Old Takkies Indaba

I was forced, along with all other kids in the land, to learn Afrikaans at school and it was a language I despised as a child. This I think was mainly because the main protagonists in our childhood rivalries were predominantly Afrikaans and we were usually in the minority and so tended to lose these arguments. I can still hear the shouted insults between two groups of youngsters. ” Rooinekke” aimed at the English kids and the equally disparaging “Rock-Spiders” being hurled back.

As an aside, the term”Rooinek” derives from the times of the Boer War when Afrikaner referred to immigrant Englishmen, whose white necks were particularly prone to sunburn. I have no idea where the term “Rock-spider” originated but sounded good as an insult at the time.

I’m afraid that with those inauspicious beginnings my introduction to learning this particular language was apathetic to say the least. Our poor teachers faced an uphill battled to convince a bunch of English kids that Afrikaans was a worthwhile language to learn, but learn it we did.

My biggest learning curve in mastering the language happened when I worked as a switchboard operator at a bank in a little town called Westonaria. It is a blip on the Far West Rand and English was only spoken by a few foreign miners. I very quickly had to learn to field staccato questions fired at me by customers who had no time for an inept telephonist who only spoke “Engels”. My favourite memory of that time is an old Oom who used come in once a week and systematically greeted each and every lady in the branch with a doff of the hat and a very serious “More Dametjie” (Morning little Lady). What a gentleman!

I have found that a lot of Afrikaans speakers think it is hysterically funny to listen to a foreigner trying to speak their language. I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to carry on a polite conversation with someone and they burst out laughing because my pronunciation or syntax is a bit odd to their ears. For some inexplicable reason, my English accent is more pronounced when I speak Afrikaans than when I speak English.

The worst case of this was when I visited and old uncle of my husband’s on a farm in the depths of the Free State. I had been told that the Oom did not speak much English so I did the polite thing and spoke to him in his own language. Imagine my embarrassment when after trying my best to have a conversation with the old geezer, he turns to my hubby and asked “Wat sê sy?” Well, the entire clan fell about with hoots of laughter. Needless to say, after that I gave up and only spoke English to the entire family and even now, my children and I are referred to as “Die Engelse Niggies” (The English Cousins).

These days I generally speak very little Afrikaans and if necessary, I start the conversation in Afrikaans and then switch to English as soon as I can with a gentle “Ek’s jammer maar ek kannie so baie goed Afrikaans praat nie.”