Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of Holland spoken by the largely Dutch settlers in the south-west of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the course of the 18th century. Hence, it is a daughter language of Dutch.
Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages, including German and the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in the more analytic-type morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and a spelling that expresses Afrikaans pronunciation rather than standard Dutch. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form.
With about 7 million native speakers in South Africa, or 13.5% of the population, it is the third-most-spoken language in the country. Estimates of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million. It has the widest geographical and racial distribution of all the 11 official languages of South Africa, and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language. It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa—the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape—and the first language of 75.8% of Coloured South Africans, 60.8% of White South Africans ; 4.6% of Asian South Africans, and 1.5% of Black South Africans.
Etymology
The term is derived from the Dutch term Afrikaansch meaning "African". It was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" or "kitchen Dutch". However, it has also been variously described as a Dutch-based creole or as a partially creolised language.History
Origin
The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony, through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects, during the course of the 18th century. As early as the mid-18th century and as recently as the mid-20th century, Afrikaans was known in standard Dutch as a "kitchen language", lacking the prestige accorded, for example, even by the educational system in Africa, to languages spoken outside Africa. Other early epithets setting apart Kaaps Hollands as putatively beneath official Dutch standards included geradbraakt, gebroken and onbeschaafd Hollands, as well as verkeerd Nederlands.Den Besten theorises that modern Standard Afrikaans derives from two sources:
- Cape Dutch, a direct transplantation of European Dutch to Southern Africa, and
- 'Hottentot Dutch', a pidgin that descended from 'Foreigner Talk' and ultimately from the Dutch pidgin spoken by slaves, via a hypothetical Dutch creole.
Development
A relative majority of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces, though up to one-sixth of the community was also of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany.African and Asian workers and slaves contributed to the development of Afrikaans. The slave population was made up of people from East Africa, West Africa, India, Madagascar, and the Dutch East Indies. A number were also indigenous Khoisan people, who were valued as interpreters, domestic servants, and labourers. Many free and enslaved women married, cohabited with, or were victims of sexual violence from the male Dutch settlers. M. F. Valkhoff argued that 75% of children born to female slaves in the Dutch Cape Colony between 1652 and 1672 had a Dutch father. Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman argue that Afrikaans' development as a separate language was "heavily conditioned by nonwhites who learned Dutch imperfectly as a second language."
Beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with the Arabic alphabet: see Arabic Afrikaans. Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script, started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850.
In 1875, a group of Afrikaans-speakers from the Cape formed the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners, and published a number of books in Afrikaans including grammars, dictionaries, religious materials and histories. In 1925, Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a real language, rather than simply a slang version of Dutch proper.
Recognition
Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect in South Africa until the early 20th century, when it became recognised as a distinct language under South African law, alongside Standard Dutch, which it eventually replaced as an official language. Before the Boer wars, "and indeed for some time afterwards, Afrikaans was regarded as inappropriate for educated discourse. Rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as "a kitchen language" or "a bastard jargon," suitable for communication mainly between the Boers and their servants."On 8 May 1925, twenty-three years after the Second Boer War ended, the Official Languages of the Union Act of 1925 was passed—mostly due to the efforts of the Afrikaans language movement—at a joint sitting of the House of Assembly and the Senate, in which the Afrikaans language was declared a variety of Dutch. The Constitution of 1961 reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch, so that English and Afrikaans were the official languages, and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed any mention of Dutch altogether.
The Afrikaans Language Monument is located on a hill overlooking Paarl in the Western Cape Province. Officially opened on 10 October 1975, it was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Real Afrikaners, and the 50th anniversary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa in distinction to Dutch.
Standardisation
The earliest Afrikaans texts were some doggerel verse from 1795 and a dialogue transcribed by a Dutch traveller in 1825. Afrikaans used the Latin alphabet around this time, although the Cape Muslim community used the Arabic script. In 1861, L.H. Meurant published his Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar, which is considered to be the first book published in Afrikaans.The first grammar book was published in 1876; a bilingual dictionary was later published in 1902. The main modern Afrikaans dictionary in use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal. A new authoritative dictionary, called Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal, is under development as of 2018. The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls, compiled by Die Taalkommissie.
