Talk:Afrikaans/Archive 1

message: I have read somewhere about Negerhollands. Was it a synonym of Afrikaans, a pidgin or a creole? -- Error 02:14, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you -- Error 01:11, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Negerhollands]]

message: Can somebody comment whether Afrikaans is thought to be a creole language? -- Error
:There is some interesting stuff available under this Google search. ? McDutchie 12:56, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Creole

message: This article should really be listed under "Afrikaans" and not "Afrikaans language"; the word "language" is redundant because Afrikaans cannot be anything than a language (unlike, for instance, English or Italian). However, the system won't let me move it. ? McDutchie 12:41, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Afrikaans culture?  Paul Beardsell 19:28, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: I think the reason you can't move it is because there's already a redirect from "Afrikaans" to "Afrikaans language". -- Ortonmc 02:48, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: It is named like this for consistence with other languages' articles. Bogdan | Talk 17:02, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant title 

message: I don't like the recent copyedit which changed "white" to White and "coloured" to Coloured.  The apartheid-era SA government used White and Coloured as though they were natural, accepted, distinct, well understood terms describing proper racial groups.  Those officially classified Coloureds encompassed people indistinguishable (except on the whim of the official who administered the arbitrary tests) from those categorised Black and others indistinguishable from those qualified White and others who were evidently of far-Eastern heritage.  Now, I am not in favour of politcial correctness for its own sake, but what is the PC approach we should be taking here?  Certainly I know the term Coloured (especially capitalised) is offensive to many of those so classified.  In anti-apartheid circles in the 80's typically the term so-called "coloureds" would often be used.  The Coloureds were a SA apartheid-era political construct, nothing more.  I believe we should use quotes to show the dubiousness of the categorisation as in:  Mr Jones and his "wife" went to a hotel.  In my view there are similar issues with the term White, capitalised.  That, once again, was the SA apartheid-era legal way of referring to those so categorised.  
Paul Beardsell 08:08, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: ''"white"'' vs ''White'' and ''"coloured"'' vs ''Coloured''

message: This heading compiles the discussions between Paul Beardsell, Arjan de Weerd and Elf-friend on the influence of Belgium and the German language, respectively, on the Afrikaans language. Most of it was done on De Weerd's talk page, but it seemed better to him to relocate it here.
Hello Paul, I removed the Flemish reference because of these reasons:
As I understand it, Afrikaans is linguistically largely derived from the dialect of Zuid-Holland, which is a Netherlandic dialect
Flemish as such is either one of two Belgian Dutch dialects (East- and West-Flemish) or generally a umbrella name for the kind of standard Dutch used in Belgium. As far as I can see, the Southern Dutch (= Belgian) dialects had little to do with the development of Afrikaans, as long before Van Riebeecks foundation of Kaapstad the southern Dutch Provinces had split from the United Provinces, remaining under Spanish rule — another contributing factor for the current many small differences between Netherlandic and Belgian Dutch.
Except maybe for (geographically) fringe dialects such as Gronings or Limburgs, *all* bits of Dutch and Afrikaans are mutually understanding, and so singling out Flemish seemed random, especially considering points 1. and 2.
I honestly thought the Flemish reference was trivial. But, of course, I should've discussed it first before deleting. Cwoyte 11:58, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Afrikaans, Belgium, and German

message: It would be interesting as well to have some current number of speakers, by race.
Now we only have the proportion of af speakers to their race, but not of race to af speakers.
-- Error 00:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ratios

message: How does one difference "African" from "Afrikaans" or "Afrikaner" in Afrikaans?
-- Error 00:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the (linguistically) correct term is Afrikaan, but I don't think that term is very widely used in everyday language. Elf-friend 01:23, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "African"

message: Does Afrikaans have a T-V distinction, like Dutch?  --Isk s 18:53, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, its the same:  "u" or "U" is formal, and "jy" is informal. --Dewet 20:36, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: T-V distinction

message: ====Afrikaans language → Afrikaans====
As per the naming conventions, if the language's name is unique, it shouldn't have the "language" suffix. The name Afrikaans refers exclusively to the language. -- Naive cynic 09:44, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archived discussion from [[WP:RFM]] for the move 

message: As per the naming conventions, if the language's name is unique, it shouldn't have the "language" suffix. The name Afrikaans refers exclusively to the language. -- Naive cynic 09:44, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Afrikaans language]] &rarr; [[Afrikaans]]

message: I've either read or heard that several Germanic languages besides German used to capitalise all common nouns. In Danish this practice was abolished in a spelling reform in the late 1940s. Can anybody tell me if this was ever practiced in Afrikaans and if so when was it abolished? — Hippietrail 16:50, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Former capitalisation of common nouns? 

