Information about Afrikaans Language

Afrikaans
Spoken in:	South Africa Namibia
Region:	Southern Africa
Total speakers:	10 million + .
Language family:	}}}  Germanic   West Germanic    Low Franconian     Afrikaans}}}
Official status
Official language of:	The template is . Please use instead. This usage is deprecated. Please replace it with {{tdeprecated|Afrikaans|Country}}. '''The template is deprecated. Please use instead.
Regulated by:	Die Taalkommissie (The Language Commission of the South African Academy for Science and Arts)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	af
ISO 639-2:	afr
ISO 639-3:	afr

Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Togo, and Zambia. Due to emigration and migrant labour, there are possibly over 100,000 Afrikaans speakers in the United Kingdom^[1], with other substantial communities found in Brussels, Amsterdam, Perth (Australia), Toronto and Auckland. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaners and the Coloureds or kleurlinge or bruinmense (including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua).

Geographically, the Afrikaans language is the majority language of the western one-third of South Africa (Northern and Western Cape, spoken at home by 69% and 58%, respectively). It is also the largest first language in the adjacent southern third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 44% and 40%, respectively). It is the most widely used second language throughout both of these countries for the population as a whole, although the younger generation has better proficiency in English.

Afrikaans originated from the Dutch language. The dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch" or "Kitchen Dutch", although these terms were mainly pejorative. Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until the late 19th century, when it began to be recognised as a distinct language, and it gained equal status with Dutch and English as an official language in South Africa in 1925. Dutch remained an official language until the new 1961 constitution finally stipulated the two official languages in South Africa to be Afrikaans and English (although, curiously, the 1961 constitution still had a sub-clause stipulating that the word "Afrikaans" was also meant to be referring to the Dutch language). It is the only Indo-European language of significance that underwent distinct development on the African continent.

History

It was originally the dialect that developed among the Afrikaner Protestant settlers and the indentured or slave workforce brought to the Cape area in southwestern South Africa by the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie — VOC, Afrikaans: Verenigde Oos-Indiese Kompanjie) between 1652 and 1705. A relative majority of these first settlers were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands), though there were also many from Germany, a considerable number from France, and some from Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and various other countries. The indentured workers and slaves were Asians, Malays, and Malagasy in addition to the indigenous Khoi and Bushmen.

There are many different theories about how Afrikaans came to be. The Afrikaans School has long seen Afrikaans as a natural development from the South-Hollandic Dutch dialect, but has also only considered the Afrikaans as spoken by the Whites. Others believe that Afrikaans was originally spoken by the Khoisan people after using words they heard from the Dutch.

Dialects

There is little evidence to support the existence of strongly defined dialects as one might find in Dutch. Following early dialectical studies of Afrikaans it was theorised that three historical dialects may have existed before the Great Trek. These dialects were called the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape dialects. If these dialects had ever existed, little of them remain in present-day Afrikaans. Modern-day standard Afrikaans is said to have developed from the Eastern Cape dialect (as this is where the Great Trek started and from where the rest of South Africa was initially populated).

Standardisation of Afrikaans

The linguist Paul Roberge suggests that the earliest "truly Afrikaans" texts are doggerel verse from 1795 and a dialogue transcribed by a Dutch traveller in 1825. Printed material among the Afrikaners at first used only standard European Dutch. By the mid-19th century, more and more were appearing in Afrikaans, which was very much still regarded as a set of regional dialects.

In 1861, L.H. Meurant published his Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar, which is considered by some to be the first authoritative Afrikaans text. Abu Bakr Effendi also compiled his Arabic Afrikaans Islamic instruction book between 1862 and 1869, although this was only published and printed in 1877. The first Afrikaans grammars and dictionaries were published in 1875 by the Genootskap vir Regte Afrikaners ("Society for Real Afrikaners") in Cape Town.

The First and Second Boer Wars further strengthened the position of the new Dutch-like language. The official languages of the Union of South Africa were English and Dutch until Afrikaans was subsumed under Dutch on 5 May 1925.