The Afrikaans Bible
The Afrikaner religion had stemmed from the Protestant practices of the Reformed church of Holland during the 17th century, later on being influenced in South Africa by British ministries during the 1800s. A landmark in the development of the language was the translation of the whole Bible into Afrikaans. While significant advances had been made in the textual criticism of the Bible, especially the Greek New Testament, the 1933 translation followed the textus receptus and was closely akin to the Statenbijbel. Before this, most Cape Dutch-Afrikaans speakers had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel. This Statenvertaling had its origins with the Synod of Dordrecht of 1618 and was thus in an archaic form of Dutch. This was hard for Dutch and Cape Dutch speakers to understand, and increasingly unintelligible for Afrikaans speakers.C. P. Hoogehout, :af:Arnoldus Pannevis|Arnoldus Pannevis, and Stephanus Jacobus du Toit were the first Afrikaans Bible translators. Important landmarks in the translation of the Scriptures were in 1878 with C. P. Hoogehout's translation of the Evangelie volgens Markus ; however, this translation was never published. The manuscript is to be found in the South African National Library, Cape Town.
The first official translation of the entire Bible into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit, E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet. This monumental work established Afrikaans as 'n suiwer en ordentlike taal, that is "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially amongst the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that previously had been sceptical of a Bible translation that varied from the Dutch version that they were used to.
In 1983, a fresh translation marked the 50th anniversary of the 1933 version and provided a much-needed revision. The final editing of this edition was done by E. P. Groenewald, A. H. van Zyl, P. A. Verhoef, J. L. Helberg and W. Kempen. This translation was influenced by Eugene Nida's theory of dynamic-equavalence which focussed on finding the nearest equivalent in the receptor language to the idea that the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic wanted to convey. The challenge to this type of translation is that it doesn't take into account that there are shifts in meaning in the receptor language.
A new translation, Die Bybel: 'n Direkte Vertaling is currently under preparation. It will be the first truly ecumenical translation of the Bible in Afrikaans as translators from various churches, including the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, are involved.
Various commercial translations of the Bible in Afrikaans have also appeared since the 1990s, such as Die Boodskap and the Nuwe Lewende Vertaling. Most of these translations were published by Christelike Uitgewersmaatskappy.
In 2019, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was released in Afrikaans, both printed and .
Classification
- Indo-European languages
- *Germanic
- **West Germanic
- ***Low Franconian
- ****Dutch
- ***** Afrikaans, Dutch-based creoles
Geographic distribution
Statistics
| Country | Speakers | Percentage of speakers | Year | Reference |
| 43,741 | 0.61% | 2016 | ||
| 8,082 | 0.11% | 2011 | ||
| 23,410 | 0.32% | 2016 | ||
| and | 11,247 | 0.16% | 2011 | |
| 36 | 0.0005% | 2011 | ||
| 219,760 | 3.05% | 2011 | ||
| 21,123 | 0.29% | 2006 | ||
| 6,855,082 | 95.06% | 2011 | ||
| 28,406 | 0.39% | 2016 | ||
| 650 | 0.009% | 2019 | ||
| Total | 7,211,537 |
Sociolinguistics
Some state that instead of Afrikaners, which refers to an ethnic group, the terms Afrikaanses or Afrikaanssprekendes should be used for people of any ethnic origin who speak Afrikaans. Linguistic identity has not yet established which terms shall prevail, and all three are used in common parlance..
Afrikaans is also widely spoken in Namibia. Before independence, Afrikaans had equal status with German as an official language. Since independence in 1990, Afrikaans has had constitutional recognition as a national, but not official, language. There is a much smaller number of Afrikaans speakers among Zimbabwe's white minority, as most have left the country since 1980. Afrikaans was also a medium of instruction for schools in Bophuthatswana, an Apartheid-era Bantustan. Eldoret in Kenya was founded by Afrikaners.
Many South Africans living and working in Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the UAE and Kuwait are also Afrikaans-speaking. They have access to Afrikaans websites, news sites such as and , and radio broadcasts over the web, such as those from Radio Sonder Grense, Bokradio and Radio Pretoria. There are also many artists that tour to bring Afrikaans to the expats.
Afrikaans has been influential in the development of South African English. Many Afrikaans loanwords have found their way into South African English, such as bakkie, braai, naartjie, tekkies. A few words in standard English are derived from Afrikaans, such as aardvark, trek, spoor, veld, commando from Afrikaans kommando meaning small fighting unit, boomslang and apartheid.