message: Is this (creol/Pidgin) close enough to be a part of Afrikaans ?
Sarcelles 02:54, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oorlams 

message: I have been working on a couple of comparative articles on the Germanic verb.  Two of these need examples from Afrikaans   Is there anyone here who is conversant in Afrikaans who can add the necessary info to these.  One of them is the article Germanic weak verb, where the conjugation of the Afrikaans verb needs to be added to the table.  We really want to use the verb cognate with "work/wirken" if possible.  The second article is West Germanic strong verb, where Afrikaans needs a short entry at the end of the section on each of the seven classes parallel to that given to Dutch (please keep the format consistent).  This will require someone to go through the list of Afrikaans strong verbs at the end of a dictionary and find in each case which class they belong to - it will always be the same class as the Dutch cognate! - and list them.  I will add any comparative comments required, and will help you if you get into trouble.  (By all means use my talk page for sorting out problems!)    --Doric Loon 15:12, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Afrikaans has lost the strong verb, for example "he sang/has sung" is hy het gesing rather than the ancestral Dutch hij heeft gezongen. "We have left" is ons het vertrek rather than wij waren vertrokken. I will add the Afrikaans to the Germanic Weak Verb page. I think this illustrates very well how much more analytic Afrikaans is than Dutch, even more so than English. Booshank 12:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Afrikaans verbs

message: I have written this article, which I have moved to Oosgrens-Afrikaans. The 
factual accuracy seems doubtful. Furthermore the spelling Oosgrensafrikaans is doubtful.
Sarcelles 10:28, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Oosgrensafrikaans]] 

message: Surely Near East, Australia etc cannot be listed as regions for Afrikaans? By that criteria almost every language in the world would have hugely long lists.  Greenman 13:21, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regions 

message: #Shouldn't the article mention that there is a Bible in Afrikaans?
#Maybe a list of Afrikaans writers? 
Bertus 11:36, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Bertus. I don't think it should list writers - there's already a separate List_of_Afrikaans-language_poets. Will add a link in the article. There's probably also a need for a list of Afrikaans novelists, or other forms of writers - I suggest these be separate articles. I'm not sure of the relevance of mentioning that Afrikaans has a bible - I'm sure almost every language in the world has one. If the translation was particularly noteworthy (and I seem to remember it was, with the move from Dutch), perhaps something can go in the History section. Feel free to add something if you have details, or post suggestions on the talk page. By the way, just a note about formatting - no need for all the HTML - you can create lists quite easily in wiki style - see the Editing Help page for more details. Greenman 12:26, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few things 

message: I think the bit about Afrikaans being guttural and sounding harsher than Dutch and Flemish should be dropped or re-written in less potentially offensive terms. As an Afrikaans speaker, Dutch sounds much, much harsher to me than Afrikaans. I'm not so sure about guttural either - German sounds guttural to me, but not Afrikaans. So I think the problem is that the article might currently be describing what Afrikaans sounds like to (some) Europeans (or perhaps even just what they think it should sound like given its associations with boorishness, apartheid and so on). Apologies to Dutch and German speakers if this comment gave offence.
--168.210.90.180 15:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree: this statement is entirely subjective. It would be better to make a purely phonetic comparison between the languages. --Gareth Hughes 16:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Sounds Harsh'' 

message: When giving an outside comment regarding a mediation on Dutch language I came across a number of claims that Afrikaans is the "youngest (official) language". Just mentioning this here in case other editors find it notable/interesting enough to mention in the article. See Google search on "youngest language". Some results: , , . FWIW! Back to my wikibreak. AvB ÷ talk 15:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Youngest language"

