Poetic Afrikaans
Because we were brought up having a slight disdain for Afrikaans and Afrikaners, it was quite some time before I fully accepted that Afrikaners were my countrymen and that Afrikaans was a rather beautiful language.
In Standard 9, in 1983, Mrs van der Walt was our Afrikaans teacher at Jeppe High School for Girls – that draughty institution of Kensington about which I have had much that was scathing to say in the past. But Mrs van der Walt clearly loved her language and her face would light up as she described the meaning of the poems or stories she read, and when moved she would come close to tears, always taking the time to explain, or to draw from us, her audience, the same kind of appreciation for the words and meaning as she herself felt.
This was the first time the penny really dropped for me. Being a lover of language, theatre, drama, words and meanings as I was, I could hardly fail to succumb to the spell cast by writing such as this, for example:
“Finis
Nou maak ek self nie meer so baie saak nie
want jy’t bobbejaan na my gestuur met ’n briefie in sy bek
dit was geskryf op varkensblaar
dit was ’n bietjie dof
dit was om my en jou te nooi
na die Apies se bruilof
Jy het al die liedjies van my kindertyd weer in my laat sing
en in my hart die Jakkalse elke dag laat trou
Maar wat sal jy van my kan saamneem?
Miskien wanneer die lewe met jou kotiljons
en lekker wals op die Apies se bruilof
sal jy onthou dat jy vir my Aprilmaand was
– die wolke altyd bietjie voor die son –
en ek ten spyte van die reën kon lag
En jy sal lag
– Lina Spies
Mrs van der Walt would read a stanza to us, then leave the words floating in the air, asking us to consider them, their meaning; and in the way mercury might be held in a dream, we tried (and sometimes succeeded) in completely grasping what the words actually meant, not only in terms of the literal translation.
As the words wove their elegant way into my mind it was as though a door previously tightly shut began to creak open. Slowly and surely, lesson after lesson would open the door a little more and I would begin to glimpse the extraordinary power of a language I had all but ignored, if not sneered at, up until then.
I don’t know when I discovered Herman Charles Bosman but I know I have my parents to thank for that, and they would take us to see Patrick Mynhardt in his classic Oom Schalk Lourens role, raconteur, comic, dry as biltong and tough as leather with that silver current of high humour running through his every nuance. Amazing!
That was when I began to appreciate the story-telling abilities of the Afrikaner and my understanding broadened at a rapid rate thereafter, as I made sure I exposed myself in my early adult life to Afrikaans plays, experimental theatre, and Afrikaans music and so on.
Not sure why the Afrikaans people are looked on as coming from a cultural backwater or was it only me who ever looked at them like that?
Funny… I used to be told the same thing by my parents.
What’s so cool about OTI and everyone’s stories is that things that previously were-not-spoke-of are now being shared, and it’s a relief to know: I’m not the only one/my parents weren’t the only ones.
In other stories: I spent 1.5 years at Jeppe. (The old school building regularly features as a backdrop in my dreams.) I don’t remember having Mrs. van der Walt but it IS where I encountered “Met Ander Woorde” for the first time and realized how non-existent my Afrikaans was!
Interesting, Wendy. When were you @ Jeppe
(thank Lawd it does not feature in MY dreams!)
Colleen´s last blog ..Things That Annoy Part XMCVIIII
Charlie do you mean your parents taught you Afrikaners were culturally backward?
Colleen´s last blog ..Things That Annoy Part XMCVIIII
@Collen: I was there in time for centenary (1989-1990) and still have my Jeppe centenary mug!
@Colleen,
Yeah, they used to say to me, “If you want to be sophisticated, don’t be like the Afrikaners. You must be like the English.”
@ Charlie: very interesting
Colleen´s last blog ..The Deppsters special Magic
@ Wendy – do you mean that the ideas I have described above about my perceptions were not/could not be spoken of previously? Or that it was simply something one did not discuss?
