of Afrikaans is spoken by the 650-strong South African community of Argentina, in the region of Patagonia.[114]

Discover more about Dialects related topics

Cant (language)

Cant (language)

A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. It may also be called a cryptolect, argot, pseudo-language, anti-language or secret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their use is inconsistent.

Sabela

Sabela

Sabela is a dialect of several major South African languages used primarily in South Africa. Sabela was originally developed inside national prisons as a means of communication within gangs, primarily The Numbers Gang. Since then, released inmates have brought the language out to the general populace of South Africa.

Kaaps

Kaaps

Kaaps, also known as Afrikaaps, is a West Germanic African language that evolved in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its status as a sister language of Afrikaans or a dialect of Afrikaans is unclear. Since the early 2020s there has been a significant increase in the number of works of literature published in Kaaps. Most works in Kaaps come from authors located in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa where it is most commonly spoken. Although Kaaps is considered a growing phenomenon, it is more specifically a colloquial dialect of Afrikaans. All other distinct colloquial variations of Afrikaans, including Kaaps, are organically connected to Standard Afrikaans as a widely spoken unitary variety and interact with it.

Cape Peninsula

Cape Peninsula

The Cape Peninsula is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. On the northern end is Table Mountain, overlooking Table Bay and the city bowl of Cape Town, South Africa. The peninsula is 52 km long from Mouille point in the north to Cape Point in the south. The Peninsula has been an island on and off for the past 5 million years, as sea levels fell and rose with the ice age and interglacial global warming cycles of, particularly, the Pleistocene. The last time that the Peninsula was an island was about 1.5 million years ago. Soon afterwards it was joined to the mainland by the emergence from the sea of the sandy area now known as the Cape Flats. The towns and villages of the Cape Peninsula and Cape Flats, and the undeveloped land of the rest of the peninsula now form part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. The Cape Peninsula is bounded to the north by Table Bay, to the west by the open Atlantic Ocean, and to the east by False Bay in the south and the Cape Flats in the north.

Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town, nicknamed the Mother City, is South Africa's oldest city. It serves as the country's legislative capital, being the seat of the South African Parliament. It is the country's second-largest city and the largest in the Western Cape. The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.

Code-switching

Code-switching

In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism in that plurilingualism refers to the ability of an individual to use multiple languages, while code-switching is the act of using multiple languages together. Multilinguals sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the syntax and phonology of each variety. Code-switching may happen between sentences, sentence fragments, words, or individual morphemes. However, some linguists consider the borrowing of words or morphemes from another language to be different from other types of code-switching. Likewise, code-switching can occur when there is a change in the environment one is speaking. Code-switching can happen in the context of speaking a different language or switching the verbiage to match that of the audience. There are many ways in which code-switching is employed, such as when a speaker is unable to express themselves adequately in a single language or to signal an attitude towards something. Several theories have been developed to explain the reasoning behind code-switching from sociological and linguistic perspectives.

South African English

South African English

South African English is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.

Dutch language

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. Afrikaans is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter language spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa. The dialects used in Belgium and in Suriname, meanwhile, are all guided by the Dutch Language Union.

Upington

Upington

Upington is a town founded in 1873 and located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, on the banks of the Orange River. The town was originally called Olijvenhoutsdrift, due to the abundance of olive wood trees in the area, but later renamed after Sir Thomas Upington, Attorney-General and then Prime Minister of the Cape. It originated as a mission station established in 1871 and run by Reverend Christiaan Schröder. The mission station now houses the Kalahari Orange Museum. The museum is also the home of a donkey statue, which recognises the enormous contribution that this animal made to the development of the region during the pioneering days of the 19th century.

South African Argentines

South African Argentines

South African Argentines are Argentine citizens of South African descent or South African-born people residing in Argentina.

Argentina

Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of 2,780,400 km2 (1,073,500 sq mi), making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. It shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and a part of Antarctica.

Patagonia

Patagonia

Patagonia refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.

Influences on Afrikaans from other languages

Malay

Due to the early settlement of a Cape Malay community in Cape Town, who are now known as Coloureds, numerous Classical Malay words were brought into Afrikaans. Some of these words entered Dutch via people arriving from what is now known as Indonesia as part of their colonial heritage. Malay words in Afrikaans include:[115]

  • baie, which means 'very'/'much'/'many' (from banyak) is a very commonly used Afrikaans word, different from its Dutch equivalent veel or erg.
  • baadjie, Afrikaans for jacket (from baju, ultimately from Persian), used where Dutch would use jas or vest. The word baadje in Dutch is now considered archaic and only used in written, literary texts.
  • bobotie, a traditional Cape-Malay dish, made from spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping.
  • piesang, which means banana. This is different from the common Dutch word banaan. The Indonesian word pisang is also used in Dutch, though usage is more common.
  • piering, which means saucer (from piring, also from Persian).

