Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It was originally the dialect that developed among mostly Calvinist settlers from the Netherlands (though a few were from France and Portugal as well), who moved to the Cape area in southwestern South Africa. Their dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch". Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until the early 20th century, when it began to be widely recognized as a distinct language.
Although the grammatical structure and much of the vocabulary of Afrikaans reflects its origins in 16th century Dutch, it also contains words loaned from Indonesian languages, Malay, Portuguese, French, San dialects, English, isiXhosa and many other languages.
Grammatically, Afrikaans is very simple. Unlike most other Indo-European languages, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject: Ek is, "I am"; Jy is, "you are"; Hy is, "he is", Ons is, "we are"; etc. There are no grammatical cases and nouns do not have gender. A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative, something that is absent from the other West Germanic languages. Both French and San origins for this have been proposed.
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, Indian, and English South Africans also speak it as a second language and it has been influential in the development of South African English.
A few words and phrases in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as trek and boorish, which originally was a derisive comparison to the supposed ill manners of the Boers.
In 1976, rioting broke out in Soweto as the result of the apartheid government's requirement that Afrikaans rather than native languages be used as the medium of instruction in black schools. See History of South Africa.
An Afrikaans wikipedia has been started, but is in the very early stages of development: Die Afrikaanse Wikipedia.
Afrikaans Phrases
Feel free to translate pronounciations to IPA
- Hallo! Hoe gaan dit? (/hallo! who CHGAAN dit?/) Hello! How are you?
- Baie goed, dankie. (/buy-a chgood, dunkey/) Very good, thanks.
- Praat jy Afrikaans? (/praat yay Afrikaans?/) Do you speak Afrikaans?
- Praat jy Engels? (/praat yay angls?/) Do you speak English?
- Ja. (/yaa/) Yes.
- Nee. (/knee-a/) No.
- 'n Bietjie. (/a bikkie/) A little.
- Wat is jou naam? (/vat is yau naam/) What is your name?