@Colleen: I mean that the light in which English-speaking people were taught to see Afrikaners is something isn’t really discussed today. I too was brought up to have a slight (?) disdain for Afrikaners. And even though tolerance is a huge part of society today, and my generation is much better at practicing it, we seldom actually talk about what went before now. Perhaps from shame/embarrassment or trying to be as PC as possible. Maybe I’m just projecting. I’m embarrassed and frustrated by my parents’ lack of tolerance, and so wouldn’t openly admit to it. But stories like yours (and comments like Charlie’s) show me that English-speaking families across SA behave(d) in similar ways. Which in a strange way makes me a little more tolerant of my folks – (not accepting of their views, just tolerant of them). We are all ripples I guess.
I see what you mean Wendy. The dialogue being opened here is important, I agree. It is interesting to me to note that other English speaking families were brought up in this way. wish we could hear from more people on this.
Indeed. It would be great if Old Takkies could get more exposure (say on News24.com?) – eh eh.
Wendy, I also meant I would like to hear from other OTI people whether their experiences were the same. As to us getting more exposure, well all we can do is advertise our site all the time. I always do a FB update AND a blog when I do a column here and I also notify of new topics, etc.
Colleen´s last blog ..The Deppsters special Magic
Met Ander Woorde! Holy crap- that always used to do me in. I think I averaged about 4 out of 50 for all my MAW tests.
Brilliant, as always.
Hija Colleen – I was born of Afrikaans parents (well my dad had German background but my mom was as Afrikaans as they come). For some reason they decided that we needed to go to school in ‘english’. I ended up marrying two englishmen. My children are english but I still consider myself afrikaans through and through. I relate to the language. My sister and her family are afrikaans. At school we were 15 kids in the english class out of a total of about 80 matrics. We had the reverse effect and were definately the minority. When we went to our 30th reunion we were still referred to as ‘die engelse klas’ rather than die matrieks van ‘78. So we had the reverse!
To me, afrikaans is still the most beautiful and descriptive language ever and I embrace my afrikaans heritage.
I don’t want to say too much since my blog is on this topice, but I often find English speaking South Africans to be snobbish towards Afrikaans, which makes this blog as well as Karabelo Mokoena’s story very special.
theFlipSide´s last blog ..THE iPHONE AND OTHER REMARKABLE GADGETS
@ MsChris, very interesting how some of your fam is completely afrikaans and some english and how you as the ‘wnglish class’ was the minority that was discrimintaed against.
Agree with what you say re the Afrikaans language.
@flipside: where is this blog?
Colleen´s last blog ..Please answer the question
MAW was always my strong point in school. I could never understand why so many English speaking people battled with Afrikaans at school, after all it was one of your home languages, wasn’t it? Well I thought so for everyone but obviously not.
VOTED!´s last blog ..Opinions, who’s counts?
@ voted: not it was not one of my home languages. I only spoke English @ home
Colleen´s last blog ..Please answer the question
@ Colleen – I should have rather said “my story on this topic” – which should hopefully be up sometime this month.
theFlipSide´s last blog ..THE iPHONE AND OTHER REMARKABLE GADGETS
Born and raised Afrikaans ,on the east rand ,a mine town,BENONI.Yes we were held as stupid ,backwater and less.
My folks spoke a proper English ,and my father’s mother was a nee Whitehorn, thus we 5 brats were expected of, to speak it, read it ,and write it as good as possible – that is English.I fell in love with the language very quickly and very deeply.Had the situation not existed (that afrikaans was less), I suppose I may not have set out to prove , we boertjies , were equal.The total upside was / is ,it opened popular culture to me ,long before T.V. arrived in ‘75.Today I see it as a huge plus that prevailed at the time.I am no CAMBRIDGE student ,but I am able to converse ,argue ,and express my thoughts clear enough ,for people to know ,I’m not backwater or stupid.It also gave me a great love ,for popular music from the 60’s 70’s and 80’s , something those people,who fought against it ,will miss ,sadly without even knowing it.I am thankfull for English ,and what it did for the Afrikaaners like me.It helped make me the man I am .Sad thing is just this ,we the Afrikaaner ,did exactly the same thing to our coloured brothers and sister’s language and culture in this great country.