Portuguese

Some words originally came from Portuguese such as sambreel ("umbrella") from the Portuguese sombreiro, kraal ("pen/cattle enclosure") from the Portuguese curral, mielie ("corn", from milho), pomelo ("grapefruit") from the Portuguese pomelo and interessant ("interesting") from the Portuguese interessante. Also from Portuguese are the names Paul, Maria, Fernando and Ignatius as well as the popular surname Ferreira. These words have become common in South Africa to an extent of being used in many other South African languages. Some of these words also exist in Dutch, like sambreel "parasol",[116] though usage is less common and meanings can slightly differ.

Khoisan languages

Some of these words also exist in Dutch, though with a more specific meaning: assegaai for example means "South-African tribal javelin"[118] and karos means "South-African tribal blanket of animal hides".[119]

Bantu languages

Loanwords from Bantu languages in Afrikaans include the names of indigenous birds, such as mahem and sakaboela, and indigenous plants, such as maroela and tamboekie(gras).[120]

French

The revoking of the Edict of Nantes on 22 October 1685 was a milestone in the history of South Africa, for it marked the beginning of the great Huguenot exodus from France. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 300,000 Protestants left France between 1685 and 1700; out of these, according to Louvois, 100,000 had received military training. A measure of the calibre of these immigrants and of their acceptance by host countries (in particular South Africa) is given by H. V. Morton in his book: In Search of South Africa (London, 1948). The Huguenots were responsible for a great linguistic contribution to Afrikaans, particularly in terms of military terminology as many of them fought on the battlefields during the wars of the Great Trek.

Most of the words in this list are descendants from Dutch borrowings from French, Old French or Latin, and are not direct influences from French on Afrikaans.

Afrikaans Dutch French English
advies advies avis advice
alarm alarm alarme alarm
ammunisie ammunitie, munitie munition ammunition
amusant amusant amusant funny
artillerie artillerie artillerie artillery
ateljee atelier atelier studio
bagasie bagage bagage luggage
bastion bastion bastion bastion
bataljon bataljon bataillon battalion
battery batterij batterie battery
biblioteek bibliotheek bibliothèque library
faktuur factuur facture invoice
fort fort fort fort
frikkadel frikadel fricadelle meatball
garnisoen garnizoen garnison garrison
generaal generaal général general
granaat granaat grenade grenade
infanterie infanterie infanterie infantry
interessant interessant intéressant interesting
kaliber kaliber calibre calibre
kanon kanon canon canon
kanonnier kanonnier canonier gunner
kardoes kardoes, cartouche cartouche cartridge
kaptein kapitein capitaine captain
kolonel kolonel colonel colonel
kommandeur commandeur commandeur commander
kwartier kwartier quartier quarter
lieutenant luitenant lieutenant lieutenant
magasyn magazijn magasin magazine
manier manier manière way
marsjeer marcheer, marcheren marcher (to) march
meubels meubels meubles furniture
militêr militair militaire militarily
morsel morzel morceau piece
mortier mortier mortier mortar
muit muit, muiten mutiner (to) mutiny
musket musket mousquet musket
muur muur mur wall
myn mijn mine mine
offisier officier officier officer
orde orde ordre order
papier papier papier paper
pionier pionier pionnier pioneer
plafon plafond plafond ceiling
plat plat plat flat
pont pont pont ferry
provoos provoost prévôt chief
rondte rondte, ronde ronde round
salvo salvo salve salvo
soldaat soldaat soldat soldier
tante tante tante aunt
tapyt tapijt tapis carpet
tros tros trousse bunch

Discover more about Influences on Afrikaans from other languages related topics

Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town, nicknamed the Mother City, is South Africa's oldest city. It serves as the country's legislative capital, being the seat of the South African Parliament. It is the country's second-largest city and the largest in the Western Cape. The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres. With over 275 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.

Jacket

Jacket

A jacket is a garment for the upper body, usually extending below the hips. A jacket typically has sleeves, and fastens in the front or slightly on the side. A jacket is generally lighter, tighter-fitting, and less insulating than a coat, which is outerwear. Some jackets are fashionable, while others serve as protective clothing. Jackets without sleeves are vests.