In 1976, secondary-school pupils in Soweto began a rebellion in response to the government's decision that Afrikaans be used as the language of instruction for half the subjects taught in non-White schools. Although English is the mother tongue of only 8.2% of the population, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of a majority of South Africans. Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto.
The Black community's opposition to Afrikaans and preference for continuing English instruction was underlined when the government rescinded the policy one month after the uprising: 96% of Black schools chose English as the language of instruction. Also, due to Afrikaans being viewed as the "language of the white oppressor" by some, pressure has been increased to remove Afrikaans as a teaching language in South African universities, resulting in bloody student protests in 2015.
Under South Africa's Constitution of 1996, Afrikaans remains an official language, and has equal status to English and nine other languages. The new policy means that the use of Afrikaans is now often reduced in favour of English, or to accommodate the other official languages. In 1996, for example, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reduced the amount of television airtime in Afrikaans, while South African Airways dropped its Afrikaans name Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens from its livery. Similarly, South Africa's diplomatic missions overseas now display the name of the country only in English and their host country's language, and not in Afrikaans. Meanwhile, the constitution of the Western Cape, which went into effect in 1998, declares Afrikaans to be an official language of the province alongside English and Xhosa.
In spite of these moves, the language has remained strong, and Afrikaans newspapers and magazines continue to have large circulation figures. Indeed, the Afrikaans-language general-interest family magazine Huisgenoot has the largest readership of any magazine in the country. In addition, a pay-TV channel in Afrikaans called KykNet was launched in 1999, and an Afrikaans music channel, MK , in 2005. A large number of Afrikaans books are still published every year, mainly by the publishers Human & Rousseau, Tafelberg Uitgewers, Struik, and Protea Boekhuis. The Afrikaans film trilogy Bakgat caused a reawakening of the Afrikaans film Industry and Belgian-born singer Karen Zoid's debut single "Afrikaners is Plesierig" caused a resurgence in the Afrikaans music industry as well as gave rise to the Afrikaans Rock genre.
Afrikaans has two monuments erected in its honour. The first was erected in Burgersdorp, South Africa, in 1893, and the second, nowadays better-known Afrikaans Language Monument, was built in Paarl, South Africa, in 1975.
When the British design magazine Wallpaper described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages" in its September 2005 article about the monument, South African billionaire Johann Rupert, responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine. The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, was an English-speaking South African.
Mutual intelligibility with Dutch
An estimated 90 to 95% of the Afrikaans lexicon is ultimately of Dutch origin, and there are few lexical differences between the two languages. Afrikaans has a considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling. There is a degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form.Afrikaans acquired some lexical and syntactical borrowings from other languages such as Malay, Khoisan languages, Portuguese, and Bantu languages, and Afrikaans has also been significantly influenced by South African English. Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the other way round. Mutual intelligibility thus tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch.
In general, mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish. The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach, attempting to visualise the language distance for anglophones once remarked that the differences between Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English.
Current status
| Province | 1996 | 2001 | 2011 |
| Western Cape | 58.5% | 55.3% | 49.7% |
| Eastern Cape | 9.8% | 9.6% | 10.6% |
| Northern Cape | 57.2% | 56.6% | 53.8% |
| Free State | 14.4% | 11.9% | 12.7% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.6% |
| North West | 8.8% | 8.8% | 9.0% |
| Gauteng | 15.6% | 13.6% | 12.4% |
| Mpumalanga | 7.1% | 5.5% | 7.2% |
| Limpopo | 2.6% | 2.6% | 2.6% |
| 14.4% | 13.3% | 13.5% |
Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a loss of preferential treatment by the government for Afrikaans, in terms of education, social events, media, and general status throughout the country, given that it now shares its place as official language with ten other languages. Nevertheless, Afrikaans remains more prevalent in the media – radio, newspapers and television – than any of the other official languages, except English. More than 300 book titles in Afrikaans are published annually. South African census figures suggest a growing number of speakers in all nine provinces, a total of 6.85 million in 2011 compared to 5.98 million a decade earlier. The South African Institute of Race Relations projects that a growing majority will be Coloured Afrikaans speakers. Afrikaans speakers experience higher employment rates than other South African language groups, though as of 2012 half a million remain unemployed.
