Afrikaans

Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Due to the emigration of many White South Africans, there are an additional estimated 300,000 Afrikaans-speakers in the United Kingdom, with other substantial communities found in Perth, Australia; Toronto, Canada; and Auckland, New Zealand. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups: the Afrikaners (including Boers) and the Coloureds or kleurlinge/bruinmense (including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua). These two groups are collectively known as Afrikaanses, roughly meaning "the language community of Afrikaans-speakers".

Many Afrikaans speakers do not consider themselves either Afrikaners or Coloureds, but simply Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. 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 one-third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 43% and 41%, 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.

The name Afrikaans is simply the Dutch word for African, i.e. the African form of the Dutch language. The dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch" or "Kitchen Dutch", although some now consider these terms 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). The 1925 decision led Dutch to enter disuse and be replaced by Afrikaans for all purposes.

There are basically three dialects, of which the northeastern variant (which developed into a literary language in the Transvaal) forms the basis of the written standard. 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.

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 language: Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie - VOC) 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, some from Portugal, a few from Scotland, and various other countries. The indentured workers and slaves were South Indians, Malays,

History

Afrikaans is linguistically closely related to 17th and 18th century Dutch dialects spoken in North and South Holland and, by extension, to modern Dutch. Today, speakers of each language can make themselves understood fairly easily by speakers of the other.

Afrikaans grammar and spelling is simpler than that of Dutch, in the same sense and to approximately 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. Other closely related languages include Low German spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands, German, and English. 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 Dutch, 35% were German, 14.6% were French and 7.2% non-white (of African and/or Asian origins). Heese's figures are questioned by other researchers, however, and especially the non-white component quoted by Heese is very much in doubt.

The Youngest Language in the World

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 proper European Dutch. By the mid-19th century, more and more was appearing in Afrikaans, which was very much still regarded as a set of spoken regional dialects.

In 1861, LH 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 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 it was replaced with Afrikaans on 5 May 1925. This makes Afrikaans the youngest officially recognised language in the world.

Difference between Dutch and Afrikaans

Besides vocabulary, the most striking difference from Dutch is its 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.

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. The Afrikaans School has also rejected all alternative ideas.

Most linguistics scholars today are certain that Afrikaans has been influenced by creole languages based on the South-Holland Dutch dialect. It is very hard to find out how this influence took place, since there is almost no material written in the Dutch-based creole languages: only a few sentences found in unrelated books often written by non-speakers.

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 Malay, 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 the names of different fruits:
AFRIKAANS DUTCH ENGLISH
piesang* banaan banana
pynappel ananas pineapple
lemoen sinaasappel orange
suurlemoen** citroen lemon

* from Malay pisang (via Dutch East Indies history)
** suur = sour (which is essentially the same as the Dutch word 'zuur').
Provinces of South Africa in which a majority of the population are Afrikaans mother-tongue speakers. Other provinces also have significant numbers of speakers.

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.

It is also widely spoken in Namibia, where it has had constitutional recognition as a national, 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, but most left the country in 1980.

Many South Africans living and working in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are also Afrikaans speakers.

Afrikaans has been influential in the development of South African English. Many Afrikaans loanwords have found their way into South African English, such as "veld" ("field" or "bush"), "braai" ("barbecue"), "boomslang" ("tree snake"), and "lekker" ("nice" / "tasty" / "fun" / "good"). A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as "trek" ("move" or "pull"), "spoor" ("track"), and, of course, apartheid ("apart-ness").

In 1976, high school students in Soweto began the rebellion that contributed to the end of apartheid and the whites-only government of South Africa. This has been credited to that 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 the 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 most children may not have objected to the use of Afrikaans per se. Rather, it was the further directive, within the instructional language directive, 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., on the theory they would never need to know those subjects because they would never have the occasion to use such an education. See History of South Africa.

Under South Africa's multiracial Constitution of 1996, Afrikaans remains an official language, and in addition to English, there are nine other official languages, with which it has equal status now. The new dispensation means that Afrikaans is often downgraded 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, but not in Afrikaans.

Although these moves have angered many Afrikaans speakers, the language has remained strong, with Afrikaans newspapers and magazines continuing to have large circulation figures. Indeed the Huisgenoot, an Afrikaans language general interest family magazine, is the magazine with the largest readership 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 also continue to be published every year.

Although Afrikaans has diverged from Dutch over the past three centuries, it still shares 85 per cent of its vocabulary with that language, 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. This has enabled Dutch companies to outsource their call centre operations to South Africa, thereby taking advantage of lower labour costs.

International view of Afrikaans

Outside of South Africa, the Afrikaans language is sometimes regarded with contempt. When the British design magazine Wallpaper* described Afrikaans as "the ugliest language in the world" (with reference to the Afrikaans Language Monument), 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. The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, is an English-speaking South African, however.

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