Bobotie

Bobotie

Bobotie is a well-known South African dish consisting of spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping.

Ground meat

Ground meat

Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, including pork, veal, lamb, goat meat, and poultry.

Banana

Banana

A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color, and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind, which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow upward in clusters near the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible seedless (parthenocarp) bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name for this hybrid, Musa sapientum, is no longer used.

Languages of South Africa

Languages of South Africa

At least thirty-five languages indigenous to South Africa are spoken in the Republic, eleven of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in legal status. Unofficial languages are protected under the Constitution of South Africa, though few are mentioned by any name. South African Sign Language has legal recognition but is not an official language, despite a campaign and parliamentary recommendation for it to be declared one.

Cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: Cannabis sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis. Alternatively, C. ruderalis may be included within C. sativa, all three may be treated as subspecies of C. sativa, or C. sativa may be accepted as a single undivided species. The genus is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from Asia.

Lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia although some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon.

Khoekhoe

Khoekhoe

Khoekhoen are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of southwestern Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the !Ora, !Gona, Nama, Xiri and ǂNūkhoe nations.

Khoisan languages

Khoisan languages

The Khoisan languages are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates.

Bantu languages

Bantu languages

The Bantu languages are a language family of about 600 languages that are spoken by the Bantu peoples of Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.

Orthography

The Afrikaans writing system is based on Dutch, using the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet, plus 16 additional vowels with diacritics. The hyphen (e.g. in a compound like see-eend 'sea duck'), apostrophe (e.g. ma's 'mothers'), and a whitespace character (e.g. in multi-word units like Dooie See 'Dead Sea') is part of the orthography of words, while the indefinite article ʼn is a ligature. All the alphabet letters, including those with diacritics, have capital letters as allographs; the ʼn does not have a capital letter allograph. This means that Afrikaans has 88 graphemes with allographs in total.

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A Á Ä B C D E É È Ê Ë F G H I Í Î Ï J K L M N O Ó Ô Ö P Q R S T U Ú Û Ü V W X Y Ý Z
Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a á ä b c d e é è ê ë f g h i í î ï j k l m n ʼn o ó ô ö p q r s t u ú û ü v w x y ý z

In Afrikaans, many consonants are dropped from the earlier Dutch spelling. For example, slechts ('only') in Dutch becomes slegs in Afrikaans. Also, Afrikaans and some Dutch dialects make no distinction between /s/ and /z/, having merged the latter into the former; while the word for "south" is written zuid in Dutch, it is spelled suid in Afrikaans (as well as dialectal Dutch writings) to represent this merger. Similarly, the Dutch digraph ij, normally pronounced as /ɛi/, corresponds to Afrikaans y, except where it replaces the Dutch suffix –lijk which is pronounced as /lək/, as in waarschijnlijk > waarskynlik.

Another difference is the indefinite article, 'n in Afrikaans and een in Dutch. "A book" is 'n boek in Afrikaans, whereas it is either een boek or 'n boek in Dutch. This 'n is usually pronounced as just a weak vowel, [ə].

The diminutive suffix in Afrikaans is -tjie, -djie or -ie, whereas in Dutch it is -tje or dje, hence a "bit" is ʼn bietjie in Afrikaans and beetje in Dutch.

The letters c, q, x, and z occur almost exclusively in borrowings from French, English, Greek and Latin. This is usually because words that had c and ch in the original Dutch are spelled with k and g, respectively, in Afrikaans. Similarly original qu and x are most often spelt kw and ks, respectively. For example, ekwatoriaal instead of equatoriaal, and ekskuus instead of excuus.

The vowels with diacritics in non-loanword Afrikaans are: á, ä, é, è, ê, ë, í, î, ï, ó, ô, ö, ú, û, ü, ý. Diacritics are ignored when alphabetising, though they are still important, even when typing the diacritic forms may be difficult. For example, geëet ("ate") instead of the 3 e's alongside each other: *geeet, which can never occur in Afrikaans, or sê, which translates to "say", whereas se is a possessive form. The acute's (á, é, í, ó, ú, ý) primary function is to place emphasis on a word (i.e. for emphatic reasons), by adding it to the emphasised syllable of the word. For example, sál ("will" (verb)), néé ('no'), móét ("must"), hý ("he"), gewéét ("knew"). The acute is only placed on the i if it is the only vowel in the emphasised word: wil ('want' (verb)) becomes wíl, but lui ('lazy') becomes lúi. Only a few non-loan words is spelled with acutes, e.g. dié ('this'), ná ('after'), óf ... óf ('either ... or'), nóg ... nóg ('neither ... nor'), etc. Only four non-loan words are spelled with the grave: nè ('yes?', 'right?', 'eh?'), dè ('here, take this!' or '[this is] yours!'), hè ('huh?', 'what?', 'eh?'), and appèl ('(formal) appeal' (noun)).