Despite the challenges of demotion and emigration that it faces in South Africa, the Afrikaans vernacular remains competitive, being popular in DSTV pay channels and several internet sites, while generating high newspaper and music CD sales. A resurgence in Afrikaans popular music since the late 1990s has invigorated the language, especially among a younger generation of South Africans. A recent trend is the increased availability of pre-school educational CDs and DVDs. Such media also prove popular with the extensive Afrikaans-speaking expatriate communities who seek to retain language proficiency in a household context.
After years of slumber, Afrikaans language cinema is showing signs of new vigour. The 2007 film Ouma se slim kind, the first full-length Afrikaans movie since Paljas in 1998, is seen as the dawn of a new era in Afrikaans cinema. Several short films have been created and more feature-length movies, such as Poena is Koning and Bakgat have been produced, besides the 2011 Afrikaans-language film Skoonheid, which was the first Afrikaans film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. The film Platteland was also released in 2011. The Afrikaans Film industry started gaining international recognition via the likes of big Afrikaans Hollywood film stars, like Charlize Theron and Sharlto Copley promoting their mother tongue.
Afrikaans seems to be returning to the SABC. SABC3 announced early in 2009 that it would increase Afrikaans programming due to the "growing Afrikaans-language market and need for working capital as Afrikaans advertising is the only advertising that sells in the current South African television market". In April 2009, SABC3 started screening several Afrikaans-language programmes. Further latent support for the language derives from its de-politicised image in the eyes of younger-generation South Africans, who less and less often view it as "the language of the oppressor". Indeed, there is a groundswell movement within Afrikaans to be inclusive, and to promote itself along with the other indigenous official languages. In Namibia, the percentage of Afrikaans speakers declined from 11.4% to 10.4%. The major concentrations are in Hardap, ǁKaras, Erongo, Khomas, Omaheke, Otjozondjupa, Kunene, and Oshikoto.
Many native speakers of Bantu languages and English also speak Afrikaans as a second language. It is widely taught in South African schools, with about 10.3 million second-language students. Even in KwaZulu-Natal, the majority of pupils opt for Afrikaans as their first additional language because it is regarded as easier than Zulu.
Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside South Africa, for example in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia and America.
Grammar
In Afrikaans grammar, there is no distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs 'to be' and 'to have':| infinitive form | present indicative form | Dutch | English | German |
| wees | is | zijn | be | sein |
| hê | het | hebben | have | haben |
In addition, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject. For example,
| Afrikaans | Dutch | English | German |
| ek is | ik ben | I am | ich bin |
| jy/u is | jij/u bent | you are | du bist/Sie sind |
| hy/sy/dit is | hij/zij/het is | he/she/it is | er/sie/es ist |
| ons is | wij zijn | we are | wir sind |
| julle is | jullie zijn | you are | ihr seid |
| hulle is | zij zijn | they are | sie sind |
Only a handful of Afrikaans verbs have a preterite, namely the auxiliary wees, the modal verbs, and the verb dink. The preterite of mag is rare in contemporary Afrikaans.
All other verbs use the perfect tense, het + past participle, for the past. Therefore, there is no distinction in Afrikaans between I drank and I have drunk.
| Afrikaans | Dutch | English | German |
| ek het gedrink | ik dronk | I drank | ich trank |
| ek het gedrink | ik heb gedronken | I have drunk | ich habe getrunken |
When telling a longer story, Afrikaans speakers usually avoid the perfect and simply use the present tense, or historical present tense instead.
A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative; it is classified in Afrikaans as ontkennende vorm and is something that is absent from the other West Germanic standard languages. For example,
Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans. While double negation is still found in Low Franconian dialects in West-Flanders and in some "isolated" villages in the centre of the Netherlands, it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans. The following is an example:
* Compare with Ek wil nie dit doen nie, which changes the meaning to "I want not to do this." Whereas Ek wil nie dit doen nie emphasizes a lack of desire to act, Ek wil dit nie doen nie emphasizes the act itself.
The -ne was the Middle Dutch way to negate but it has been suggested that since -ne became highly non-voiced, nie or niet was needed to complement the -ne. With time the -ne disappeared in most Dutch dialects.
The double negative construction has been fully grammaticalised in standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show:
A notable exception to this is the use of the negating grammar form that coincides with negating the English present participle. In this case there is only a single negation.