message: I'm not trying to upset anyone here, but I don't think it's fair to say that the language issue was only a catalyst for the Soweto uprisings. I think it was an issue in itself. Afrikaans was (despite the fact that it is a predominantly Coloured language, that fact was never really celebrated until the 1990's) associated with the Apartheid regime (English was considered more neutral) and the Nat government. There was resentment towards Afrikaans as a symbol of oppression which is only dissipating recently. Joziboy 4 March 2006, 22:28 (UTC)
---
I live in South Africa and am still learning Afrikaans. An Afrikaner is usually a rude term for an Afrikaans-speaking person or Afrikaans looking person (yes it is possible to 'look' Afrikaans, once you've lived here as long as we have you know) and is usually used in a downing way, such is the same with the term 'boer' which is  usually used as an offensive slang due to the fact that many farmers (i.e-boers) treated their black or coloured workers very harshly during apartheid times! 
: I have no idea what you're talking about. There is nothing offensive about the term Afrikaner, in fact, look at the recently published history of Afrikaans-speakers, "The Afrikaners" in English or "Die Afrikaner" in Afrikaans! Páll (Die pienk olifant) 18:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: sociolinguistics of apartheid

message: Is there a reference for the claim that Afrikaans is the 'most common second language in both Namibia and South Africa'? I have no idea about Namibia, but Zulu is the most commonly understood language in South Africa - while it's true that Afrikaans is predominant in the Western and Northern Cape, the Eastern provinces are much more populous (the Northern Cape has a particularly low population density) Joziboy 11 March 2006, 12:27 (UTC)
: Zulu is not the most commonly understood language in South Africa.  Zulu is the language with the highest number of mother-tongue speakers in South Africa.  Xhosa is second, Afrikaans is third.  But that's not the issue, is it?  The question is not the number of mother-tongue speakers, but the number of speakers altogether.  Unfortunately current South African census figures do not include second and third languages, but I'm under the impression that Afrikaans is most widely spoken (i.e. understood and spoken at conversational level by the largest number of South Africans). -- leuce 10:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Second language

message: Perhaps in the history section we might mention the Auwal mosque which was the first place in South Africa where Afrikaans, and not Dutch was taught. Afrikaans was used to explain Islamic theology. Ahassan05 21:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds noteworthy.  I found this reference.  Is there anything more definitive?  --Piet Delport 23:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmm?  That would be news to me. dewet|™ 11:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The script, mostly.  I can believe the mosque-part, though, being considered a "kombuistaal" and all. dewet|✉ 23:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks;  the first is a very interesting source indeed.  I think I'll translate Arabic Afrikaans soon.  dewet|✉ 03:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  first place Afikaans was taught. 

message: Is this really appropriate for an encyclopaedia? Unfortunately it is rather common for speakers of one language to regard another language with contempt. I don't think that Afrikaans in a unique position; in my experience many English-speakers regard French, German, Arabic, Chinese and a whole list of languages as ugly or contemptible, mainly out of pure ignorance and/or prejudice. This seems rather like a hostile POV being smuggled in under cover of being a 'widespread opinion'.
I was just about to post on this.  I think this section is pointless and inflammatory.  It needs to be removed, or at least completely rewritten to present only factual data (which will be very difficult).  Statements such as "Nevertheless, the language is sometimes regarded with contempt by Anglophone persons from a less-educated background, especially from South Africa." are completely inapproriate. Jsimkins 20:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  International view of Afrikaans 

message: I think the external links should be trimmed to include only links to pages about the language Afrikaans, and not to web sites that only happen to be in Afrikaans but not specifically about Afrikaans, and not to software that is in Afrikaans but not specifically language related.  A link or two to literary sites (eg Litnet) may be in order (unsure about that), but no links to Afrikaans newspapers or Afrikaans magazines (there must be close to a hundred of those anyway) (perhaps someone can write a wikipage on Afrikaans media).  Otherwise any Joe and his cat will add his personal web site to the wikipage simply because it is "in Afrikaans".  No spell-checkers or word processing programs should be linked either -- the spell-checkers can be mentioned on the wikipage for Afrikaans spelling.  Your comments? leuce 20:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question about external links 

message: Regarding this comment: (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).
It is my understanding that legislation in 1925 made Afrikaans an official language by stating that whenever "Dutch" is mentioned, "Afrikaans" is implied.  Can anyone provide citation for the 1961 sub-clause mentioned?  Could it be that this clause was only there for backward compatibility with previous legislation where "Dutch" was mentioned? leuce 21:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afrikaans equals Dutch in 1925? 