Initial apostrophes

A few short words in Afrikaans take initial apostrophes. In modern Afrikaans, these words are always written in lower case (except if the entire line is uppercase), and if they occur at the beginning of a sentence, the next word is capitalised. Three examples of such apostrophed words are 'k, 't, 'n. The last (the indefinite article) is the only apostrophed word that is common in modern written Afrikaans, since the other examples are shortened versions of other words (ek and het, respectively) and are rarely found outside of a poetic context.[127]

Here are a few examples:

Apostrophed version Usual version Translation Notes
'k 't Dit gesê Ek het dit gesê I said it Uncommon, more common: Ek't dit gesê
't Jy dit geëet? Het jy dit geëet? Did you eat it? Extremely uncommon
'n Man loop daar A man walks there Standard Afrikaans pronounces 'n as a schwa vowel.

The apostrophe and the following letter are regarded as two separate characters, and are never written using a single glyph, although a single character variant of the indefinite article appears in Unicode, ʼn.

Table of characters

For more on the pronunciation of the letters below, see Help:IPA/Afrikaans.

Afrikaans letters and pronunciation
Grapheme IPA Examples and Notes
a /a/, /ɑː/ appel ('apple'; /a/), tale ('languages'; /ɑː/). Represents /a/ in closed syllables and /ɑː/ in stressed open syllables
á /a/, /ɑ:/ ná (after)
ä /a/, /ɑ:/ sebraägtig ('zebra-like'). The diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable.
aa /ɑː/ aap ('monkey', 'ape'). Only occurs in closed syllables.
aai /ɑːi/ draai ('turn')
ae /ɑːə/ vrae ('questions'); the vowels belong to two separate syllables
ai /ai/ baie ('many', 'much' or 'very'), ai (expression of frustration or resignation)
b /b/, /p/ boom ('tree')
c /s/, /k/ Found only in borrowed words or proper nouns; the former pronunciation occurs before 'e', 'i', or 'y'; featured in the Latinate plural ending -ici (singular form -ikus)
ch /ʃ/, /x/, /k/ chirurg ('surgeon'; /ʃ/; typically sj is used instead), chemie ('chemistry'; /x/), chitien ('chitin'; /k/). Found only in recent loanwords and in proper nouns
d /d/, /t/ dag ('day'), deel ('part', 'divide', 'share')
dj /d͡ʒ/, /k/ djati ('teak'), broodjie ('sandwich'). Used to transcribe foreign words for the former pronunciation, and in the diminutive suffix -djie for the latter in words ending with d
e /e(ː)/, /æ(ː)/, /ɪə/, /ɪ/, /ə/ bed (/e/), mens ('person', /eː/) (lengthened before /n/) ete ('meal', /ɪə/ and /ə/ respectively), ek ('I', /æ/), berg ('mountain', /æː/) (lengthened before /r/). /ɪ/ is the unstressed allophone of /ɪə/
é /e(ː)/, /æ(ː)/, /ɪə/ dié ('this'), mét ('with', emphasised), ék ('I; me', emphasised), wéét ('know', emphasised)
è /e/ Found in loanwords (like crèche) and proper nouns (like Eugène) where the spelling was maintained, and in four non-loanwords: nè ('yes?', 'right?', 'eh?'), dè ('here, take this!' or '[this is] yours!'), hè ('huh?', 'what?', 'eh?'), and appèl ('(formal) appeal' (noun)).
ê /eː/, /æː/ sê ('to say'), wêreld ('world'), lêer ('file') (Allophonically /æː/ before /(ə)r/)
ë - Diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable, thus ë, ëe and ëi are pronounced like 'e', 'ee' and 'ei', respectively
ee /ɪə/ weet ('to know'), een ('one')
eeu /ɪu/ leeu ('lion'), eeu ('century', 'age')
ei /ei/ lei ('to lead')
eu /ɪɵ/ seun ('son' or 'lad')
f /f/ fiets ('bicycle')
g /x/, /ɡ/ /ɡ/ exists as the allophone of /x/ if at the end of a root word preceded by a stressed single vowel + /r/ and suffixed with a schwa, e.g. berg ('mountain') is pronounced as /bæːrx/, and berge is pronounced as /bæːrɡə/