Certain words in Afrikaans arise due to grammar. For example, moet nie, which literally means "must not", usually becomes moenie; although one does not have to write or say it like this, virtually all Afrikaans speakers will change the two words to moenie in the same way as do not shifts to don't in English.
The Dutch word het does not correspond to het in Afrikaans. The Dutch words corresponding to Afrikaans het are heb, hebt, heeft and hebben.
| Afrikaans | Dutch | English | German |
| het | heb, hebt, heeft, hebben | have, has | habe, hast, hat, habt, haben |
| die | de, het | the | die, der, das, den, dem |
| dit | het | it | es |
Phonology
Vowels
- As phonemes, and occur only in the words spieël 'mirror' and koeël 'bullet', which used to be pronounced with sequences and, respectively. In other cases, and occur as allophones of, respectively, and before.
- is phonetically long before.
- is always stressed and occurs only in the word wîe 'wedges'.
- The closest unrounded counterparts of are central, rather than front.
- occur only in a few words.
- As a phoneme, occurs as an allophone of before, though this occurs primarily dialectally, most commonly in the former Transvaal and Free State provinces.
Diphthongs
- occur mainly in loanwords.
Consonants
- All obstruents at the ends of words are devoiced, so that e.g. a final is realized as.
- occur only in loanwords. is also an allophone of in some environments.
- is most often uvular. Velar occurs only in some speakers.
- is usually an alveolar trill or tap. In some parts of the former Cape Province, it is realized uvularly, either as a trill or a fricative.
Dialects
There is also a prison cant, known as soebela or sombela, which is based on Afrikaans, yet heavily influenced by Zulu. This language is used as a secret language in prison and is taught to initiates.The term Kaapse Afrikaans is sometimes erroneously used to refer to the entire Western Cape dialect; it is more commonly used for a particular sociolect spoken in the Cape Peninsula of South Africa. Kaapse Afrikaans was once spoken by all population groups. However, it became increasingly restricted to the Cape Coloured ethnic group in Cape Town and environs. Kaapse Afrikaans is still understood by the large majority of native Afrikaans speakers in South Africa.
Kaapse Afrikaans preserves some features more similar to Dutch than to Afrikaans.
- The 1st person singular pronoun ik as in Dutch as opposed to Afrikaans ek
- The diminutive endings -tje, pronounced as in Dutch and not as as in Afrikaans.
- The use of the form seg as opposed to Afrikaans sê
- The pronunciation of j, normally as in Dutch is often a. This is the strongest feature of Kaapse Afrikaans.
- The insertion of after, and when followed by, e.g. kjen as opposed to Standard Afrikaans ken.
An example of characteristic Kaapse Afrikaans:
''''
The term Oranjerivierafrikaans is sometimes erroneously used to refer to the Northern Cape dialect; it is more commonly used for the regional peculiarities of standard Afrikaans spoken in the Upington/Orange River wine district of South Africa.Some of the characteristics of Oranjerivierafrikaans are the plural form -goed, variant pronunciation such as in kjerk and gjeld and the ending -se, which indicates possession.
Influences on Afrikaans from other languages
Malay
Due to the early settlement of a Cape Malay community in Cape Town, who are now known as Coloureds, numerous Classical Malay words were brought into Afrikaans. Some of these words entered Dutch via people arriving from, what is now known as Indonesia as part of their colonial heritage. Malay words in Afrikaans include:- baie, which means 'very'/'much'/'many' is a very commonly used Afrikaans word, different from its Dutch equivalent veel or erg.
- baadjie, Afrikaans for jacket, where Dutch would use jas or vest. The word baadje in Dutch is now considered archaic and only used in written, literary texts.
- bobotie, a traditional Cape-Malay dish, made from spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping.
- piesang, which means banana. This is different from the common Dutch word banaan. The Indonesian word pisang is also used in Dutch, though usage is more common.
- piering, which means saucer.
Portuguese
Khoisan languages
- dagga, meaning cannabis
- geitjie, meaning lizard, diminutive adapted from Khoekhoe word
- gogga, meaning insect, from the Khoisan xo-xo
- karos, blanket of animal hides
- kierie walking stick from Khoekhoe
Bantu languages
Loanwords from Bantu languages in Afrikaans include the names of indigenous birds, such as mahem and sakaboela, and indigenous plants, such as maroela and tamboekie.- fundi, from the Zulu word umfundi meaning "scholar" or "student", but used to mean someone who is a student of/expert on a certain subject, i.e. He is a language fundi.
