CLASSIFICATION:
Family:
Indo-European
Group: Germanic
Subgroup: West Germanic
VARIETIES:
Black South African English, Indian English, Coloured English, Afrikaans English – variants of South African English
Speakers
Around 3
457 467 people use it as their home language in South Africa.
South African English is probably the most complicated variant of English anywhere because it has always existed in a complex
multilingual and multi-cultural environment. English is one of eleven official languages, and mother-tongue English-speakers number just three and a half million in a population of over forty million people – under 9%. So the position of SAE is markedly different from that in multi-lingual but predominantly English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the
USA. There is the potential for influence by many more languages than in other English-speaking communities, and these languages have widely divergent origins and structures.
General Vocabulary
A few notable South African English words:
dwaal – state of befuddlement
smaak – to like, to enjoy
lekker – nice
handlanger – assistant
skelm – dishonest person, rogue, rascal
veld -field/pasture
spoor – animal tracks
dwaal, smaak, lekker, handlanger and veld are dutch in origin, all are normal words in dutch, but the meaning is a little different, dwalen is a verb and means to wander. Smaak means taste, handlanger is an accomplice and veld means the same 🙂
Wonderful comments to read and try to understand. One question Janet, after all your travels and your obvious competencies with foreign languages, do you speak English with a South African accent? Sorry, just curious, and fascinated by such things!
Steve Morton says I sound very posh – like I come from Kensington, London. Who knew?
Eish. What a jôl. I smaak you stukkend. Check that mobi mampara madala over there. Nyum nyum this is moosh.
Thank you!
handlanger = assistant