gh /ɡ/ gholf ('golf'). Used for /ɡ/ when it is not an allophone of /x/; found only in borrowed words. If the h instead begins the next syllable, the two letters are pronounced separately.
h /ɦ/ hael ('hail'), hond ('dog')
i /i/, /ə/ kind ('child'; /ə/), ink ('ink'; /ə/), krisis ('crisis'; /i/ and /ə/ respectively), elektrisiteit ('electricity'; /i/ for all three; third 'i' is part of diphthong 'ei')
í /i/, /ə/ krísis ('crisis', emphasised), dít ('that', emphasised)
î /əː/ wîe (plural of wig; 'wedges' or 'quoins')
ï /i/, /ə/ Found in words such as beïnvloed ('to influence'). The diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable.
ie /i(ː)/ iets ('something'), vier ('four')
j /j/ julle (plural 'you')
k /k/ kat ('cat'), kan ('can' (verb) or 'jug')
l /l/ lag ('laugh')
m /m/ man ('man')
n /n/ nael ('nail')
ʼn /ə/ indefinite article ʼn ('a'), styled as a ligature (Unicode character U+0149)
ng /ŋ/ sing ('to sing')
o /o/, /ʊə/, /ʊ/ op ('up(on)'; /o/), grote ('size'; /ʊə/), polisie ('police'; /ʊ/)
ó /o/, /ʊə/ óp ('done, finished', emphasised), gróót ('huge', emphasised)
ô /oː/ môre ('tomorrow')
ö /o/, /ʊə/ Found in words such as koöperasie ('co-operation'). The diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable, thus ö is pronounced the same as 'o' based on the following remainder of the word.
oe /u(ː)/ boek ('book'), koers ('course', 'direction')
oei /ui/ koei ('cow')
oo /ʊə/ oom ('uncle' or 'sir')
ooi /oːi/ mooi ('pretty', 'beautiful'), nooi ('invite')
ou /ɵu/ By itself means ('guy'). Sometimes spelled ouw in loanwords and surnames, for example Louw.
p /p/ pot ('pot'), pers ('purple' — or 'press' indicating the news media; the latter is often spelled with an )
q /k/ Found only in foreign words with original spelling maintained; typically k is used instead
r /r/ rooi ('red')
s /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ ses ('six'), stem ('voice' or 'vote'), posisie ('position', /z/ for first 's', /s/ for second 's'), rasioneel ('rational', /ʃ/ (nonstandard; formally /s/ is used instead) visuëel ('visual', /ʒ/ (nonstandard; /z/ is more formal)
sj /ʃ/ sjaal ('shawl'), sjokolade ('chocolate')
t /t/ tafel ('table')
tj /tʃ/, /k/ tjank ('whine like a dog' or 'to cry incessantly'). The latter pronunciation occurs in the common diminutive suffix "-(e)tjie"
u /ɵ/, /y(ː)/ stuk ('piece'), unie ('union'), muur ('wall')
ú /œ/, /y(:)/ búk ('bend over', emphasised), ú ('you', formal, emphasised)
û /ɵː/ brûe ('bridges')
ü - Found in words such as reünie ('reunion'). The diaeresis indicates the start of a new syllable, thus ü is pronounced the same as u, except when found in proper nouns and surnames from German, like Müller.
ui /ɵi/ uit ('out')
uu /y(ː)/ uur ('hour')
v /f/, /v/ vis ('fish'), visuëel ('visual')
w /v/, /w/ water ('water'; /v/); allophonically /w/ after obstruents within a root; an example: kwas ('brush'; /w/)
x /z/, /ks/ xifoïed ('xiphoid'; /z/), x-straal ('x-ray'; /ks/).
y /əi/ byt ('bite')
ý /əi/ hý ('he', emphasised)
z /z/ Zoeloe ('Zulu'). Found only in onomatopoeia and loanwords

Discover more about Orthography related topics

Dutch language

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. Afrikaans is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter language spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa. The dialects used in Belgium and in Suriname, meanwhile, are all guided by the Dutch Language Union.

ISO basic Latin alphabet

ISO basic Latin alphabet

The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and used widely in international communication. They are the same letters that comprise the current English alphabet. Since medieval times, they are also the same letters of the modern Latin alphabet. The order is also important for sorting words into alphabetical order.

Diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called accents. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.

Hyphen

Hyphen

The hyphen ‐ is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. Son-in-law is an example of a hyphenated word.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe

The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:The marking of the omission of one or more letters, e.g. the contraction of "do not" to "don't". The marking of possessive case of nouns.

Ligature (writing)

Ligature (writing)

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters æ and œ used in English and French, in which the letters 'a' and 'e' are joined for the first ligature and the letters 'o' and 'e' are joined for the second ligature. For stylistic and legibility reasons, 'f' and 'i' are often merged to create 'fi' ; the same is true of 's' and 't' to create 'st'. The common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters 'E' and 't' were combined.

Grapheme

Grapheme

In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word grapheme is derived from Ancient Greek γράφω (gráphō) 'write' and the suffix -eme by analogy with phoneme and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called graphemics. The concept of graphemes is abstract and similar to the notion in computing of a character. By comparison, a specific shape that represents any particular grapheme in a given typeface is called a glyph.

A

A

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is a, plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.

B

B

B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin-script alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is bee, plural bees. It represents the voiced bilabial stop in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other bilabial consonants.

C

C

C, or c, is the third letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is cee, plural cees.

D

D

D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is dee, plural dees.

E

E

E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is e ; plural ees, Es or E's. It is the most commonly used letter in many languages, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Afrikaans phrases

Although there are many different dialects and accents, the transcription would be fairly standard.

Afrikaans IPA Dutch IPA English German
Hallo! Hoe gaan dit? [ɦaləu ɦu χɑːn dət] Hallo! Hoe gaat het (met jou/je/u)?
Also used: Hallo! Hoe is het? 		[ɦɑloː ɦu ɣaːt ɦət] Hello! How goes it? (Hello! How are you?) Hallo! Wie geht's? (Hallo! Wie geht's dir/Ihnen?)
Baie goed, dankie. [baiə χut daŋki] Heel goed, dank je. [ɦeːl ɣut dɑŋk jə] Very well, thank you. Sehr gut, danke.
Praat jy Afrikaans? [prɑːt jəi afrikɑːns] Spreek/Praat jij/je Afrikaans? [spreːk/praːt jɛi̯/jə ɑfrikaːns] Do you speak Afrikaans? Sprichst du Afrikaans?
Praat jy Engels? [prɑːt jəi ɛŋəls] Spreek/Praat jij/je Engels? [spreːk/praːt jɛi̯/jə ɛŋəls] Do you speak English? Sprichst du Englisch?
Ja. [jɑː] Ja. [jaː] Yes. Ja.
Nee. [nɪə] Nee. [neː] No. Nein.
Also: Nee. (Colloquial)
'n Bietjie. [ə biki] Een beetje. [ə beːtjə] A bit. Ein bisschen. Sometimes shortened in text: "'n bisschen"
Wat is jou naam? [vat əs jœu nɑːm] Hoe heet jij/je? / Wat is jouw naam? [ʋɑt ɪs jɑu̯ naːm] What is your name? Wie heißt du? / Wie ist dein Name?
Die kinders praat Afrikaans. [di kən(d̚)ərs prɑːt ˌafriˈkɑːns] De kinderen spreken Afrikaans. [də kɪndərən spreːkən ɑfrikaːns] The children speak Afrikaans. Die Kinder sprechen Afrikaans.
Ek is lief vir jou.
Less common: Ek het jou lief. 		[æk əs lif fər jɵu] Ik hou van jou/je.
Common in Southern Dutch: Ik heb je/jou/u lief. 		[ɪk ɦɑu̯ vɑn jɑu̯/jə], [ɪk ɦɛb jə/jɑu̯/y lif] I love you. Ich liebe dich.
Also: Ich habe dich lieb. (Colloquial; virtually no romantic connotation)

In the Dutch language the word Afrikaans means African, in the general sense. Consequently, Afrikaans is commonly denoted as Zuid-Afrikaans. This ambiguity also exists in Afrikaans itself and is resolved either in the context of its usage, or by using Afrika- in the adjective sense (e.g. Afrika-olifant for African elephant).

A handful of Afrikaans words are exactly the same as in English. The following Afrikaans sentences, for example, are exactly the same in the two languages, in terms of both their meaning and spelling; only their pronunciation differs.

