SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | Date: 1998
SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH Short forms SAfrE, SAE. The English language as used in the Republic of South Africa, the first language of
c. 10% (about 2.7m) of the total population of the RSA. About two-thirds of this 10% are white, and most of the rest Indian or ‘Coloured’ (mixed African and European descent). To a small but important African élite, English is a ‘second first language’, and it is spoken fluently by many Afrikaners. As a
LINGUA FRANCA, it is used with varying degrees of proficiency by millions whose mother tongue is not English. Until 1994, with
AFRIKAANS, it was one of the two official languages; in that year, nine indigenous languages became official: Ndebele, Pedi, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. In the following discussion, South African English focuses primarily on the usage of South Africans for whom English is their first language.History The Dutch settlement at the Cape dates from 1652. When the British seized the colony in 1795, they moved into a long-established
DUTCH-speaking community with its own culture, administration, and patterns of relationship with the black and Khoisan peoples of the subcontinent. The Dutch community was already diglossic, for example using standard
DUTCH for religious and governmental purposes and local varieties known variously as
Cape Dutch,
colonial Dutch,
South African Dutch, or simply
the taal (‘the language’) as dialects of ‘hearth and home’. These were later, between 1875 and 1925, standardized as
Afrikaans. Since the end of the 18c, many speakers of English in southern Africa have been in close contact with Dutch/Afrikaans people (with many intermarriages), and less closely with speakers of
BANTU and Khoisan languages. Competent bilinguals (for example, in English and Dutch, or Xhosa and English) have been numerous and influential, and conditions have favoured complex
CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING. There is also a large body of published English writings by non-English authors.Pronunciation (1) SAfrE is typically nonrhotic, but may become
RHOTIC or partially so in speakers strongly influenced by
AFRIKAANS ENGLISH. These may have final postvocalic /r/ and a medial /r/ as trill or tap. Lanham has observed an initial obstruent (fricative) /r/, in such phrases as
red,
red rose, in older speakers in the Eastern Cape. (2) Variations in
ACCENT depend usually on education, social class, domicile (rural or urban), and accommodation to speakers of varieties different from one's own. (3) Conservative middle-class accents remain close to RP, though typically with the lowering and retraction (in certain phonetic contexts) of the vowel in RP
bit,
pin to a position approaching that of
SCHWA /ə/, in varying degrees. The vowel of RP
goose is often central rather than back. (4) Salient features of ‘broader’ accents include the following renderings: the vowel of RP
trap as ‘trep’ (Afrikaans/Dutch and the southern Bantu languages lacking a vowel of the
trap quality); the long back vowel of RP
car in a higher and more rounded version as in the stereotype ‘pork the car’; diphthong reductions as in
fair hair as /feː heː/, and the vowel of RP
price in a glideless or nearly glideless version, so that
kite may resemble
cart. (5) In a class of
LOANWORDS from Afrikaans, such as the interjection
ga (/xa/) expressing disgust, and
gedoente (fuss, bustle), most speakers use a borrowed velar or palatal fricative like the sound in ScoE
loch. In another loan class, of words such as
bakkie (light delivery van) and
pap (porridge), there is a vowel between those of RP
but and
hot. The precise extent of Afrikaans influence on the sound system and other aspects of SAfrE is a matter of controversy. In many cases, such as the vowel of the
trap class, there seem to have been convergent influences from English settler dialects, Dutch/Afrikaans, and in some cases African languages.Grammar The syntax of formal SAfrE is close to that of the international standard. Colloquial SAfrE, however, has many features, such as: (1) Sentence initiators such as affirmative
