Whats your favorite Germanic language?
All West Germanic languages, have had one common ancestor.The further you go back the more common ancestors you'll find.
I would agree Afrikaans is closer to English than Dutch is, but your post made it seem as if 'only' Dutch, Afrikaans and English had a common ancestor (Leaving out many other -West- Germanic languages).
I didn't intend to give that impression. I was also trying to say that the Dutch that Afrikaans is descended from would have been less like English than the present form of the Afrikaans language, though of course being further back in time it would be closer to the common ancestor.
The fact that Afrikaans decended from 17th century modern Dutch doesn't mean anything.
Afterall, it went its own way after that time. (Eventhough the actual "split" between Dutch and Afrikaans did not occur in the 17th but at the end of the 19th century)
Its correct that 17th century Dutch is the base of Afrikaans but its also the base of contemporary Dutch of course! :-)
It would be foolish and ignorant to assume Afrikaans just stoped evolving in the 17th century, contruary to popular belief.
Dutch is one of the if not thé closest living language to the West Germanic language as it one of the last ,together with Afrikaans but to a lesser extent, "pure" low german(ic) languages.This being the group with the least consonant shifts.
The 'problem' with Afrikaans is that it has become so analytic (which has some great aspects though) something that this common ancestor wasn't by far.
> Its correct that 17th century Dutch is the base of Afrikaans but its also the base of contemporary Dutch of course! :-)
It would be foolish and ignorant to assume Afrikaans just stoped evolving in the 17th century, contruary to popular belief.
I was assuming that the Dutch language that Afrikaans evolved from was very similar to modern Dutch, and I was disregarding any changes that have taken place in Dutch since the divergence of the two languages for the purpose of this discussion. I was trying to emphasise the fact that Afrikaans has become *more* like English than Dutch is despite the fact that it is *further* from the common ancestor. This is the opposite to what one might expect, as languages generally becomes more dissimilar the more distantly related they are.
Anyone can see that Afrikaans has developed a long way since it diverged from Dutch, even someone with little or know knowledge of the history of the language. Those who think Afrikaans much be some sort of fossilised form of Dutch presumably must think that the grammatical gender, simple past tense and the inflection of modern Dutch have somehow appeared in the language since it diverged from Afrikaans, which is obviously absurd.
>>I was assuming that the Dutch language that Afrikaans evolved from was very similar to modern Dutch<<
And you assumed that rightly
It must be remembered that Afrikaans may have become more similar to English because it shared a country with that language.
You're right, there has been no interaction between English and Afrikaans in South Africa at all.
Although guests answer is a bit short, it is correct.Although the 2 languages were living together in South Africa, English rule over the country resulted in oppression of the Afrikaanse (Technically still Dutch at that time) language. This triggered a huge disliking of the English language, so influence was non existant or very very limited.The influence of Afrikaans on English was considerably bigger though.It's very different from let's say France and Dutch dialects in Belgium who have influenced eachother considerably.
One must remember that Afrikaans was the language of government in this country from the 1920s. Up to that point, Afrikaans was still, as you point out, technically Dutch and has become much less conservative over the course of the past 70 or 80 years. During that period, especially during the days of Apartheid, English was "oppressed" if you will, and Afrikaans was most definitely not well-liked amongst English speakers, yet the language still made an impression on South African English, so that argument doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.
The Afrikaans I hear around me and on TV seems to be very much influenced by English and carries forms which I'm almost certain didn't come from any African languages or from Malay. That influence is obviously far more recent than what you're discussing.Afrikaans, as much as English, is a living language. It did not stagnate some time around 1976.
Afrikaans has not been very influenced by English.
I'd agree with that for the most part. Just not over the past few decades - I just have to watch TV to tell me that. Sorry to disagree.
From the point of view of someone more familiar with Afrikaans, it can seem strange that the Dutch language does not have its own words for things that Afrikaans does, but uses English words instead. The first example that comes to mind is the word for computer. I know that "rekenaar" can be used in Dutch, but "computer" is much more common, while the only correct word in Afrikaans is "rekenaar".
I don´t like germanic languages at all, the only one I have knowledge is english and let´s agree with one thing, english is only 60 % germanic.
Flavio, how can you "don't like germanic languages at all" when you only are familiar with English?