  • My pen was in my hand. ([məi pɛn vas ən məi ɦant])[128]
  • My hand is in warm water. ([məi ɦant əs ən varm vɑːtər])

Sample text

Psalm 23 1983 translation:[129]

Die Here is my Herder, ek kom niks kort nie.
Hy laat my rus in groen weivelde. Hy bring my by waters waar daar vrede is.
Hy gee my nuwe krag. Hy lei my op die regte paaie tot eer van Sy naam.
Selfs al gaan ek deur donker dieptes, sal ek nie bang wees nie, want U is by my. In U hande is ek veilig.

Psalm 23 1953 translation:[130]

Die Here is my Herder, niks sal my ontbreek nie.
Hy laat my neerlê in groen weivelde; na waters waar rus is, lei Hy my heen.
Hy verkwik my siel; Hy lei my in die spore van geregtigheid, om sy Naam ontwil.
Al gaan ek ook in 'n dal van doodskaduwee, ek sal geen onheil vrees nie; want U is met my: u stok en u staf die vertroos my.

Lord's Prayer (Afrikaans New Living translation)

Ons Vader in die hemel, laat U Naam geheilig word.
Laat U koningsheerskappy spoedig kom.
Laat U wil hier op aarde uitgevoer word soos in die hemel.
Gee ons die porsie brood wat ons vir vandag nodig het.
En vergeef ons ons sondeskuld soos ons ook óns skuldenaars vergewe het.
Bewaar ons sodat ons nie aan verleiding sal toegee nie; en bevry ons van die greep van die bose.
Want van U is die koninkryk,
en die krag,
en die heerlikheid,
tot in ewigheid.
Amen

Lord's Prayer (Original translation):

Onse Vader wat in die hemel is,
laat U Naam geheilig word;
laat U koninkryk kom;
laat U wil geskied op die aarde,
net soos in die hemel.
Gee ons vandag ons daaglikse brood;
en vergeef ons ons skulde
soos ons ons skuldenaars vergewe
en laat ons nie in die versoeking nie
maar verlos ons van die bose
Want aan U behoort die koninkryk
en die krag
en die heerlikheid
tot in ewigheid.
Amen

Source: "Afrikaans", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 10th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans.

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Further Reading

Boers

South African English

Double negative

Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners

Afrikaans Language Monument

Stephanus Jacobus du Toit

Laurika Rauch

South African literature

Nádine

Dutch language

Comparison of Afrikaans and Dutch

Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns

Elizabeth Weber

Gordon Tomlinson
See also
Notes
  1. ^ What follows are estimations. Afrikaans has 16.3 million speakers; see de Swaan 2001, p. 216. Afrikaans has a total of 16 million speakers; see Machan 2009, p. 174. About 9 million people speak Afrikaans as a second or third language; see Alant 2004, p. 45, Proost 2006, p. 402. Afrikaans has over 5 million native speakers and 15 million second-language speakers; see Réguer 2004, p. 20. Afrikaans has about 6 million native and 16 million second language speakers; see Domínguez & López 1995, p. 340. In South Africa, over 23 million people speak Afrikaans, of which a third are first-language speakers; see Page & Sonnenburg 2003, p. 7. L2 "Black Afrikaans" is spoken, with different degrees of fluency, by an estimated 15 million; see Stell 2008–2011, p. 1.
  2. ^ Afrikaans borrowed from other languages such as Portuguese, German, Malay, Bantu and Khoisan languages; see Sebba 1997, p. 160, Niesler, Louw & Roux 2005, p. 459.
    90 to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin; see Mesthrie 1995, p. 214, Mesthrie 2002, p. 205, Kamwangamalu 2004, p. 203, Berdichevsky 2004, p. 131, Brachin & Vincent 1985, p. 132.
  3. ^ It has the widest geographical and racial distribution of all the official languages of South Africa; see Webb 2003, pp. 7, 8, Berdichevsky 2004, p. 131. It has by far the largest geographical distribution; see Alant 2004, p. 45.
    It is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language; see Deumert & Vandenbussche 2003, p. 16, Kamwangamalu 2004, p. 207, Myers-Scotton 2006, p. 389, Simpson 2008, p. 324, Palmer 2001, p. 141, Webb 2002, p. 74, Herriman & Burnaby 1996, p. 18, Page & Sonnenburg 2003, p. 7, Brook Napier 2007, pp. 69, 71.
    An estimated 40% have at least a basic level of communication; see Webb 2003, p. 7 McLean & McCormick 1996, p. 333.
  4. ^ kan would be best used in this case because kan nie means cannot and since he is sick he is unable to come, whereas sal is "will" in English and is thus not the best word choice.
References