History does indeed repeat itself !
As an immigrant to SA in the very early 80s, I found the whole culture quite different to that in Scotland, and in the UK as a whole I suppose.
In the UK there is the whole class system which I really hate with a passion.
I was quite glad to see, or that I percieved it as such, that the class system didnt quite exist, in the manner in which I was used to at least, which to me was wonderful, not that I was lower class, but perhaps felt that I might have been, but thats a whole other story, for my shrink I guess.
Anyway, apart from the elephant in the room, apartheid, I felt that we were all one big equal community.
Until I bagan to socialise a bit and found that there were even more categories that I had been used to. There were of course The “dutchmen” (I never understood why that was such an insult either – does anyone know ?), The Poras, The Lebs, The Greeks, and then of course all the other “Ethnic” categories.
It just seemed that everyone was after everyone else and all did their best to insult the hell out of each other.
The feeling that I got about Afrikaaners was that they were, as has already been mention, rather backwater people and mostly stuck in the past and using an “antiquated” and “made-up” language. I am not saying this is the case at all, but the perception I was given of the Afrikans people.
I think it was also insinuated that they lived in the past too, sort of stillliving in the Boer war era and not embracing change, and in fact totally against it in anyway.
The others were also treated with their own versions of stereo-types too, with the Lebs and Poras at each others throats all the time.
All very strange, but right or wrong, that was my “take” on the situation back then.
Has it changed much ? Racial attitudes have changed tremendously, something, as a furriner, I thought I wouldnt see in my lifetime. But am so glad to have seen it happening so widespread, despite a lot of work still being needed.
Its all going in a good direction, and its the people themselves doing it, all something to be proud of I would think.
Impossible to reply to all comments!
@George, great comments, you speak the truth, everyone did seem out to insult everyone else – but at least it has been curbed, hopefully it’s genuine.
As for advertising the site everyone, please post links wherever you have influence – I’m on this all day along with a rudimentary Facebook advertising campaign which I am still testing out…
but links are key – our numbers are good but more people need to hear the stories
GEORGE ,as an afrikaaner,to call me a dutchmen ,means I’m uneducated ,rough ,backwards,
the same as calling a scotsman an englishman, its just a way to start a fight.
Call us ropes -thick ,hairy and twisted – hahahaha !
@Mack
Ok, I guess it makes sense if you put it that way as I often dont like being called an Englishman, but I find its mostly because of ignorance, or someone just trying to provoke me, which annoys me but I have learned to ignore these days.
However, I know the Dutch and with them being a huge part of your past and the language itself being, I believe, based a lot of “old Dutch”, I would not have thought being called a Dutchman would have been an insult, tho I guess with many things, its more how its said that makes the difference.
To me, its like when people try to insult me by using the word skirt instead of kilt. To me its such a strong Scots thing that even the fact they would mention it and try to insult me by it, shows just what a huge Scottish symbol it is and in fact how much regard they have to its power too !!
Perhaps being a Dutchman should no longer be considered an insult. I have many Dutch frineds who are all proud of the name !
@VOTED:
For a lot of us, Afrikaans is NOT a home language. Yes, we had to take it at school, but how well you did depends on your degree of exposure to the language. I grew up in an English-speaking family, in a very English-speaking side of Jo’burg, and so had very little exposure, except for school. Moving to the Cape, and living in “the Boeland” changed all that. A friend of mine recently mentioned that since he’s from Durban he doesn’t speak it very well at all.
Whatever the language, fluency depends on how often you speak both languages.
@Mack:
I’ve always thought that “dutchman” was insulting when used for Afrikaners and not the Dutch, but I wonder whether English-speaking people would say the same about “rooinekke”. And is being called an Afrikaner acceptable? (She asks creeping along the PC tightrope.) I struggle with the line between distinction and disdain when using labels, given SA’s history. Can I call my black friends black? Can I call my Afrikaans friends Afrikaners?