The main Afrikaans dictionary is the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), which is as yet incomplete due to the scale of the project, but the one volumed dictionary in household use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT). The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls, compiled by the Taalkommissie.

Dutch and Afrikaans

Influence on Afrikaans by Dutch dialects

Within the Dutch-speaking zones of the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, there is greater divergence among the dialects than there is between standard Dutch and standard Afrikaans. Although Afrikaans contains some typical Hollandic tones, there are particularly striking similarities between Afrikaans and Zeeuws (the dialect of the Zeeland province of the Netherlands which has also similarities with West Flemish). Zeeland is a coastal province of the Netherlands and most of the Dutch spoken in former Dutch colonies is very much influenced by Zeeuws/the Zeeland dialect as many people from Zeeland were involved in The Netherlands' imperial/colonial expansion.

Differences between modern Dutch and modern Afrikaans

Afrikaans spelling is simpler than that of Dutch, and its grammar is simpler to the same degree that English grammar is simpler than German grammar. Afrikaans also has a more diverse vocabulary, including words of English, Indian, Malay, Malagasy, Khoi, San and Bantu origins. Cape Dutch vocabulary diverged from the Dutch vocabulary spoken in the Netherlands over time as Cape Dutch absorbed words from other European settlers, slaves from East India and Indonesia's Malay, and native African languages. Research by J. A. Heese indicates that as of 1807, 36.8% of the ancestors of the White Afrikaans speaking population were of Dutch ancestry, 35% were German, 14.6% were French and 7.2% non-white (of African and/or Asian origins). (However, Heese's figures are questioned by other researchers.)

Besides vocabulary, the most striking difference between Dutch and Afrikaans is that Afrikaans has a much more regular grammar, which is likely the result of extensive contact with one or more creole languages based on the Dutch language spoken by the relatively large number of non-Dutch speakers (Khoikhoi, German, French, Cape Malay, and speakers of different African languages) during the formation period of the language in the second half of the 17th century. In 1710, slaves outnumbered free settlers, and the language was developing among speakers who had little occasion to write or analyse their new dialect.

Although much of the vocabulary of Afrikaans reflects its origins in 17th century South Hollandic Dutch, it also contains words borrowed from Asian Malay (one of the oldest known Afrikaans texts used Arabic script; see Arabic Afrikaans), Malagasy, Portuguese, French, Khoi and San dialects, English, Xhosa and many other languages. Consequently, many words in Afrikaans are very different from Dutch, as demonstrated by these names of fruits:

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
piesang*	banaan	banana
pynappel	ananas**	pineapple
lemoen	sinaasappel	orange
suurlemoen***	citroen	lemon

* from Malay pisang (via Dutch East Indies history). Piesang (spelt as pisang) is also used colloquially in The Netherlands and in Indonesian Dutch.
** In Portuguese, ananás = pineapple.
*** suur = sour (which is essentially the same as the Dutch word 'zuur'). Lemoen or limoen is also used in standard Dutch where it translates as 'lime', however.

Grammar

Main article: Afrikaans grammar

Comparison with Dutch and English

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
agt	acht	eight
aksie/handeling	actie/handeling	action
asseblief	alstublieft/alsjeblieft (colloquially "asjeblieft")	please (lit. "if it pleases you" - compare archaic "")
bed	bed	bed
dankie	dankje/dankjewel	thank you
eggenoot	echtgenoot	spouse (Latin root)
goeienaand	goedenavond (colloquially "goeienavond")	good evening
hoe	hoe	how
kameelperd	giraffe	giraffe (lit. "camelhorse")
lughawe	luchthaven vliegveld	airport (Latinate root)
my	mijn	my
maak	maken	make
nege	negen	nine
oes	oogst	harvest
oop	open	open
oormôre	overmorgen	the day after tomorrow (lit. "overmorrow")
reën	regen	rain
saam	samen	together (compare "same")
ses	zes	six
sewe	zeven	seven
skool	school	school
sleg	slecht	bad (compare "slight")
vir	voor	for
voël	vogel	bird, fowl
vry	vrij	free
vyf	vijf	five
waarskynlik	waarschijnlijk	likely (alternate root), probably (Latin root)
welkom	welkom	welcome
winter	winter	winter
ys	ijs	ice

