Linguata
The Afrikaans language
When Jan van Riebeck arrived in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 to establish a trading settlement for the Dutch East India Company the language he spoke was a Netherlands' dialect from South Holland. This dialect gave rise to what ultimately became modern Afrikaans, the only Indo-European language to have developed on the African continent.
For many years it was regarded as an inferior form of Dutch and was referred to pejoratively as 'African Dutch' or 'Kitchen Dutch'. By the middle of the 19th century it began to attain increasing status as a language in its own right, in due course replacing standard Dutch in newspapers and developing its own literature. It became the official language of the Dutch Reformed Church and in 1933 the first bible in Afrikaans was published.
Although Afrikaans remains close to Dutch, so that a Dutch speaker can understand written Afrikaans fairly easily and adjust to the spoken language without too much difficulty, it has undergone significant changes, some of which reflect the influence of early non-Dutch native African speakers.
Nowadays Afrikaans is one of eleven languages in the Republic of South Africa with official status and is spoken as a first language by at least six million South Africans.
It is spoken as a first language in large areas of the Northern and Western Cape, and in neighbouring parts of Namibia. Since 1996, when South Africa acquired a democratic constitution, Afrikaans has lost ground to English particularly in education. Despite this it has retained its vitality across the media in the form of newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV.
Learning Afrikaans:
Some basic grammar notes
Like English, Afrikaans became more 'streamlined' with the passage of time and the effects on the original Dutch of exposure to use by many different non-native speakers. This simplification means, for example, that there are fewer verb forms to learn: e.g. the present tense of most verbs uses a single form as opposed to the three found in Dutch, so ek/hy/ons/sy maaak - 'I/he/we/you/they make'; ek is - 'I am', ons is - 'we are'.
Tenses: Few verbs have distinct tenses: tenses such as future, past and conditional are formed by the modal verbs so 'I/he/we/you/they will make' becomes sal maak, 'have made' het gemaak and 'would make' sou maak, with sal, het and sou invariable for person and number.
Afrikaans also resembles English in being a predominately 'analytic' language, meaning that it relies mainly on word order rather than word endings to indicate grammatical relationships. In simple sentences it uses the same subject-predicate system as English does, though it has the Germanic habit of putting the participle or infinitive at the end of the sentence when a compound verb is involved: Ek sien die huis (I see the house) becomes Ek het die huis gesien (I saw the house). Similarly the verbal element goes to the end of a subordinate clause: Ek het die huis gesien, wat hy gister gekoop het (I saw the house that he bought yesterday) and Ek het die huis gesien wat hy more sal koop (I saw the house that he will buy tomorrow) - Note the different positions taken by het and
sal.
Separable and inseparable verbs: Note that the past prefix ge- goes between the two parts of a separable verb such as uitspreek, as in Ek het dit goed uitgespreek (I pronounced it well).
Inseparable verbs, whose prefixes are not stressed, do not separate and do not take ge- in their past participle. Compare Ek spreek dit goed uit (I pronounce it well) with Ek verstaan dit goed (I understand it well) and Ek het dit goed uitgespreek with Ek het dit goed verstaan (I understood it well).
Negatives: 'Not' requires a double form: Ek het die huis nie gesien nie (I did not see the house).
Questions are expressed through inversion: Sal ek die huis sien? (Will I see the house?) or by the use of an interrogative such as watter as in Watter huis (Which house?) or Watter is die huis? (Which is the house?).
Gender: There are no grammatical genders in Afrikaans.
Pronunciation
Stress: This is usually on the first syllable, except in inseparable verbs (see above), many of which begin with be- er- ge- her- ont- and
ver-.
Consonants: These are pronounced much as in English, but note that g is softened except when it occurs between l or r and e.
Listen to:
Het julle enige vegetariese geregte? - Do you have any vegetarian dishes? (Eating. Phrases. 1)
J sounds like y:
Sien jou later - See you later - (A first few words. 3)
B and d sound like p and t at the end of words:
Ek is hier vir besigheid - I am here on business - (Conversation. Small talk. 2)
The combination tj sounds like k:
Ek kyk net 'n bietjie- I'm just looking - (Buying things. General phrases)
W sounds like v:
Watter toebroodties het julle? - What sandwiches do you have? (Food and drink. At the bar or café. 1
)
'n, the indefinite article, sounds like a short 'uh':
'n Bottel rooi huiswyn - A bottle of red house wine (
Food and drink. At the bar or café. 3)
Vowels
As so often happens, vowels, particularly in combination as diphthongs, are less easy for the English speaker. They have distinct long and short forms. Note in particular:
A
Dankie! - Thanks! (sounds like 'donkey'). (A first few words. 2)
Wat is jou naam? - What is your name?
E:
Ek is hier vir besigheid - I am here on business - (Conversation. Small talk. 2)
Oei as in:
Goeie more - Good morning (A first few words. 1)
Ou
Ek is nie getroud nie - I am single (i.e. not married) - (Conversation. Small talk. 1)
Ui
Kan ek dit omruil? - Can I change it please?
Uu
Ekskuus? - Pardon? (Communication Problems)
Y
Kan jy my help asseblief? - Can you help me please? - (A first few words. 3)