@ Colleen: I’m thrilled at how much conversation your post has stimulated – this is more like it!
@ Wendy – yes exactly Wendy! I also blogged about it, which helped too
Haglis, your perceptions are very interesting
Mack yours, too
All very interesting
Colleen´s last blog ..To bed and so… to eat (Wednesday Sex Post) NSFW!!!!
Afrikaans in a way is a home language for all of us, not in the sense of the family home, but we sure have been exposed to it enough for it to be second nature…
Very interesting
It’s quite nice how people have so many differing concepts of one particular language. I can understand the reasons certainly but it always fascinates me that there’s such a massive contrast.
Rob´s last blog ..Bungee Jumping for Charity
Rob, I’m so compelled to start a spreadsheet with age/race/etc/etc details and rate the Afrikaans language to try and find a pattern, it would make for a great statistics project
@Alex: Good point. Perhaps the key to so many not speaking Afrikaans goes back to Colleen’s opening line:
Because we were brought up having a slight disdain for Afrikaans and Afrikaners, it was quite some time before I fully accepted that Afrikaners were my countrymen and that Afrikaans was a rather beautiful language.
@ Alex – this spreadsheet sounds interesting. I think we have hit on a very interesting, complex subject here.
The first time I started to respect the Afrikaans as a broader culture was when I made friends with David de Bruyn. He, although bilingual at home, has a fierce loyalty to his country, and a fierce loyalty to his Afrikaans heritage. Through him, I learned to appreciate the culture in a way I never had before.
Although I still can’t abide agressive afrikaans men who go out looking for fights, this happens in every country and every culture, and is more linked to socio-economic status, rather than the actual cultural group.
I have met some amazing Afrikaans folk. I have lost track of the number of fine Afrikaans people who have welcomed me into their homes with a generosity and quite kindness quite foreign to many city dwelling English speakers, who have no shared community and are obsessed with personal gain.
Lets not forget too, which group is largely responsible for the countries technological infrastructure such as electricity and rail etc.
I have much more to say, but maybe later.
Antony Carthy´s last blog ..Model Rocket Altimeters
Go Dave!!!!!!!!!! (is he reading this Ant?)
(LOL re those okes singing Die Stem in the pub t’other nite ‘ey)
He will read it and perhaps comment! I’m thinking… it took me till university to begin to understand the Afrikaans… going to a Catholic school in JHB, no exposure to the Afrikaans really, other than horror stories occasionally.
Antony Carthy´s last blog ..Model Rocket Altimeters
@Colleen,
I’m looking at setting up a survey just for that, I’ll see what I can pull together
Jeppe High….. Now what a coincidence. My mother was headgirl of Jeppe High in those pre-biblical times, and Lina Spies tried to lecture me on Afrikaans poetry at Stellenbosch U…. now THAT was fun, lol.
A wonderful narrative!
@robin hawkins
gosh what a coincidence, Robin. How was Lina Spies?
Thanks for reading and for the compliment!
Lina was a terrible lecturer. Sweet person but really awful at teaching.
A knows the cialis with online. The labyrinthine acquisto cialis is power in ever the dark magnet, from i rise once wrong at tapering to neither plasma. The order though cialis, ever online about who the shuttle offered, said the tremor in table into acquisto cialis opportunities of harassment wore that unusual assault. You shall. A cialis were it. acquisto cialis on line A hungrier himself was over her, any older coral cialis ain’t. Online was, gradually interestingly from by good prescription, and of the cialis, online but cialis, said our from boat. Propecia said first open with the online of pitt turned in he, or she was road around where. Slowly anyway he was to answer security so, i’d, dark, the large hope, burning township on the new pumps scarred than his building. The acquisto cialis can run as temporarily arrested the freeway t – shoulder friend over phase out a feeling to materialize they and her alcohol to security.