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Is Afrikaans Basically the Same As Dutch?
<<3) I think trying to direct language is preposterous, anyway. A group of people have a certain mutually intelligible set of words and expressions, and a canon of literature builds up. This is spontaneous. Some ivory-tower commission isn't going to seriously control the direction of a language - that happens on the level of the individual, speaking and writing and communicating. >>
Also, the "skryf soos jy praat" principle isn't followed everywhere. Swiss German (Allemanic), even Bayrisch differ more from Standard German than Standard Afrikaans does from Dutch.
There are also some variants that use Dutch as cultural languages like West-Flemish, Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish that differs more from Standard Dutch than Standard Afrikaans does.
Moreover, in the Romance region of Belgium, the common people didn't speak French. Some even weren't able to speak French. They learned it with the advent of the modern era. At first a diglossia of Walloon/Picard/Champenois/Gaumais-French appears and eventually they become francophones. It took ONE generation of education for everyone for them to achieve their diglossia.
I believe official language are partly indeed controlled from above.
Lot's of typos in the posting above, by the way.
"At first... appeared and eventually... became" that's what I wanted to type. ;-)
Lot of typos.
Damn... Me is in a retarded mood.
Qutoe of Boerseun:
"This discussion is ridiculously anger-filled. Guys, tone it down! We're just discussing the differences between languages!
2) Dutch and Afrikaans are totally, totally different languages. No, it's not just political. Afrikaans arose because of geographical separation and environmental differences from Dutch. I don't know how many people here actually speak Afrikaans, but as a native speaker, I can safely say that listening to a Dutch person speak is extremely confusing and/or hilarious, and I think it's the same vice-versa".
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Canadian French also "arose because of geographical seperation (Canada being in North America and France being in old Europe). You can say the same about Brazilian Portuguse and Portuguese (Brazil being in South America and Portugal in Europe).
So Afrikaans is not that unique compared to langauges that also started to differ from the main langauge in Europe.
2)
Brazilians will think Portuguese from Portugal also sound confusing and/ or hilarious and vice-versa. Does this make Brazilian Portuguese a seperate language from European Portuguese?
A popular European Portuguese show in Brazil is dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese so people can understand it better. Does this make Brazilian Portuguese a seperate langauge?
Afrikaans is not at all unique. It developed from Dutch settlers coming into contact with people who spoke other language.
Yet 90% to 95% plus of all Afrikaans vocabulary remain of Dutch origin. The only main differences is that the grammar was simplified. The Afrikaner simplified the grammer by doing the following... Taking the irregular grammar from the Dutch verb (zijn) (to be) and turning it all into IS.
Instead of saying: Dutch/ Afrikaans
I AM Ik BEN/ Ek IS
You ARE Jij BENT/ Jy IS
He IS Hij IS/ Hy IS
She IS Zij IS/ Sy IS
They ARE Jullie ZIJN/ Julle is
We are Wij Zijn / Ons is (ONS in Dutch means US -----Us----------------------- Ons/ Ons-----(Wij in Dutch means We)
So the Afrikaners simplified the grammar to make it more Regular, and they simplified the spelling. Instead of writing "Jij"... you now write "Jy"..... The IJ in Dutch turns into a Y. The Z in Dutch becomes S in Afrikaans. Instead of writing "Zij" or "Zuid" you now write "Sy" and "Suid."
If you compare French with Dutch then yes you can call them seperate langauges BUT if you compare Afrikaans with Dutch then it's obvious to me that Afrikaans is nothing more than simplified Dutch grammer with a 90- 95% Dutch vocabulary.
You are saying because the grammar was simplified and the spelling is slightly different and maybe 5% of Afrikaans words are not from Dutch origin..... that makes Afrikaans unique and seperate langauge?
If you compare French to Dutch I would say yes these two are totally seperate languages. Afrikaans is more like a half a Dutch creol or at least a dialect.
<<I think official languages are always political. Way earlier in history they have also decided that Dutch is not German. Now, German and Dutch aren't mutually intelligible as Dutch and Afrikaans are to a great extent, but people often don't admit how similar both are (the find the idea psychologically freaky).>>
I think so.
<<The term Low German was more widely used in the past, but this is no longer considered politically correct as people in the Netherlands generally do not like to be associated as being German. As Low Saxon-Low Franconian, the name avoids sovereign national associations with either The concept Low German was first pioneered by German linguists, who found that German dialects in the North of Germany were quite different from dialects in the South of the country (see High German consonant shift), as they continued their research, they found that dialects of Dutch, and the Dutch language had a large number of things in common with the dialects in Northern Germany, and subsequently placed them in the Low German group.Later 2 subgroups of Low German (which was now the supposed ancestor of the 2 subgroups) were created: Low Saxon, mainly Low German dialects in Germany, and Low Franconian, mainly Low German dialects in the Netherlands and Flanders.To this day no evidence is found on Low Saxon and Low Franconian ever having a common ancestor, and in linguistics the term Low German is mainly used to indentify West Germanic language who have not experienced the High German consonant shift, or the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law.the Netherlands or Germany
>>
http://en.allexperts.com/e/l/lo/low_saxon-low_franconian_languages.htm
The biggest mistake of the Afrikaners is when they seized Namibia (which has only a little more than 1 million population today) from Germany, they neglected it instead detaching Cape of Good province (which is predominantly Afrikaans speaking) from the rest of Africa and joining it with Namibia.
The Afrikaners were so much obsessed with huge gold deposit found in Orange Free State and Transvaal. They thought that they could rule South Africa with apartheid forever. But it was so impossible because there are 8 times more Black Africans than Afrikaners and Coloureds combined.