Citations

  1. ^ a b Afrikaans at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016) closed access
  2. ^ Webb (2002), 14:78.
  3. ^ Aarons & Reynolds, "South African Sign Language" in Monaghan (ed.), Many Ways to be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities (2003).
  4. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  5. ^ Roach, Peter (2011). Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-15253-2.
  6. ^ Pithouse, K.; Mitchell, C; Moletsane, R. Making Connections: Self-Study & Social Action. p. 91.
  7. ^ Heese, J. A. (1971). Die herkoms van die Afrikaner, 1657–1867 [The origin of the Afrikaner] (in Afrikaans). Cape Town: A. A. Balkema. OCLC 1821706. OL 5361614M.
  8. ^ Kloeke, G. G. (1950). Herkomst en groei van het Afrikaans [Origin and growth of Afrikaans] (in Dutch). Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
  9. ^ Heeringa, Wilbert; de Wet, Febe; van Huyssteen, Gerhard B. (2015). "The origin of Afrikaans pronunciation: a comparison to west Germanic languages and Dutch dialects". Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. 47. doi:10.5842/47-0-649. ISSN 2224-3380.
  10. ^ Coetzee, Abel (1948). Standaard-Afrikaans [Standard Afrikaans] (PDF). Johannesburg: Pers van die Universiteit van die Witwatersrand. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  11. ^ Deumert, Ana (12 July 2017). "Creole as necessity? Creole as choice?". Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas. Creole Language Library. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 53: 101–122. doi:10.1075/cll.53.05due. ISBN 978-90-272-5277-7. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  12. ^ Smith, J.J (1952). "THEORIES ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF AFRIKAANS" (PDF). Hofmeyer Foundation Lectures, University of the Witwatersrand. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
  13. ^ Afrikaans was historically called Cape Dutch; see Deumert & Vandenbussche 2003, p. 16, Conradie 2005, p. 208, Sebba 1997, p. 160, Langer & Davies 2005, p. 144, Deumert 2002, p. 3, Berdichevsky 2004, p. 130.
    Afrikaans is rooted in seventeenth century dialects of Dutch; see Holm 1989, p. 338, Geerts & Clyne 1992, p. 71, Mesthrie 1995, p. 214, Niesler, Louw & Roux 2005, p. 459.
    Afrikaans is variously described as a creole, a partially creolised language, or a deviant variety of Dutch; see Sebba 2007, p. 116.
  14. ^ For morphology; see Holm 1989, p. 338, Geerts & Clyne 1992, p. 72. For grammar and spelling; see Sebba 1997, p. 161.
  15. ^ Dutch and Afrikaans share mutual intelligibility; see Gooskens 2007, p. 453, Holm 1989, p. 338, Baker & Prys Jones 1997, p. 302, Egil Breivik & Håkon Jahr 1987, p. 232.
    For written mutual intelligibility; see Sebba 2007, Sebba 1997, p. 161.
  16. ^ a b Census 2011: Census in brief (PDF). Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. 2012. p. 27. ISBN 9780621413885. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 May 2015.
  17. ^ "Community profiles > Census 2011". Statistics South Africa Superweb. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  18. ^ Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en. "Wet voorschriften schrijfwijze Nederlandsche taal". wetten.overheid.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  19. ^ "Afrikaans". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  20. ^ a b c d "Afrikaans". Omniglot. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
  21. ^ "Afrikaans language". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 31 August 2010. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
  22. ^ Alatis, Hamilton, Ai-Hui Tan (2002). Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2000: Linguistics, Language and the Professions: Education, Journalism, Law, Medicine, and Technology. Washington, DC: University Press. ISBN 978-0-87840-373-8, p. 132.
  23. ^ Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie, eds. (2008). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7, p. 8.
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Sources

Further reading
  • Grieshaber, Nicky. 2011. Diacs and Quirks in a Nutshell – Afrikaans spelling explained. Pietermaritzburg. ISBN 978-0-620-51726-3; e-ISBN 978-0-620-51980-9.
  • Roberge, P. T. (2002), "Afrikaans – considering origins", Language in South Africa, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-53383-X
  • Thomas, C. H. (1899), "Boer language", Origin of the Anglo-Boer War revealed, London, England: Hodder and Stoughton
External links
Afrikaans edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Afrikaans.
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Afrikaans
Wikiquote has quotations related to Afrikaans.
Categories

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