no, as in
How are you?—No,
I'm fine, probably from Dutch/Afrikaans, and the emphatic
aikona as in
Aikona fish (‘No fish today’), of Nguni (Bantu) origin. The common informal phrase
ja well no fine (yes well no fine) has been adopted in solid written form as an affectionate expression of ridicule (
jawellnofine) for broad SAfrE usage, and has served to name a South African television programme. (2) The suffixed phrase
and them, as in
We saw Billy and them in town (‘Billy and the others’), a form found also in Caribbean varieties. (3) Busy as a progressive marker with stative verbs, as in
We were busy waiting for him, and often with a nonanimate subject, as in
The rinderpest was busy decimating their herds. (4) The all-purpose response
is it?, as in
She had a baby last week.—
Is it?, heard also in Singapore and Malaysia, but closely parallel in use to Afrikaans
Is dit? (5) Extensive use of Afrikaans ‘modal adverbs’, such as
sommer (‘just’) in
We were sommer standing around.Vocabulary SAfrE has borrowed freely. A rough estimate of source languages for distinctively South African words is: Dutch/Afrikaans 50%, English 30%, African languages 10%, other languages 10%. The most recent years show an increasing proportion of items of English or African-language origin. Most of the SAfrE items best known internationally, such as
Afrikaner,
boer,
trek, and
veld, are of Dutch/Afrikaans origin. An exception is
concentration camp, coined by the British during the second Anglo-Boer War. In most domains, such as landscape and topography, there is likely to be: (1) A high proportion of ‘common words’ borrowed directly from Dutch/Afrikaans, such as
drift ford (1795),
kloof deep valley or ravine (1731),
land a cultivated stretch, usually fenced (from Cape Dutch), and
veld open country (1835). (2) A number of ‘English’ items translated or partially translated from Dutch or Afrikaans, such as
backveld back country, outback, from Dutch
achterveld. (3) Some words of English origin that have acquired new senses, such as
location, originally, as in Australia, an area allocated to white settlers, later ‘a district set aside for Blacks’, and still later ‘a segregated urban area for Blacks’, typically with strongly unfavourable connotations (as in ‘the usual mess, the location, of sacking and paraffin tins’: Dan Jacobson). In this sense,
location has largely given way to the equally euphemistic
township. (4) A sprinkling of items of African-language origin: for example,
karroo semi-desert (Khoi, 1776),
donga an eroded watercourse, usually dry (Nguni). (5) A few words reflecting South Africa's cosmopolitanism, past and present, such as
kraal an African or Khoikhoi village, an enclosure for cattle (probably from
PORTUGUESE curral: compare
SPANISH corral).
Most topic areas reflect the wide range of peoples and cultures of past and present-day South Africa. Thus, among trees are the flowering
keurboom (South African Dutch, 1731), the hardwoods
stinkwood and
yellow-wood (translating Dutch
stinkhout and
geolhout) and
silver tree, an English coinage dating from early travellers' accounts of the Cape (Dutch:
wittebome white trees). Among living creatures are the antelopes
eland (Dutch: elk),
kudu (probably Khoisan),
impala (Zulu), and
tssebe (Tswana). Human types range from the
predikant or
dominee (Dutch/Afrikaans: minister of the Dutch Reformed Church) through the
sangoma (Nguni: diviner) to the
ducktails (Teddy boys) of the streets of the 1960s. Artefacts range from the traditional
kaross (Khoisan via Afrikaans: skin blanket) through the
Cape cart (mistranslating Afrikaans
kapkar hooded cart) to the ubiquitous
bakkie (from Afrikaans: basin or other container), a light truck, now a symbol of virile open-air life. Liquor ranges from traditional Nguni
tshwala brewed with malted grain or maize (formerly
Kaffir beer, now often
sorghum beer) to
mampoer, a brandy distilled from peaches and other soft fruits, possibly named after the Sotho chief Mampuru.
