On Nov 7, 2011, at 7:07 PM, Boudewijn Smidt wrote: > Lance, my understanding of South-African is that it is more a > derivative from Dutch than any other language. Not doubting where your > heritage lies, but Buitendag sounds more Dutch than German to me. > Since they it's a combination of 2 words spelled exactly the same in > Dutch (buiten & dag) and translating those words to german it would > look like Austag. My returning on this subject is because it > fascinates me. I like languages and their history and also my father > has lived in former Rhodesia and South-Africa.
I studied a bit of linguistic history and Afrikaans is what is known as a Dutch "patois" or "creole" depending on if you think it's merely a dialect or a blending, which there is some debate on. The original settlers in the cape were Dutch fleeing religious issues in Holland, but given their location, they quickly started interacting with indigenous people, and European traders, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and French, as well as Dutch, so words were borrowed, accents changed, etc. It's why people who speak Dutch can sort of understand Afrikaans and vice versa, but it's a lot like the linguistic evolution of English from Saxon to Anglo-Saxon. Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