Orthography

Written Afrikaans differs from Dutch in that the spelling reflects a phonetically simplified language, and so many consonants are dropped (see also the grammar section for a description of how consonant dropping affects the morphology of Afrikaans adjectives and nouns). The spelling is also considerably more phonetic than the Dutch counterpart. A notable feature is the indefinite article, which, as noted in the grammar section, is "'n", not "een" as in Dutch. "A book" is "'n boek", whereas in Dutch it would be "een boek". (Note that "'n" is still allowed in Dutch; Afrikaans uses only "'n" where Dutch uses it next to "een". When letters are dropped an apostrophe is mandatory. Note that this " 'n" is usually pronounced as a weak vowel ([ə]; like the Afrikaans "i") and is not as a consonant.

Other features include the use of 's' instead of 'z', and therefore, 'South Africa' in Afrikaans is written as Suid-Afrika, whereas in Dutch it is Zuid-Afrika. (This accounts for .za being used as South Africa's internet top level domain.) The Dutch letter 'IJ' is written as 'Y', except where it replaces the Dutch suffix —lijk, as in waarschijnlijk = waarskynlik. It is interesting to note that the use of the hard "k" is analogous to the pronunciation in parts of Flanders, which was once part of the United Provinces, and whence many Afrikaners came. Also noteworthy is that, although the first 90 Afrikaner settlers came from Haarlem in the Northern Netherlands, the majority of the population of that city at that time consisted of Southern Dutch immigrants.

The letters c, q and x are rarely seen in Afrikaans, and words containing them are almost exclusively borrowings from French, English, Greek, or Latin. This is usually because words that had c and ch in the original Dutch are spelt with k and g repectively in Afrikaans (in many dialects of Dutch (including the Hollandic ones), a ch is spoken as a g, which explains the use of the g in Afrikaans language). Similarly original qu and x are spelt kw and ks respectively. For example ekwatoriaal instead of "equatoriaal" and ekskuus instead of "excuus".

Afrikaans uses 26 letters, just like English. Although it makes use of various diacritics to modify a letter: è, é, ê, ë, î, ï, ô, û, these should not however be regarded as special characters in addition to the 26 normal letters and may, indeed, be replaced by their normal equivalents in cases where it is impractical or impossible to use the diacritics (as in ASCII computer terminals and software—It is, however, considered erroneous to replace the letters where conditions do not necessitate it).

ʼn is regarded as two separate characters, and the "n" in 'n may never be written in upper case. When used at the beginning of a sentence, the second word's first letter should be capitalised. ʼn is the Afrikaans equivalent of the English "a/an," e.g. 'n Man loop ver or A man walks far.

letter(s)	value(s) in IPA	notes
a	ʌ, a
aa	ɑː
aai	aə
au, ow	ou
b	b, p	"b" is pronounced "p" in final position
ch	x
c	s, k	"c" is pronounced "s" before "e", "i", or "y", otherwise "k"
d	d, t	"d" is pronounced "t" in final position
dj	c
e	ɛ, iˑe, ə, æ	"e" is only /æ/ in a few words, and in the Cape Town dialect, /æ/ is merged with /ɛ/
ê	ɛː, æ	"ê" is pronounced /ɛ:/ in final position, otherwise /æ/, usually before "r"
ee	iˑe
eeu	iːu
ei, ey, y	əi
eu	øː
f	f
g	x, g, ç
gh	g, k	"gh" is "k" in final position
h	ɦ
i	i, ə
ie	i
ieu	iu
j	j
k	k
l	l
m	m
n	n, ŋ	"n" is "ŋ" before "c", "k", "q", and "x", otherwise "n"
ng	ŋ
ns		the "n" is silent, and the previous vowel is nasalized
o	ɒ, uˑo
oe	u
oei	uiː
oi, oy	oj
oo	uˑo
ooi	ɔiː
p	p
q	k
r	ɾ
s	s
sj	ʃ
t	t
tj	tʃ, kj	"tj" is "tʃ" at the beginning of a word, but "kj" in "-tjie"
u	ɵ, y
uu	y
û	œː
ui, uy	œy
v	f
w	v, w	"w" is "w" after a consonant, otherwise "v"
x	ks
z	z

