Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-03-01
THE BOER'S LANGUAGE.
Not Dutch but Gihberish of Many
Tongues.

OuS utS.
| If the beers religion, his overload
study of the Bible, is a source of Won
| derment and surprise to more culti-
waited people, his language is a puzzle
unsolvable by even the expert llnguist
of his own race. Popularity the boer
tongue is referred to as Dutch. But it
is not Dutch in the correct sense of
the term. 1t is a cultural gibberish
drawn from nearly every tongue on the
continent, and to which has been add
ed smattering of abominable Eng
glish. Investigators have not been
able to discover that it possesses
grammar, fixed rules for the use of
certain words, beginning or an end
ing, in fact anything definite but the
twist and confusion which boer
tongues have given it, in the more than
century in which it has been in use
in south Africa, What language would
tolerate such combination as 'ver-
standelijke," "bescavingsgebieb, "blo-
eddorstigen, "voorstchrijding, "hoof-
dzakelijk," meteorological" or this
sentences:
"Telt men de tropen samen, bic
volgens englsche officieele opgaven
lvoor den oorlog borden uitgrust, dan
kont men tot eene sterkte van $4,000
man; getutende de eerste eeken mag
er schter slechts cor den greknd op de
uit indie komende troepen; voor de
matchmaking en- het yervoer van de
engelsche afdeelgingen moet men min
stems anderhalve maand rekenen, ZOO
dat naueelijks voor hidden of einde
November, waarschijnlijk nog later, de
oorlogssterkte inafrika zal breikt
zijn; aldus beschouwd, was het rekken
wan englsche zijde verklaarbaar gen.
oeg."
This sentence appeared in bona
fide Transvaal publication of recent
date. The beers are slow of speech.
Thought moves heavily with them.
] Their pursuits and occupations are of
such a nature that Ettie more than
simplicity by them il needed to under
stand what is being done. They
mingle but little with outside people.
They are not fond of travelling. The
nation is without the art of music or
painting, and as for literature the best
books on the Transyaal or of its peo-
| pie have been written by men and wo-
men of another race. Their work
brings simple results. It's reward is
found in full granaries, barns in which
there are many cattle, and ample
clothing and food for all the popula-
ton. The nation is practically with
out poor class, and boer tramps are
unknown. There are sufficient tramps,
though, of other nationalities, advent
urers who have wasted their all, to
keep the boer citizen acquainted with
the species. These being the actual
conditions in the Transvaal il Is per-
haps not to be wondered at that new
words and terse expressions percolate
with extreme slowness through the
boer mind and are elected more often
than accepted The people cling to
phrases more than a century old, and
which have been repudiated by other
nations generations ago. The boer
essentially roveres and loves the past.
| When the boer had possession of
Cape Colony and the southeastern sea-
coast of south Africa he came in con-
tact with rowing Portuguese, careless
| Frenchmen, adventurous Englishmen,
a few Bohemians and Poles, and many
commercially inclined Germans. Some
of them intermarriei with his people.
From them he picked up chance words
and expressions which gradually be-
came part of his daily speech. But in
stead of leaving them in the pure state
in which they came TO him he reason
ed that he could III AXE Improvements.
So in some instances he would prefix
a heavy, monotonous syllable OF his
own. In other cases ne would make 1t
an affix. And sometimes he split the
newfound word in the middle and put
his boer Improvement there. The re-
suit of such changes, made at hap
hazard and without thought as to
eventual results, has been the creation
OF that frightful conglomeratioD
known as the boer language. The re-
suit of the evolution suits him, but
there is no instance on record OF It's
ever having agreed with any human
being Of another race. An added DIFF
iculty to a proper understanding OF
the boer tongue is the fact that the
greater portion of the pronunciation
comes from the stomach and not from
the throat. Americans and English
men are accustomed TO high-register
tones. We sometimes speak Of the
heavy tones of the English. but they
are high register compared with those
OF the beers. The Frenchman desires
with his speech the wink. nod, smile