Dictionary of Meaning
<<Back
Please select a letter:
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
0-9
Click here for Shopping
Afrikaans
*** Shopping-Tip: Afrikaans
{{Infobox Language
|name=Afrikaans
|familycolor=Indo-European
|states=
South Africa and
Namibia
|region=
Southern Africa
|speakers=Native speakers: 6,000,000+
Secondary speakers: 10,000,000+
|fam2=
Germanic languages Germanic
|fam3=
West Germanic languages West Germanic
|fam4=
Low Germanic languages Low Germanic
|fam5=
Low Franconian languages Low Franconian
|fam6=
Dutch language Dutch
|nation=
South Africa
|iso1=af|iso2=afr|iso3=afr}}
'''Afrikaans''' is a
West Germanic languages 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, Western Australia 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 Cape 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 language 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 language Dutch Dialect 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. But Dutch remained an official language until the new 1961 constitution finally stipulated that the two official languages in South Africa to be Afrikaans and English only (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). But the 1925 decision has led practical Dutch to be in disuse and for it to be replaced by Afrikaans for all purposes.
There are basically three dialects, of which the
Oosgrens-Afrikaans northeastern variant (which developed into a literary language in the
Transvaal) forms the basis of the
orthography 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
slavery slave workforce brought to the
Cape Colony 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
Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands 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,
Malay people Malays, and
Malagasy people Malagasy in addition to the indigenous
Khoi and
Bushmen.
History
Afrikaans is
linguistics linguistically closely related to
17th century/
18th century Dutch dialects spoken in North and South
Holland and, by extension, to modern Dutch. Today, speakers of each language can make themselves fairly easily understood by speakers of the other. Some find the accents associated with Dutch or Flemish to be softer than Afrikaans (which is sometimes described as guttural), but there is no general agreement on this, with some Afrikaans speakers experiencing Dutch accents as harsh.
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 language German, and
English language 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 people Malay, and native African languages. Research by
J. A. Heese indicates that until
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 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. 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 Afrikaans was added in 1925.
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 language creole languages based on the Dutch language spoken by the relatively large number of non-Dutch speakers (
Khoikhoi language Khoikhoi, German, French,
Cape Malays 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 language 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 language Malay (the oldest known written Afrikaans uses Arabic script and was intended for use among Cape Town's Muslims),
Malagasy language Malagasy Malay,
Portuguese language Portuguese,
French language French,
Khoisan languages Khoi and San dialects,
English language English,
Xhosa language Xhosa and many other languages. Consequently, many words in Afrikaans are very different from Dutch, as demonstrated by the names of different fruits:
{| cellspacing="7px"
|-
| '''AFRIKAANS''' || '''DUTCH''' || '''ENGLISH'''
|-
| piesang* || banaan || banana
|-
| pynappel || ananas || pineapple
|-
| lemoen || sinaasappel || orange
|-
| suurlemoen** || citroen || lemon
|}
* from Malay ''pisang'' (a word that is known to the Dutch through their
Dutch East Indies history)
** suur = sour (which is essentially the same as the Dutch word 'zuur').
(''Pisang'' is also a lesser used Dutch word for ''banana'')
Grammar
''See separate article on
Afrikaans grammar''.
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 phonetical 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.) Other features include the use of 's' instead of 'z', hence 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
List of Internet TLDs internet top level domain.) The Dutch letter 'IJ' is written as 'Y', except where it replaces the Dutch
suffix ''-lijk'', as in ''waarschijnlijk = waarskynlik''. 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
Dutch Republic United Provinces, and from whence many an
Afrikaner came. Also surprising for many Dutch is the double negative, which could possibly be attributed to the French origins of many Afrikaners: ''Nie rook nie'' - No smoking; compare to the French "Ne pas fumer".