- lobola, meaning bride price, from lobolo of the Nguni languages
- mahem, the grey crowned crane, known in Latin as Balearica regulorum
- maroela, medium-sized dioecious tree known in Latin as Sclerocarya birrea
- tamboekiegras, species of thatching grass known as Hyparrhenia
- tambotie, deciduous tree also known by its Latin name, Spirostachys africana
- tjaila / tjailatyd, an adaption of the word chaile, meaning "to go home" or "to knock off ".
French
Most of the words in this list are descendants from Dutch borrowings from French, Old French or Latin, and are not direct influences from French on Afrikaans.
| Afrikaans | Dutch | French | English |
| advies | advies | avis | advice |
| alarm | alarm | alarme | alarm |
| ammunisie | ammunitie, munitie | munition | ammunition |
| amusant | amusant | amusant | funny |
| artillerie | artillerie | artillerie | artillery |
| ateljee | atelier | atelier | studio |
| bagasie | bagage | bagage | luggage |
| bastion | bastion | bastion | bastion |
| bataljon | bataljon | bataillon | battalion |
| battery | batterij | batterie | battery |
| biblioteek | bibliotheek | bibliothèque | library |
| faktuur | factuur | facture | invoice |
| fort | fort | fort | fort |
| frikkadel | frikadel | fricadelle | meatball |
| garnisoen | garnizoen | garnison | garrison |
| generaal | generaal | général | general |
| granaat | granaat | grenade | grenade |
| infanterie | infanterie | infanterie | infantry |
| interessant | interessant | intéressant | interesting |
| kaliber | kaliber | calibre | calibre |
| kanon | kanon | canon | canon |
| kanonnier | kanonnier | canonier | gunner |
| kardoes | kardoes, cartouche | cartouche | cartridge |
| kaptein | kapitein | capitaine | captain |
| kolonel | kolonel | colonel | colonel |
| kommandeur | commandeur | commandeur | commander |
| kwartier | kwartier | quartier | quarter |
| luitenant | luitenant | lieutenant | lieutenant |
| magasyn | magazijn | magasin | magazine |
| manier | manier | manière | way |
| marsjeer | marcheer, marcheren | marcher | march |
| meubels | meubels | meubles | furniture |
| militêr | militair | militaire | militarily |
| morsel | morzel | morceau | piece |
| mortier | mortier | mortier | mortar |
| muit | muit, muiten | mutiner | mutiny |
| musket | musket | mousquet | musket |
| muur | muur | mur | wall |
| myn | mijn | mine | mine |
| offisier | officier | officier | officer |
| orde | orde | ordre | order |
| papier | papier | papier | paper |
| pionier | pionier | pionnier | pioneer |
| plafon | plafond | plafond | ceiling |
| plat | plat | plat | flat |
| pont | pont | pont | ferry |
| provoos | provoost | prévôt | chief |
| rondte | rondte, ronde | ronde | round |
| salvo | salvo | salve | salvo |
| soldaat | soldaat | soldat | soldier |
| tante | tante | tante | aunt |
| tapyt | tapijt | tapis | carpet |
| tros | tros | trousse | bunch |
Orthography
There are many parallels between the Dutch orthography conventions and those used for Afrikaans. There are 26 letters.In Afrikaans, many consonants are dropped from the earlier Dutch spelling. For example, slechts in Dutch becomes slegs in Afrikaans. Also, Afrikaans and some Dutch dialects make no distinction between and, having merged the latter into the former; while the word for "south" is written zuid in Dutch, it is spelled suid in Afrikaans to represent this merger. Similarly, the Dutch digraph IJ , normally pronounced as, corresponds to Afrikaans y, except where it replaces the Dutch suffix –lijk which is pronounced as, as in waarschijnlijk > waarskynlik.
Another difference is the indefinite article, n in Afrikaans and een in Dutch. "A book" is n boek in Afrikaans, whereas it is either een boek or n boek in Dutch. This n is usually pronounced as just a weak vowel,.
The diminutive suffix in Afrikaans is -tjie, -djie or -kie, whereas in Dutch it is -tje or dje, hence a "bit" is ʼn bietjie in Afrikaans and beetje in Dutch.