message: hi, i adjusted the contempt section slightly. It seemed as if the paragraph was stating that english speaking persons in particular have a problem with the Afrikaans language. --Aliwalla 09:57, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhm... but they do...!? --Adriaan90  (Talk|Contribs) 13:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not without a citation, they don't (as far as Wikipedia is concerned).  --Piet Delport 16:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  contempt section 

message: Anybody want to help me work on Afrikaans over at Wikibooks. I'm still learning it myself, so I cant really do it all. íslenskur fellibylur #12 (samtal) 17:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikibooks

message: Just cleaned up the external links a bit, but I'd like to see one that goes directly to a tv broadcast. Personally I find myself most interested in a language when I can actually see people speaking it to each other. There's a video here that's a good example, but it's a bit old. Anybody know one better? Just a five-minute video of people talking to each other in clear Afrikaans would be fine, and without the need for Windows Media Player or Real Player or anything else. Mithridates 10:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: The section on Orthography might be clearer on whether the alphabet used in Afrikaans is the same as the Dutch alphabet. One would assume so, but what about the ij digraph? I doubt a whole article would be necessary on the subject, but perhaps a sentence or two with link to the Dutch alphabet article. --A12n 04:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Afrikaans alphabet is exactly the same as the English one. All other "characters" or whatever are actually normal letters with punctuation. It also does not recognise digraphs in the alphabet, but counts the letters contained within them separately. <FONT FACE="MS Reference Sans Serif" COLOR="#FF0000">► Adriaan90  ( Talk ♥ Contribs ) ♪♫</FONT> 18:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afrikaans alphabet? 

message: The Afrikaans article needs more information about the use / history of the language in Namibia.  The following web link and book reference may be appropriate to include in an updated version of the page.  Crucially through the work of Stal and Ponelis the history of Afrikaans goes back almost 350 years, not to the mid / late 19th Century that many still assume was the case. 
This material was prepared on the closure of the Dutch Embassy in Windhoek in June 2006.
http://www.namibianederland.net/
Book published / downloadable from the web site. 
Namibia and the Netherlands - 350 years of relations
Detailed language reference cited in bibliography is 
So het Afrikaans na Namibie gekom:  Hollands-Afrikaans in Namibie Voor Die Koloniale Tyd
  
ELP Stals / FA Ponelis  - Windhoek January 2001 [Stals is a historian and Ponelis a well known linguistic specialist and contributor on the subject of Afrikaans]  
 
ISBN: 9991602941 
 
William Parker ---- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rectoryclose2003 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afrikaans in Namibia 

message: Someone has recently added the assertion that the double negative in Afrikaans originates in Middle Dutch. However, I do do not believe that there is any general agreement on where the double negative originates. French and Hottentot origins have also been suggested. This article used to state this, but now presents the theory of a Dutch origin as a generally agreed fact when I do not believe it is. Booshank 18:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A lot of things were said to "come from French" in the earlier days of research into the origins of Afrikaans.  The double negative is one of them.  I agree that there is no agreement, and perhaps both should be mentioned. -- leuce 10:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double negative 

message: A simple question which maybe difficult to answer: Is Afrikaans an African language? Aaker 16:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehe :) It's generally considered to be, though some disagree, as it formed in Africa, and is only really spoken in Africa.Greenman 11:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes and no, depending on what you want to say.  Is Indogermanic a European or an Asian language?  Is English a European or a North American language?  Let's face it... Afrikaans didn't originate in Europe and it has never been spoken in larger numbers in Europe than it was spoken in Africa.  But if someone says "African language", they might mean to include Afrikaans, or not, and there's no scientific way to pin it down.  When Thabo Mbeki says "African language", he probably excludes Afrikaans; when Kortbroek says it, he probably includes it. So, first define "African language", "European lanuage", "North American language" etc, and wel'll continue this discussion. -- leuce 10:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:   African? 

message: Can someone please advise me on the correct coding for Afrikaans language in the translations at the end of English-language articles? I have used "ak" under Northern Grysbok and Southern Grysbok. Thanks—GRM 22:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I got it "af"...—GRM 22:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afrikaans translations of English-language entries 

message: I don't think Norwegian merits a separate section here, as it really isn't any more similar to Afrikaans than Swedish or Danish, and as many of the similar words aren't "genealogically related", but borrowings or calques from Middle Low German during the Hanseatic League trade. 惑乱 分からん 14:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say it deserves mention, or at least some Scandinavian language.Cameron Nedland 19:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text: If the words are remotely similar, then I'd say keep it, if only for interest sake, even if it aint linguistically "valid" to make the comparison.  It does no harm to keep it.  If you're concerned that readers may become confused because Norwegian isn't related to Afrikaans, why not indicate that in the headings of the columns (something like "Not West Germanic"). -- leuce 10:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Norwegian language