Will Dutch ever die out?

Attention: PARISIEN Fri May 28, 2010 11:14 am GMT

Be happy with the map because it means that those areas were used to be Flemish. But over the course of time,they became French which means French won.

Who cares if Afrikaans is considered a Dutch dialect or a seperate language?

I know for a fact that in my Afrikaans classs, we had to read a Dutch book and then answer questions about the book in Afrikaans. We also once or twice were given a Dutch poem in the Afrikaans class and we had to answer questions about these poems in Afrikaans.

At university if you study Afrikaans as a major subject it includes the study of Dutch literature.

In South Africa most books written before 1925 were in Standard European Dutch not Afrikaans and any Afrikaner student at university that have to read an old book dating back before 1925 will find that it's all written in Dutch and you will just have to read it in Dutch... it's not that difficult if you get use to it!



Do you ever see Spanish children reading Portuguese books in the Spanish class?

Do people that study Spanish also have to study some Portuguese literature as part of the Spanish language?

Portuguese people can not say that before 1925 all books in Portugal were written in standard European Spanish.

So Afrikaners will always have the connection to the Dutch language whether we like it or not. It's part of our history or culture and heritage. You can't just throw it away it.

<< Do people that study Spanish also have to study some Portuguese literature as part of the Spanish language?

>>

yes they do. Camoens wrote in Spanish.

<<Portuguese people can not say that before 1925 all books in Portugal were written in standard European Spanish. >>

Afrikaaner people can not say that after 1925 all books in South Africa were writen in standard Dutch. You live in 2010 not in 1910. So those connections between Afrikaaner and Dutch are past, and they are becoming more and more distant, just like Spanish and Portuguese. The only difference is that Spanish and Portuguese began to diverge before Afrikaans and Dutch did, but at least Spanish and Portuguese speakers are neighbors both in America and in Spain, so they will never diverge as much as Afrikaans and Dutch will because Netherlands is too far away from South Africa. Add to that that many Afrikaans speakers are blacks and blacks due to they low cultural level always tend to creolize the European languages they speak.

Sorry for the fast typing above... I have only seen the mistakes I made now. : )

What I also want to say that an Afrikaner never really have to learn European Dutch at school, you are just given a book in Dutch and the teacher expects you to understand it. You don't have to take special Dutch classes to understand it.

<< Afrikaaner people can not say that after 1925 all books in South Africa were writen in standard Dutch. You live in 2010 not in 1910. So those connections between Afrikaaner and Dutch are past, and they are becoming more and more distant, just like Spanish and Portuguese. The only difference is that Spanish and Portuguese began to diverge before Afrikaans and Dutch did, but at least Spanish and Portuguese speakers are neighbors both in America and in Spain, so they will never diverge as much as Afrikaans and Dutch will because Netherlands is too far away from South Africa. Add to that that many Afrikaans speakers are blacks and blacks due to they low cultural level always tend to creolize the European languages they speak. >>

Spanish dialects are splitting with Castilian and with each other. In a few decades there Spanish will end up as Venezuelans, Cubans, Chileans, Dominican Republican, Argentinian/Lunfardo, Uruguayan etc. like Latin did.

But the thing is who said we want Afrikaans to go back to Dutch? Why would we want to bring back the old grammar and spelling that looks so complicated?

We have our own language now, but we will always respect our Dutch heritage. I'm proud to say I'm of Dutch descent but that does not mean I want to be a Hollander. : )

Who cares if Afrikaans is the same than Dutch. English is more important in South Africa than both. Afrikaaners are switching to English like if there was no tomorrow. Also blacks prefer English because Afrikaans is the language of Apartheid.

Afrikaans the language of Apartheid then I guess English is the language of GENOCIDE? Genocide of the Aboriginals in Australia, Genocide of the Native Americans in America?

By the way the majority of Afrikaans speakers are mixed race so you go and tell them that!

Blacks can prefer English but the majority of white people and mixed race people in South Africa are Afrikaans speakers, and if you look at the rest of Africa you will see blacks might be more in numbers but when it comes to BRAINS they have very little IQ.