The letters c, q, x, and z occur almost exclusively in borrowings from French, English, Greek and Latin. This is usually because words that had c and ch in the original Dutch are spelled with k and g, respectively, in Afrikaans. Similarly original qu and x are spelt kw and ks, respectively. For example, ekwatoriaal instead of equatoriaal, and ekskuus instead of excuus.
The vowels with diacritics in non-loanword Afrikaans are: á, é, è, ê, ë, í, î, ï, ó, ô, ö, ú, û, ü, ý. Diacritics are ignored when alphabetising, though they are still important, even when typing the diacritic forms may be difficult. For example, geëet instead of the 3 e's alongside each other: *geeet, which can never occur in Afrikaans, or sê, which translates to "say", whereas se is a possessive form.
Initial apostrophes
A few short words in Afrikaans take initial apostrophes. In modern Afrikaans, these words are always written in lower case, and if they occur at the beginning of a sentence, the next word is capitalised. Three examples of such apostrophed words are k, 't, 'n. The last is the only apostrophed word that is common in modern written Afrikaans, since the other examples are shortened versions of other words and are rarely found outside of a poetic context.Here are a few examples:
| Apostrophed version | Usual version | Translation | Notes |
| 'k 't Dit gesê | Ek het dit gesê | I said it | Uncommon, more common: Ek't dit gesê |
| 't Jy dit geëet? | Het jy dit geëet? | Did you eat it? | Extremely uncommon |
| 'n Man loop daar | A man walks there | Standard Afrikaans pronounces n as a schwa vowel. |
The apostrophe and the following letter are regarded as two separate characters, and are never written using a single glyph, although a single character variant of the indefinite article appears in Unicode, ʼn.
Table of characters
For more on the pronunciation of the letters below, see .| Grapheme | IPA | Examples and Notes |
| a | , | appel, tale. Represents at word end and before double consonants and before single consonant-vowel |
| aa | aap | |
| aai | draai | |
| ae | vrae | |
| ai | baie, ai | |
| b | , /p/ | boom ; devoiced word-finally |
| c | , | Found only in borrowed words or proper nouns; the former pronunciation occurs before 'e', 'i', or 'y'; featured in the plural ending -ici, as in the plural of medikus, medici |
| ch | ,, | chirurg, chemie, chitien. Found only in loanwords and proper nouns |
| d | , | dag, deel. Allophonically devoiced word-finally, or at the end of a root before liquids or other voiceless phonemes |
| dj | , | djati, broodjie. Used to transcribe foreign words for the former pronunciation or in the diminutive suffix -djie for the latter, in words ending with d |
| e | ,,, | bed, mens beter, ek, berg |
| è | nè, dè ; Used exclusively in interjections | |
| ê | , | sê, wêreld. Allophonically before,,, or |
| ë | - | Diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable, thus ë, ëe and ëi are pronounced like 'e', 'ee' and 'ei', respectively |
| ee | weet, een | |
| eeu | by itself, this trigraphs means 'century'. | |
| ei | lei | |
| eu | seun | |
| f | fiets | |
| g | , | exists as the allophone of if at the end of a root word preceded by and succeeded by a schwa, e.g. berg is pronounced as, and berge is pronounced as |
| gh | gholf. Used for when it is not an allophone of ; found only in borrowed words. If the h acts as the beginning of the suffix -heid when added to a word ending with g, the two letters are pronounced separately. | |
| h | hael, hond | |
| i | , | kind, ink, krisis, elektrisiteit |
| î | wîe | |
| ï | - | Found in words such as beïnvloed. The diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable, thus ï and ïe are pronounced like 'i' and 'ie' respectively |
| iets | ||
| j | jonk | |
| k | kat, kan | |
| l | lag | |
| m | man | |
| n | nael | |
| ng | sing | |
| o | , | op, grote |
| ô | môre | |