Afrikaans phrases

Afrikaans is a very centralised language, meaning that most of the vowels are pronounced in a very centralised (i.e. very schwa-like) way. There are many different dialects and different pronunciations — but the transcription should be fairly standard.

• Hallo! Hoe gaan dit? [ɦaləu ɦu xaˑn dət] Hello! How are you?
• Baie goed, dankie. [bajə xuˑt danki] Very well, thanks.
• Praat jy/u Afrikaans? [prɑˑt jəi afrikɑˑns] Do you speak Afrikaans?
• Praat jy/u Engels? [prɑˑt jəi ɛŋəls] Do you speak English?
• Ja. [jɑˑ] Yes.
• Nee. [neˑə] No.
• 'n Bietjie. [ə biki] A little.
• Wat is jou/u naam? [vat əs jəu nɑˑm] What is your name?
• Die kinders praat Afrikaans. [di kənərs prɑˑt afrikɑˑns] The children speak Afrikaans.

An interesting sentence having the same meaning and written (but not pronounced) identically in Afrikaans and English is:

• My pen was in my hand. ([məi pɛn vas ən məi hɑnt])

Similarly the sentence:

• My hand is in warm water. ([məi hɑnt əs ən varəm vɑˑtər])

has almost identical meaning in Afrikaans and English although the Afrikaans warm corresponds more closely in meaning to English hot and Dutch heet (Dutch warm corresponds to English warm, but is closer to Afrikaans in pronunciation).

Another interesting play on words:

• Baie koud! [bajə kəʊt] Very cold!
• Buy a coat!
• Baie dankie! Thank you very much!
• Buy a donkey!

Sociolinguistics

Afrikaans is the first language of approximately 60% of South Africa's "Whites", and over 90% of the "Coloured" (mixed-race) population. Large numbers of "black" South Africans, Indians, and English-speaking whites (Anglo-Africans) also speak it as a second language. Some state that Afrikaanses should be used as a term for all people who speak Afrikaans, irrespective of ethnic origin, instead of "Afrikaners", which refers to an ethnic group, or "Afrikaanssprekendes" (lit. people that speak Afrikaans). Linguistic identity has not yet established that one term be favoured above another and all three are used in common parlance.^[2]

It is also widely spoken in Namibia, where it has had constitutional recognition as a national, but not official, language since independence in 1990. Prior to independence, Afrikaans, along with German, had equal status as an official language. 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 Bantustan [1].

Many South Africans living and working in Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are also Afrikaans speakers, and there is now an Afrikaans newspaper in London, called Die Stem.

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"), "tekkies" ("sneakers"). A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as "trek" ("pioneering journey", in Afrikaans lit."pull" but used also for "migrate"), "spoor" ("animal track"), "veld" ("Southern African grassland" in Afrikaans lit. "field"), "boomslang" ("tree snake") and apartheid ("segregation"; more accurately "apart-ness" or "apart-hood").

In 1976, high school students in Soweto began a rebellion, in response to the government's decision that Afrikaans rather than English be used as the language of instruction in non-White schools. However, many historians argue that the language issue was a catalyst for the rebellion rather than a major underlying cause (which was racial oppression). Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English (and is, in fact, spoken by a majority of residents in two of South Africa's nine provinces), so children may not have objected to the use of Afrikaans, per se. Some argue that the primary cause of the uprising was one specific aspect of the government's language instruction decision: that non-White (i.e., Black, Coloured and Indian) South African children be denied instruction in all but the most basic topics of mathematics, sciences, fine arts, etc. The government justified this policy by claiming that non-White South Africans would never have an occasion to use such knowledge; see History of South Africa.

