WIKITONGUES: Jeremi speaking Afrikaans
Channel: Wikitongues
Date: 27/06/2014

Uploaded in Pretoria, South Africa.

The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.

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My name is Jeremi, and I live in South Africa. South Africa is a very interesting country, full of colors and sounds. Of course, one of those colors and sounds are Afrikaans. Afrikaans is a very interesting language, it can be very respectful yet also very common, depending on what you choose. It's one of the 11 official language. Or the proper would should be "offisieel". 

Anyway, it's the only unique language in our country, as all the other languages came from outside. Afrikaans began in South Africa when Jan van Ribeek came here. It came from German and Dutch. It's quite a sharp language with interesting idioms. Of course, you can be very respectful and very informal too. (barefoot, flip flops and such things). For respect, you'd say Sir and Miss and not you. But you can also relax with the language. You'll realize that there are a few English words in-between, since Afrikaans takes a lot of other words in. For example, township is an official Afrikaans word, even in the dictionary. Afrikaans is very near to my heart. It creates a big impression with everyone who comes in contact with it. Even when Winston Churchill when he came here, was so impressed that he named his special forces the Commando, similar to the Afrikaans boeremag's name. It has been said that Afrikaans is the language of the boere, or the white South Africans. Of course, we are very proud about it. It's the language in which we are happy, angry, sad and the language in which we laugh. It's the language of our heart. 

Of course, English is also a big thing in South Africa, because it's one of the official languages and one of the languages that connect us with the outside world. Because we have 11 official languages, English is that one that everybody speaks. If you speak a native language like Xhosa, or Zulu or Sotho even, all of them speak English to an extent at least. So that is our connecting language in the country. You speak English to whoever you meet on the street and they'll probably be sure to speak English back. Of course, having this close contact to English, we are quite good at it because we grew up with it. But it never really became the language of our hearts. It became the language we socialize in of course. We would talk to our friends in English and it would become a very endearing language to us. But, I prefer my mother tongue, Afrikaans.

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