Comparison with Dutch, German and English
{| cellspacing="7px"
|-
| '''AFRIKAANS''' || '''DUTCH''' || '''GERMAN''' || '''ENGLISH'''
|-
| ag(t) || acht || acht || eight
|-
| aksie || actie/aktie || Aktion || action
|-
| asseblief || alstublieft || bitte || please
|-
| bed || bed || Bett || bed
|-
| eggenoot || echtgenoot || Ehegatte || spouse (Latin root)
|-
| goeienaand || goedenavond
goeienavond || guten Abend || good evening
|-
| lughawe || luchthaven
vliegveld || Flughafen || airport (French root)
|-
| my || mijn || mein || my
|-
| maak || maken || machen || make
|-
| nege || negen || neun || nine
|-
| oes || oogst || Ernte || harvest
|-
| oop || open || offen || open
|-
| oormôre || overmorgen || übermorgen || the day after tomorrow (lit. "overmorrow")
|-
| reën || regen || Regen || rain
|-
| saam || samen || zusammen || together (compare "same")
|-
| ses || zes || sechs || six
|-
| sewe || zeven || sieben || seven
|-
| skool || school || Schule || school
|-
| sleg || slecht || schlecht || bad (compare "slight")
|-
| vir || voor || für || for
|-
| voël || vogel || Vogel || bird, fowl
|-
| vry || vrij || frei || free
|-
| vyf || vijf || fünf || five
|-
| waarskynlik || waarschijnlijk || wahrscheinlich || probably (Latin root)
|-
| winter || winter || Winter || winter
|-
| ys || ijs || Eis || ice
|}
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,
Asians in South Africa 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", "
braai", "boomslang", and "lekker". A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as "
trek", "spoor", and, of course,
apartheid.
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
1994, Afrikaans remains an official language, but there are now nine other official languages, in addition to English, with which it has equal status. 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.
Outside of South Africa, the Afrikaans language is sometimes regarded with contempt. However, when the British design magazine
Wallpaper* described Afrikaans as 'the ugliest language in the world', South African
billionaire Johann Rupert, responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as
Cartier SA Cartier,
Van Cleef & Arpels,
Montblanc (pens) Montblanc and
Alfred Dunhill, Ltd. Alfred Dunhill from the magazine [http://business.iafrica.com/news/657706.htm]. The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, was in fact a South African.
Afrikaans phrases
{{IPA notice}}
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 a lot of different dialects and different pronunciations — but the transcription should be fairly standard.
* '''Hallo! Hoe gaan dit?''' {{IPA|[ɦaləu ɦu xaˑn dət]}} Hello! How are you?
* '''Baie goed, dankie.''' {{IPA|[bajə xuˑt danki]}} Very good, thanks.
* '''Praat jy Afrikaans?''' {{IPA|[prɑˑt jəi afrikɑˑns]}} Do you speak Afrikaans?
* '''Praat jy Engels?''' {{IPA|[prɑˑt jəi ɛŋəls]}} Do you speak English?
* '''Ja.''' {{IPA|[jɑˑ]}} Yes.
* '''Nee.''' {{IPA|[neˑə]}} No.
* ''''n Bietjie.''' {{IPA|[ə biki]}} A little.
* '''Wat is jou naam?''' {{IPA|[vat əs jəu nɑˑm]}} What is your name?
* '''Die kinders praat Afrikaans''' {{IPA|[di kənərs prɑˑt afrikɑˑns]}} The children speak Afrikaans.
Two interesting sentences having the same meaning and written (but not pronounced) identically in Afrikaans and English are:
*'''My pen was in my hand''' ({{IPA|[məi pɛn vas ən məi hɑnt]}})
*'''My hand is in warm water.''' ({{IPA|[məi hɑnt əs ən varəm vɑˑtər]}})
Additional information
* Afrikaans has a monument erected in its honour. The
Afrikaans Language Monument (''Afrikaanse Taalmonument'') is located near the Western Cape Province town of
Paarl.
