Viggen Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Reading through this fascinating topic Norse influence in the English Language, i was wondering about a language i encountered a while back when i lived a couple of years in South Africa, Afrikaans, as far as i know the youngest germanic language there is, and i always wondered with such a young language and therefor scripts and books and written history probably almost from the beginning are available, if there were any interesting details that linguist could learn seing a language unfold virtually right from the beginning.... cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Its beginnings would be Dutch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Its beginnings would be Dutch. Salve. It was indeed considered a Dutch's dialect until 1925. The linguistic differentiation probably happened at the late XIX Century. The Dutch settlement in South Africa began circa 1652. A couple of UNRV's members are from South Africa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted October 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Its beginnings would be Dutch. Salve. It was indeed considered a Dutch's dialect until 1925. That would be the key point in my initial question, is Afrikaans considered interesting, from a linguist point of view, as the evolution from dialect to own language happend so recently... cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 The *very little* that I know on the subject, Afrikaans is indeed often used as a 'modern test case' for the creation and evolution of a dialect, and how it can proceed onto a language. As I understand it, while Dutch and Afrikaans speakers don't quite understand each other, because they are so similar (and, indeed, the latter is derived from the former) there is a mild intelligibility--they understand something like 60-70% of the other language. Much like Spanish-speakers and Italian-speakers. I don't really have anything on the subject in my possession; I'll see if I can find something that'll make this a bit clearer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted October 12, 2007 Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 (edited) Take a look at: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...amp;#entry73998 Doc is right. An age ago, I had an Afrikaans girlfriend in The Netherlands. She was as intelligible to the natives as I was. I wonder, considering the above, if the Afrikaans aren't speaking the Dutch of 400 years ago? Edited October 12, 2007 by Gaius Octavius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted October 12, 2007 Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 (edited) Take a look at: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...amp;#entry73998 Doc is right. An age ago, I had an Afrikaans girlfriend in The Netherlands. She was as intelligible to the natives as I was. I wonder, considering the above, if the Afrikaans aren't speaking the Dutch of 400 years ago? Nope. Living languages are always evolving, that's inevitably. Only dead Languages stay the same. English, Dutch and Afrikaans are all of them western Germanic Languages. As such, they all share a high degree of mutual intelligibility. The main problem for native English-speakers to understand Dutch is the latter's grammar. Afrikaans is arguably the most analytic of the Germanic Languages, thus its grammar might be not so difficult for English-speakers. An example (English - Afrikaans - Dutch) from Wikipedia: E: "Snow falls regularly in the winter, while rains and mists can occur year-round". A: "Sneeuval kom gereeld voor in die winter, terwyl mis en re Edited October 12, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted October 12, 2007 Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 Ik hou van jou. De grootjes, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted October 12, 2007 Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 Ik hou van jou. De grootjes, Gratiam habeo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silentium Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 I wonder, considering the above, if the Afrikaans aren't speaking the Dutch of 400 years ago? This is a legitimate observation. The Dutch East India Company established a refreshment station there in 1652, introducing several varieties of 17th century Dutch which, in the next couple of centuries, came in contact with Khoekhoe, slaves from Madagascar, East Africa, India, Indonesia, SriLanka and also with European French and German speakers. Written records prove that a distinct variety of Dutch already existed there by mid-18th century, referred to as Kaaps Hollands (Cape Dutch) or geradbraakte/gebroke/onbeskaafde Hollands ("mutilated/broken/uncivilized Hollandic"), verkeerde Nederlands ("incorrect Dutch") and kombuistaal ("kitchen language"). How did this local variety turn into a distinct language then? In brief (there is an extensive literature on this and the question is still open to discussion) there are 3 main positions: the superstratist and variationist positions claim that the emergence of Afrikaans as a distinctive language was due to the natural process of language evolution in absence of strong normative pressure (to make things simple, a bit like Italian/Spanish/French/Portuguese/Romanian etc. evolved from the Latin of sermo familiaris) thus confining the non-germanic languages to a marginal place (practically just to the lexical area), while the creolist view argues that Afrikaans is the product of the interaction between that form of "non-standard" Dutch I mentioned before and the various Dutch-based pidgins spoken by the Cape's population (and therefore a semi-creole language). The language was standardized and recognised only in 1925. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 Great info, Silentium. I know that the creole-theory approach has been used in various language families, including Romance--the thought being that each individual Romance language is an evolved creole of Latin and the local languages over the years. However, as I understand it, this theory isn't well-accepted in the Romance circles, or at best it's studied under caution. Do you know how the creole-theory explanation is received with reference to Afrikaans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silentium Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 (edited) Do you know how the creole-theory explanation is received with reference to Afrikaans? Certain reports of mutual intelligibility with Dutch seem to suggest that the case for creolisation may have been overstated. Afrikaans seems to have retained West Germanic’s distinctive word-order asymmetry, and that distinguishes it from Dutch-based creoles, which are exclusively SVO (and therefore undermines extreme creolist accounts of its origins), although Khoekhoe must have had some influence on its morphological development (just speculating). On the lexical side the situation is slightly more diversified and complicated… Another factor to take into account is that there are different varieties of Afrikaans, some of which reflect strong Malay and English influences. While Afrikaans is probably not a creole language stricto sensu, I think the definition semi-creole is quite fitting, something in between the superstratist and creolist views. Edited March 12, 2008 by Silentium Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 10, 2008 Report Share Posted March 10, 2008 That's about what I figured...thanks, Silentium! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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