Mahog(
a) is brandy as served in township shebeens (many now legalized as
taverns) and possibly from English
mahogany. Foods include
boerewors (Afrikaans: boer sausage), a centrepiece of a
braaivleis (Afrikaans: barbecue), and
sosaties (curried kebabs, probably from Malay). At outdoor parties, the focal dish may be
potjiekos (Afrikaans), a stew with ingredients to taste, made in a three-legged pot over an open fire. African township culture has generated an enormous vocabulary that includes
matchbox a small standardized dwelling,
spot a shebeen or tavern,
boere (‘boers’) the police, and
tsotsi an African street thug (of uncertain origin). Much of the vast government vocabulary of apartheid remains in use, such as
group area an area set apart for a particular racial group, and
resettlement, sometimes forcible, of people into such areas. ‘Resistance vocabulary’ includes the rallying cry
Amandla (
ngawethu) ‘Power (is ours)’, from Nguni, and the more recent
Viva!, perhaps from Portuguese-speaking Mozambique,
comrade in the specialized sense of ‘political activist, usually young’, and
necklace (execution by igniting a petrol-filled tyre hung round the victim's neck). Two items of special interest are
muti and
larney. The first, from Zulu, originally designated traditional African medicines and other remedies, but has passed into general white colloquial use as in
The pharmacist gave me a special muti for this.
Lahnee, of unknown origin, appeared first in IndE in general colloquial use, usually as
larney, meaning ‘smart, pretentious’, as in
a hell of a larney wedding. See
AFRICAN ENGLISH.SOUTH AFRICAN PLACE-NAMESThe place-names of South Africa reflect mixed linguistic origins over some 300 years, and are mainly of three kinds:1.
African. The complex African heritage includes names from the earlier Khoisan (Bushman, Hottentot) languages (such as
Namib, the name of a desert, providing the base for the Latinized
Namibia, the neighbouring country formerly known as
South West Africa) and the later and more widely distributed Bantu languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. Zulu names include
Amanzimtoti (‘sweet water’),
Khayelitsha (‘new home’), and
Majuba (‘doves’), also as a hybrid form
Majuba Hill, the site of a battle between Zulus and British in 1882. The prefix
Kwa (‘place of’) is common, as in
KwaZulu (‘place of the people of heaven’, replacing the Anglo-hybrid
Zululand) and
KwaMashu (‘Mashu's place’). The use of an internal capital letter in such names is distinctive; the prefix
Um occurs with the names of rivers, as in
Umfolozi,
Umhlanga, and
Umkomazi, but without such a capital. African-language town names include
Lusikisiki,
Qumbu,
Tabankulu,
Tsolo, and
Umtata.2. Afrikaans. The Afrikaans language shares many place-name elements with Dutch, the European language from which it derives. These include
berg as in
Drakensberg (‘dragon's mountain’),
burg as in
Johannesburg (‘John's city’),
dorp as in
Krugersdorp (‘Kruger's town’),
drift (‘ford’) as in the hybrid
Rorke's Drift,
kloof as in
Groenkloof (‘green ravine’),
rand as in
Witwatersrand (‘white water ridge’) and
Randburg (‘ridge city’), and
stad as in
Kaapstad (‘cape town’). Names of cities include those derived from Dutch and other European associations, as with
Frankfort and
Utrecht, and commemorating Afrikaner leaders, as with the Latin
Pretoria (the South African capital, named for Andries Pretorius),
Pietermaritzburg (after the Voortrekker leaders Piet Retief and Gerrit Maritz), and
Piet Retief.3. English. Place-names in English are far outnumbered by those in both the regional African languages and Afrikaans, settlers from the British Isles having arrived at a point when a topographical naming system was largely in place.
Cape Town is a direct translation of Afrikaans
Kaapstad, and both forms are in regular everyday use, and distinctively English names follow the general pattern found elsewhere in territories formerly governed from Great Britain: transferred British names, often adapted, as with
Bedford,
East London,
Margate, and
Sutherland, and commemorative names, such as
Durban (formerly
D'Urban, after a governor of that name),
Ladysmith,
Lambert's Bay,
Marydale,
Port Elizabeth,
Grahamstown,
George (after King George III),
King Williams Town,
Prince Albert Road, and
Uniondale. Hybridization occurs, between English and Zulu in
Mhlanga Rocks and English and Afrikaans in
Fraserburg (an Afrikaans adaptations of Scottish
Fraserburgh).
© Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998.
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