Afrikaans, that mainstay of “can like to” jokes, and also my home language. There’s a certain dichotomy in my mind about it: At it’s best, one of the most beautiful languages around. At it’s worst, the language of the oppressor.
The thing about writing this, is that in a perfect world, I’d address the language in isolation, as just a means of expression. But it’s almost impossible without invoking the association with the white nation in South Africa that call themselves “Afrikaners”. We’re made up of all kinds of european and (although few will admit) some eastern and african DNA, put into a melting pot, adding some kitchen dutch.
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Anyone who has ever heard someone from the Northern Cape region speak will know exactly what I am talking about when I say the words ‘Namaqualandse Afrikaans’. Everyone there spoke Afrikaans, regardless of race and a black person there could possibly out-Afrikaans any white Afrikaaner in other parts of the country. The Afrikaans spoken there was almost completely perfect, but sounded flat. We did not use English slang words, mix English and Afrikaans and even when we were swearing each other, we would be calling each other ‘Hond’ (dog) and ‘Teef’ (bitch).
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“Excuse me. Are you guys Afrikaans? I didn’t think so, because I’m English”. One of my mom’s favourite reminiscences about my precocious childhood.
Afrikaans. That filthy language of the terrible oppressor. The very crux of communication for the darkest times of South Africa’s history. The Cause of all our problems. The language my parents spoke when they didn’t want me to know what they were discussing.
What a depressing subject. Well, I’m not going to be depressed. I’m sitting on a beautiful little island in the Philippines (don’t ask why I’m writing), and I don’t want to ruin it.
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1994
I sat curled over my notes and cried. Every night it was the same; my hand stiff from hurried scribbling, eyes strained from pouring over the scrawl, head buzzing with too little understanding. I slammed my Tweetalige Woordeboek shut and threw my pen across the room. I stared past the midnight garden to a flickering street light and squinted; fuzzy, sharp, fuzzy, sharp, “The country is changing but Stellenbosch won’t … Die Taal’s final outpost … What am I doing here?”
Focus.
Sliding out of my chair, I went in search of my pen and collapsed onto my bed. Four years loomed. I tried to swallow my resentment by taking a long, slow sip from a glass of half-full.
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The neighbourhood that I grew up in was, I suppose you could say, predominantly Afrikaans. There was one local school about three blocks away that had full khaki uniforms (sans shoes) and being a student at a private school ten km’s away, I didn’t exactly have the motivation to go out and be friends with my neighbours.
I know that my mother and her siblings were given a hard time by the local kids when they arrived in South Africa in the early 60’s and I believe that a lot of rooi nekke were in the same boat, especially the ones with fresh English accents.
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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.
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Growing up in the shielded environment I did, I was unaware about this whole ‘language of the oppressor’ thing. This language of course was Afrikaans. I was always in love with the language, and I even had a boyhood crush on my Afrikaans teacher. Things that I maybe shouldn’t mention, but I think she sort of had a clue. I am even brave enough to state that she may have also had a little soft spot for me too, but now I am straying from the subject.
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Chapter 1
Go ahead.
Ban it.
Strike it from the school curriculum.
Take every Afrikaans page that’s ever been penned and burn it in front of the Voortrekker Monument.
Change the name of every Afrikaans-name-bearing city, suburb, town, highway, street and residential driveway.
Gag the mouths of every remaining Afrikaans-speaking South-African*.
You’ve been trying to crush Afrikaans into all kinds of zero since 1994.
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