| ö | - | Found in words such as mikroörganisme. The diaeresis indicates the start of new syllable, thus ö is pronounced the same as 'o' based on the following remainder of the word. |
| oe | boek, koel | |
| oei | koei | |
| oo | oom | |
| ooi | mooi, nooi | |
| ou | oupa, koud. Sometimes spelled ouw in loanwords and surnames, for example Louw. | |
| p | pot, pers | |
| q | Found only in foreign words with original spelling maintained; typically k is used instead | |
| r | rooi | |
| s | ,, | ses, stem, posisie, rasioneel |
| sj | sjaal, sjokolade | |
| t | , | tafel, aktuaris |
| tj | , | tjank. The former pronunciation occurs at the beginning of a word and the latter in '' and loanwords |
Afrikaans phrases
Although there are many different dialects and accents, the transcription would be fairly standard.| Afrikaans | IPA | Dutch | IPA | English | German |
| Hallo! Hoe gaan dit? | Hallo! Hoe gaat het ? Also used: Hallo! Hoe is het? | Hello! How goes it? | Hallo! Wie geht's? | ||
| Baie goed, dankie. | Heel goed, dank je. | Very well, thank you. | Sehr gut, danke. | ||
| Praat jy Afrikaans? | Spreek/Praat jij/je Afrikaans? | Do you speak Afrikaans? | Sprichst du Afrikaans? | ||
| Praat jy Engels? | Spreek/Praat jij/je Engels? | Do you speak English? | Sprichst du Englisch? | ||
| Ja. | Ja. | Yes. | Ja. | ||
| Nee. | Nee. | No. | Nein. Also: Nee. | ||
| 'n Bietjie. | Een beetje. | A bit. | Ein bisschen. Sometimes shortened in text: "'n bisschen" | ||
| Wat is jou naam? | Hoe heet jij/je? / Wat is jouw naam? | What is your name? | Wie heißt du? / Wie ist dein Name? | ||
| Die kinders praat Afrikaans. | De kinderen spreken/praten Afrikaans. | The children speak Afrikaans. | Die Kinder sprechen Afrikaans. | ||
| Ek is lief vir jou. Less common: Ek het jou lief. | Ik hou van jou/je. Common in Southern Dutch: Ik heb je/jou/u lief. | , | I love you. | Ich liebe dich. Also: Ich habe dich lieb. |
In the Dutch language the word Afrikaans means African, in the general sense. Consequently, Afrikaans is commonly denoted as Zuid-Afrikaans. This ambiguity also exists in Afrikaans itself and is resolved either in the context of its usage, or by using Afrika- in the adjective sense.
A handful of Afrikaans words are exactly the same as in English. The following Afrikaans sentences, for example, are exactly the same in the two languages, in terms of both their meaning and spelling; only their pronunciation differs.
- My pen was in my hand.
- My hand is in warm water.
Sample text
Die Here is my Herder, ek kom niks kort nie.
Hy laat my rus in groen weivelde. Hy bring my by waters waar daar vrede is.
Hy gee my nuwe krag. Hy lei my op die regte paaie tot eer van Sy naam.
Selfs al gaan ek deur donker dieptes, sal ek nie bang wees nie, want U is by my. In U hande is ek veilig.
Psalm 23 1953 translation:
Die Here is my Herder, niks sal my ontbreek nie.
Hy laat my neerlê in groen weivelde; na waters waar rus is, lei Hy my heen.
Hy verkwik my siel; Hy lei my in die spore van geregtigheid, om sy Naam ontwil.
Al gaan ek ook in 'n dal van doodskaduwee, ek sal geen onheil vrees nie; want U is met my: u stok en u staf die vertroos my.
Lord's Prayer
Ons Vader in die hemel, laat U Naam geheilig word.
Laat U koningsheerskappy spoedig kom.
Laat U wil hier op aarde uitgevoer word soos in die hemel.
Gee ons die porsie brood wat ons vir vandag nodig het.
En vergeef ons ons sondeskuld soos ons ook óns skuldenaars vergewe het.
Bewaar ons sodat ons nie aan verleiding sal toegee nie; en bevry ons van die greep van die Bose.
Want van U is die koninkryk,
en die krag,
en die heerlikheid,
tot in ewigheid. Amen
Lord's Prayer :
Onse Vader wat in die hemel is,
laat U Naam geheilig word;
laat U koninkryk kom;
laat U wil geskied op die aarde,
net soos in die hemel.
Gee ons vandag ons daaglikse brood;
en vergeef ons ons skulde
soos ons ons skuldenaars vergewe
en laat ons nie in die versoeking nie
maar verlos ons van die Bose
Want aan U behoort die koninkryk
en die krag
en die heerlikheid
tot in ewigheid. Amen