* The letters ''c, q'' and ''x'' are rarely seen in Afrikaans, and words containing them are almost exclusively borrowings from English, Greek or Latin. This is usually because words with ''c'' or ''ch'' in Dutch are
transliteration transliterated as ''k'' or ''g'' in Afrikaans. Similarly ''q'' and ''x'' are usually transliterated as ''kw'' and ''ks'', for example "equatorial" becomes ''ekwatoriaal'' and "excuse" becomes ''ekskuus''.
* Special letters used are ''è, é, ê, ë, î, ï, ô, û''. Sometimes ''ʼn'' is considered a single character.
See also
*
Aardklop Arts Festival,
Potchefstroom
*
Afrikaans grammar
*
Afrikaans Language Monument
*
Johannes Kerkorrel
*
List of Afrikaans language poets
*
List of English words of Afrikaans origin
*
Taal language
*
Afrikaans Swadesh list Swadesh list of Afrikaans words
Reference
Roberge, P. T., 2002. ''Afrikaans - considering origins'', in ''Language in South Africa'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ISBN 0-521-53383-X
External links
{{InterWiki|code=af}}
-
South Africas largest Sunday Newspaper (Afrikaans)
-
South Africas most popular TV Station (Afrikaans)
-
List of free online resources for learners
-
The Ethnologue: Afrikaans
-
Afrikaans-English-Afrikaans Online Dictionary
-
Afrikaans - English Dictionary: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
-
Radio Sonder Grense (radio without borders) - Afrikaans radio online.
-
[Radio Pretoria - Afrikaans radio online.
-
http://www.afrikaans.nu/pag5.htm Similarty between Afrikaans and various dialects of modern Dutch.
-
Die Roepstem: "What is Afrikaans?" Afrikaans & Dutch web-site, with largest Afr.-Du. wordlist.
-
Afrikaans Sample at Language Museum
-
List of online Afrikaans-related resources
-
Afrikaans Spelling Checker for Microsoft Office
-
Afrikaans Spelling Checker for OpenOffice.org and [http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/translate/spell-af-ZA-20040727.xpi?download Mozilla]
-
Afrikaans edition of OpenOffice.org
-
Afrikaans edition of the Mozilla Firefox web-browser
-
Project to translate Free and Open Source Software into Afrikaans
-
Subject Group Afrikaans and Dutch, School of Languages, North-West University
-
Free Afrikaans spelling checker for MS-Word available on the Web
{{Languages of South Africa}}
Category:Afrikaans *
Category:Languages of South Africa
Category:Low Franconian languages
af:Afrikaans (taal)
bg:Ð?фрикаанÑ?
ca:Afrikaans
cs:Afrikánština
da:Afrikaans
de:Afrikaans
et:Afrikaani keel
es:Afrikaans
eo:Afrikansa lingvo
eu:Afrikaans
fa:Ø¢Ù?ریکانس
fr:Afrikaans
fy:Afrikaansk
gd:Afrikaans
gl:Lingua afrikaans
ko:아프리칸스어
id:Bahasa Afrikaans
xh:IsiBhulu
it:Afrikaans
he:×?פריק×?× ×¡
kw:Afrikaans
lt:Afrikanų kalba
li:Afrikaans
hu:Afrikaans nyelv
ms:Bahasa Afrikaans
nl:Afrikaans
ja:アフリカーンス語
no:Afrikaans
nn:Afrikaans
nds:Afrikaans
pl:Język afrikaans
pt:Africâner
ru:Ð?фрикаанÑ?
se:Afrikánsagiella
scn:Afrikaans
simple:Afrikaans
sk:AfrikánÄ?ina
sl:AfrikanÅ¡Ä?ina
fi:Afrikaans
sv:Afrikaans
uk:Ð?фрикаанÑ?
zh:��語
{{catmore}}
Category:Dutch language
af:Kategorie:Afrikaans
de:Kategorie:Afrikaans
sv:Kategori:Afrikaans
*** Shopping-Tip: Afrikaans