Under South Africa's democratic 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 only display the name of the country in English and their host country's language, and not in Afrikaans.

In spite of these moves (which have upset many Afrikaans speakers), the language has remained strong, with Afrikaans newspapers and magazines continuing to have large circulation figures. Indeed the Afrikaans language general interest family magazine Huisgenoot, has the largest readership of any magazine in the country. In addition, a pay-TV channel in Afrikaans called KykNet was launched in 1999, and an Afrikaans music channel, MK89, in 2005. A large number of Afrikaans books are still published every year, mainly by the the publishers Human & Rousseau, Tafelberg Uitgewers, Struik and Protea Boekhuis. Afrikaans music is also flourishing.

Afrikaans still shares approximately 85 percent of its vocabulary with Dutch, and Afrikaans speakers are able to learn Dutch within a comparatively short period of time. Native Dutch speakers pick up Afrikaans even more quickly, due to its simplified grammar, and Afrikaans speakers can learn a Dutch accent with little training. This has enabled Dutch companies to outsource their call centre operations to South Africa [2].

Afrikaans has two monuments erected in its honour. The first was erected in Burgersdorp, South Africa, in 1893, and the second, better-known Afrikaans Language Monument (Afrikaanse Taalmonument) was built in Paarl, South Africa, in 1975. The South African filmmaker Jamie Uys made a documentary feature film on the rise of the Afrikaner and the development of the language entitled "Doodkry Is Min" (They Can't Oppress Us). It had its premiere at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria in 1961, and copies are preserved at the National Film, Video, and Sound Archives.

See also

• Aardklop Arts Festival
• Arabic Afrikaans
• List of Afrikaans language poets
• List of English words of Afrikaans origin
• Afrikaans speaking population in South Africa
• South African Translators' Institute

Notes

References

• Roberge, P. T., 2002. Afrikaans - considering origins, in Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ISBN 0-521-53383-X
• South African Afrikaans: History Slang

External links

General

• The Ethnologue: Afrikaans
• Wordgumbo: Afrikaans
• Afrikaans sample at Language Museum
• An introduction to Afrikaans
• Learn Afrikaans Online

Portals and links lists

• Litnet - Literature, culture and debate
• Die Knoop - A very large list of links to Afrikaans websites
• Woes.co.za - A popular multi-user blog
• The New South African - Afrikaans - More about South Africa's official languages.
• Kuier.co.za - A popular multi-user blog

Organisations

• Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK) - Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations
• Afrikaanse Taal- en Kultuurvereniging (ATKV) - Afrikaans Language and Cultural Association
• Vriende van Afrikaans - Friends of Afrikaans

Spell checkers

• Spel.co.za - Spell checker for Microsoft Office
• WSpel - Spell checker for Microsoft Word
• Translate.org.za - Spell checker for OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird

Dictionaries

• Afrikaans Dictionary - with definitions (approx 8763 words)
• Afrikaans to English - from Wordgumbo.com (5129 words)
• English to Afrikaans - from Wordgumbo.com (6397 words)
• Afrikaans-English-Afrikaans Online Dictionary - sometimes using Esperanto as intermezzo (7975 Afrikaans words)
• Afrikaans at Dict.info - Afrikaans into 57 languages (roughly 2300 words each) and Afrikaans-English (10 127 words)

Modern Germanic languages
Afrikaans | Alemannic | Danish | Dutch | English | Faroese | Frisian | German | Icelandic | Limburgish | Low German | Luxembourgish | Norwegian | Scots | Swedish | Yiddish

•  • [ e]  Official languages of the Republic of South Africa
Afrikaans English isiNdebele Northern Sotho Sesotho Siswati Xitsonga Setswana Tshivenḓa isiXhosa isiZulu