That is why when you fly from Europe to South Africa you will see no electricity when flying over the rest of Africa it's only pitch black!! As soon as you get to South Africa you see lights and electricity below you. That is because Europeans brought light to dark Africa. So you can speak English as much as you like, so can I but I prefer to speak my language because at the end of the DAY it's Brains beats Bullshit!

<<blacks might be more in numbers but when it comes to BRAINS they have very little IQ.

>>

You are a disgusting Afrikaaner racist pig that badmouths the blacks in public but has sex with them in private life like Terre Blanche did. You deserve a genocide more than any other people in the world.

<< Who cares if Afrikaans is the same than Dutch. English is more important in South Africa than both. Afrikaaners are switching to English like if there was no tomorrow. Also blacks prefer English because Afrikaans is the language of Apartheid. >>

According to the South African Census 2001, Afrikaans is the majority language in Western Cape province (2,500,748 speakers) and Northern Cape province (559,189 speakers) it's the second laguage in Eastern Cape province (600,057 speakers), in Free State province (323,082 speakers), in Gauteng province (1,269,176 speakers), in North West province (275,681 speakers); there is a large number of speakers also in the other provinces: Kwa-zulu Natal (140,833 speakers, 4th) , Limpopo (122,531 speakers, 4th) and Mpumalanga (192,129 speakers, 5th) .

According to the Namibian census 2001, Afrikaans language is the second language of Namibia (11% of the total population). It’s the majority language in Karas region (40%) and in Hardap region (44%); it’s the second language in Erongo region (22%) and in Khomas Region (24%); it’s the third language in Omaheke Region (12%).

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/afrikaans.html

See I'm giving you facts and now you call me racists?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence


So tell me angry black man, why do you think Africa is in such a mess? OOO yes you probably going to blame whites, and yes you might have all the right to blame white people for you missery but sooner or later when all whites have left Africa you will have to owe up to your own mess!!

You have already chased out all the whites in Zimbabwe and now look at it! Your own black people are NOW worse off under black rule than under white rule. Just admit it AFrica is a mess because you can't run it!

Even some black people in America are agreeing, you have a problem!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuEc-nFULY8

You said black people prefer English

Well first and foremost black people should speak their own language as English comes from the white man in England NO?

If you are so intelligent as you say you are why do you need to learn a white language like English?

Why don't you start your own Zulu/ Xhosa universities like the Afrikaners already have?

I very rarely visit this part of the Forum but I'm glad I did now.

Any native English speaker who visits the Netherlands has no need to worry at all about communication with local people......the vast majority of Dutch people have an excellent command of English, so much so that you may well mistake them for English English people, as I did once in a store in Amsterdam.

The female assistant there who dealt with my request for information, which I had confidently put to her in English just as a matter of course - this was the Netherlands after all - responded in an accent which could have been taken as that of someone from the South of England, and I thought that that's where she came from. I was gobsmacked when she told me that she had never in her life visited the UK, which in itself is quite unusual among Dutch people.

Only once did I encounter soeone who could not speak English, at least confidently enough to converse with me, and amazingly that was a young lad of about 18 or so serving behind the counter of a computer equipment store in Alkmaar...he passed me onto to another assistant whose English was perfect. That situation is extremely rare in the Netherlands, at least in my own experience and I have been there loads of times as I have two friends of around my own age living just outside of Eindhoven.

A ticket collector on a train, an elderly lady in the ticket office of a theatre, a young bank cashier, a young police officer and even a group of young teenage kids, the entire hotel staff from the receptionist to the two waitresses, and a taxi driver, all in Amsterdam - excellent standard of spoken English all round - but it's just what you expect in the Netherlands.

Even so, Dutch will never die out....it would to absolutely ridiculous to suggest that it ever will, but some rather unkind people say that the Dutch enjoy the relief on their vocal chords when speaking English which is far less of a strain on them than when they are speaking Dutch which does sound extremely guttural to most British people anyway. English is certainly easier on the ear, a lot more mellifluous, unless the speaker comes from Glasgow or Liverpool or Birmingham......