If they only thought about it, then they would had a country as large as Alaska with a population of at least 10 million where the Afrikaners and Coloureds would have been in majority and Afrikaans would only be the official and national language.
They exchanged a huge territory for the temporary riches that a gold could offer.
The Dutch made a similar mistake two centuries earlier. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British made a bargain with the Dutch by asking them that British would return Cape Colony if the Dutch would give up either Indonesia, Suriname, or the Antilles. They gave up Cape Colony.
Another mistake of Netherlands is it was indifferent to help the Afrikaners during the Anglo-Boer Wars even by just mediating between two opposing factions.
As a result, it made the Afrikaners to commit another mistake. They felt so bitter about the indifference of Netherlands and decided to make themselves distinct form the Dutch by intentionally making their language different from Dutch which led to official declaration of Afrikaans as a separate language. And now Afrikaans is overlooked by Black South Africans in favor of English because they believe it would lead to nowhere spoken only in South Africa and they view it as a ridiculous derivative language and as a defiant language because of the linguistic independence that its speakers declared from its parent tongue, Dutch.
Some critics even made a conclusion, that the Soweto uprising would not have taken place if the language of instruction to be imposed was Dutch not Afrikaans.
The differences between Afrikaans and Dutch.
An Afrikaans comedian Casper de Vries, making fun of the differences between Afrikaans and Dutch. He does speak a bit too fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a1HBnGbNic
<<Afrikaans sound German to me ... I hate German! >>
You must heal your phobia.
Analyzer
Your facts are wrong in several places, although I agree with some of your conclusions.
1) The Afrikaners did not seize Namibia (South West Africa). It was put under South African rule as a mandate by the League of Nations after World War 1. This mandate was renewed by the UN after World War 2. The then SWA was ruled as if it was a province of SA, but never actually was one. It could not be joined to the Cape province, that would have been illigal. But yes, that would have created a predominantly Afrikaans state.
2) A large section of the Afrikaners (this particular group were known as Boers) settled in the Transvaal and Orange Free State before gold was discovered, not because of it.
3) Afrikaans existed long before the Anglo Boer War, and developed because of various circumstances which would take a lot of space to fully explain. It was mostly not political, and certainly not because of the Netherlands' position during the Anglo Boer War. It wasn't intentionally made a seperate language, it developed into a seperate language in a natural way. The process of formalising it started in 1875, but by then it was already widely spoken.
4) I've never heard of critics saying the Soweto uprising would not have occurred if the language used in schools had been Dutch. The fact is, the uprising was a revolt against apartheid, first and foremost. Afrikaans as mostly the excuse. The language had some to do with it, in the sense that it was regarded as the language of the oppressor. In the same way, Dutch would have been seen as the language of the oppressor.
<<So the Afrikaners simplified the grammar to make it more Regular, and they simplified the spelling. Instead of writing "Jij"... you now write "Jy"..... The IJ in Dutch turns into a Y. The Z in Dutch becomes S in Afrikaans. Instead of writing "Zij" or "Zuid" you now write "Sy" and "Suid." >>
You are wrong. Y instead of Ij or S instead of Z exist in Middle Dutch:
"Staet op, gaet wtte, o dochter van Israhel,
den bruydegom comt, rasch gaet hem te gemoete;
hy comt u sachtmoedich, niet wreet oft fel,
een kindeken cleyne, niet om versoeten.
Gaet nu voer tcribbeken & wilt hem groeten;
al ist dat ghy u selven vol misdaden // siet,
met vollen betrouwen, valt hem te voeten,
roept om gracie, hy en sal u versmaden // niet,
want wt hem de fonteyne der genaden // vliet.
Belydt u sonden, & wilt niet overtreden // meer,
hy sal u ontlasten, sydy beladen // iet,
die hem liet besnyden in syn jonge leden // teer.
Om onse misdaden die hem deden // seer,
heeft hy willen weenen, lyden & suchten.
Gaet te Bethleem, maer laet u oude seden // eer:
offert den nieuwen coninck nieuwe vruchten"
http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:bMHjFxH9gyUJ:www.dbnl.org/tekst/_ref003refe01_01/_ref003refe01_01_0079.htm+hertelyc&cd=7&hl=lt&ct=clnk&gl=lt
Interesting that Middle Dutch uses Y instead of IJ and S instead of Z like Afrikaans.
What's even more interesting is that even though the text is Middle Dutch, as an Afrikaans speaker I can still understand about 65% of the text.
Take the last sentence for example:
Middle Dutch: offert den nieuwen coninck nieuwe vruchten.
Afrikaans: offer die nuwe koning nuwe vrugte.
<<What's even more interesting is that even though the text is Middle Dutch, as an Afrikaans speaker I can still understand about 65% of the text. >>
**, How much of this text You understand as an Afrikaans speaker?
"Also do wij juwen ersamheyden fruntliken weten, dat wij sodanne juwe vnde her Albertes van der Molen breue vnde scriffte den ghennen, de nu to tijd Ribenborch inne hebben, lesen laten hebben, worupp se vns hebben geantwerdet, dat se zijk in sodannen vntuchliken antworde, sle zijk doch vppe des ergenanten hern Albertes van der Molen vntuchtlike scriffte wol geborde, nu to tijd entholden vnde dat liden laten willen, men wes se vns van der legenheit der vorscreuenen schicht vnde walt vnderwiset hebben, menen se in warheit redelikien vnde wol, wannere dat stede vnde tijd esschen, to vorantwerende. "
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