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Is Afrikaans Basically the Same As Dutch?
<<Let's keep Brazilian-Portuguese out of this thread, this one is about Dutch.>>
I agree. There are plenty of threads floating around about Portuguese and even Spanish. Let's use this one for Dutch and Afrikaans, two rather underrated languages.
<<two many cases >>
?? I think that Brazilian Portuguese may be on the road to becoming something of an "Afrikaans" in the future, but Afrikaans has definitely progressed further away from its parent language than Brazilian Portuguese has.
Dutch and Afrikaans, two rather underrated languages
They are unimportant languages, indeed
The biggest difference I find between Brazilian-Portuguese and Dutch-Afrikaans is that many peculiarities of Brazilian didn't become standard despite they are widespread . Teachers, journalists, intellectuals etc still prefer to follow the Lisboan norm whereas Afrikaans is not ashamed of those peculiarities and they have been standarized.
"They are unimportant languages, indeed "
I do hope you didn't mean that in a too derogatory way. No language is unimportant,and when a language dies out,it's our loss as a race. I've stumbled across the Yaghan language for example,and it has one of the most fantastic words,which is also one of the hardest to translate. The idea is that each language possesses something that no other language has, and so, no language can be called unimportant. Afrikaans has some fantastic words,very practical bunch these fellows.And those particular words translate vastly different in Dutch for example (to stay on topic :)
<<Dutch and Afrikaans, two rather underrated languages
They are unimportant languages, indeed >> I believe that this is because blanchette does not speak English very well, and does not understand fully what's being communicated here. The above statement "Dutch and Afrikaans, two rather underrated languages" implies just the opposite: it implies that they are indeed important languages, but do not get the recognition they deserve. Since blanchette does not even speak English, she should not be heeded and her comments ignored. That is the French Way :P
<<They are unimportant languages, indeed>>
You need a dictionary if you think that's what I meant. Like someone already mentioned, by "underrated" I mean that Dutch and Afrikaans are important to many people but not enough. They should get as much recognition as say English, French or Mandarin Chinese.
The biggest difference I find between Brazilian-Portuguese and Dutch-Afrikaans is that many peculiarities of Brazilian didn't become standard despite they are widespread . Teachers, journalists, intellectuals etc still prefer to follow the Lisboan norm whereas Afrikaans is not ashamed of those peculiarities and they have been standarized.
--- Teachers in Brazil may say whatever they want but Brazilian vernacular is used in 1. speech of all people even professors 2. television programs (sitcoms, soap operas, movies) 3. music 4. theater plays 5. modernist literature Putting all these things together, Brazilian vernacular enjoys more prestige in Brazil than Swiss German in Germany (find me 1st class literature in Swiss German, all Swiss writers use Hochdeutch in romances and theater plays)... If you read contemporary Brazilian literature (from 1900-2010) you can see 90 % of writers follow Brazilian vernacular usage, not only in dialogs, but many times in narration too. Modern(ist) Brazilian literature is from where written Brazilian language should be learned, and not legalese or right-wing magazines like Veja (that use 19th Continental Portuguese-wannabe grammar with Brazilian spelling).
Hei (lol)
"Big @sshole, Please learn how to write in English before you attempt to "play professor" with someone else (I refer to "speak nor Portuguese")." Maybe I've written correctly. If I didn't, I do not care. You're a plain clown. "By the way, genius, SPEAKING a language does not really mean that you KNOW about the language. You are confusing two separate aspects of knowledge. I know a lot of good native English speakers who know absolutely NOTHING about the English language. So it is with you perhaps." As we say in Portugal, what has the ass to do with the trowsers? How can you compare pairs of languages, or forms of speaking, or dialects without knowing those languages? If you use your head just a little (hope not asking too much from you), you'll see that your example does not justify your denial of what I said (lol) 1 - Please, make an effort to write SENSIBLE posts. At least make an effort, ok? 2 - This thread is about the differences between Afrikaans and Dutch, not about the difference between Brazilian PT and European PT. It's mostly Spaniards (or pseudo), some angry Brazilians, and others who may have a love-hate relationship with the Portuguese language, so they spam all over with off-topic rubbish.
«The biggest difference I find between Brazilian-Portuguese and Dutch-Afrikaans is that many peculiarities of Brazilian didn't become standard despite they are widespread »
Bryan, Many peculiarities of European Portuguese are also not standard. Saying "Ja" or "Ya" for Yes, instead of "Sim", saying "bué" instead of "muito" (very). Do you know the different peculiarities of Dutch inside The Netherlands or Belgium? There are plenty of different dialects inside those small countries. The thing about Afrikaans is the different spelling and syntax. The reasons may be political, but it's a fact. If, in the future, in order to expand the Dutch language internationally, there is a spelling and grammar union between Afrikaans, Dutch Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Surinamese Dutch, Curaçao Dutch and others, Dutch may again become one language spoken also in South Africa. Right now it's a different language, very very simmilar to Dutch, but different. It makes a lot more sense to compare Dutch and Afrikaans to Portuguese and Spanish, and Dutch and Flemish (Belgian Dutch) to Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese. Flemish has different pronunciation rules from Netherlands Dutch regarding the letters "g", "r" and "h". Some words are also different.
Also,Bryan,
I know many Brazilians and I am yet to find one who is ashamed of his way of speaking. Usually they are quite proud of their sweet/sexy Portuguese. Your assumption that Brazilians are ashamed if they do not speak "correctly" EU PT" is totally false. You do not know many Brazilians. That assumption may refer to Latin-America Spanish speakers who often feel ashamed of their own dialectal American peculiarities, not to PT speaking Brazilians. You failed to match the target my friend:-(
Hi, I'm just wondering where did the Afrikaans speaker get the following words:
Hierdie for dit/deze (This/These) Daardie for dat/die (That/Those) "Die" instead of "de" in Afrikaans is now "the" in English while "dit" instead of "het" is now "it" in English. So that literal meaning of "hierdie" is "here-the" and "daardie" is "there-the". It doesn't make sense to me.
Hi, I'm just wondering where did the Afrikaans speaker get the following words:
Hierdie for dit/deze (This/These) Daardie for dat/die (That/Those) "Die" instead of "de" in Afrikaans is now "the" in English while "dit" instead of "het" is now "it" in English. So that the literal meaning of "hierdie" is "here-the" and "daardie" is "there-the" in English. It doesn't make sense to me.
Speaking about Afrikaans, I've heard that there are Afrikaans words that come from a Malaysian language, and also some words coming from Portuguese (the later I doubt, but it's possible).
Does anyone one knows examples of such words? Also, does anyone knows examples of Afrikaans words borrowed from other languages? Ex: from English, Xhona, Zulu... excluding Dutch, of course. |