June 17, 2013

The Dialect of the Boer Nation.

The dialect of the Boers was classified as Eastern Border Afrikaans by historians as that was the location where their particular dialect had developed during the 1700s... on the northern & eastern Cape frontier where the Boer people emerged from the nomadic Trekboers. This dialect was later taken to the region where the various Boer Republics were established [ & beyond ] during the era of the Great Trek. Also later taken to areas now known as Angola & Namibia during the Thirstland Trek. The following are quoted excerpts noting this distinct dialect. 
                                                               
Taken from the Afrikaans Language Museum website.


The Afrikaans dialect of the Boers is in fact different to the Afrikaans dialect of the Capetonians thus is distinct to that as spoken by the Cape Dutch population.   

Quote: [ Mr. van Tonder also distinguished the Cape Afrikaans from what he called Boeraans. ]

Translated from: Boere vs. die Res.




Quote: [ Our language is Boeraans (a German speaks German, a Dutchman, speaks Dutch French speaks French and so on. How to talk a Boer then Afrikaans ??????? an Afrikaner speaks Afrikaans as the colored nation in the Cape. ]

Translated from the Boere Weerstands Beweging website at: [ http://www.boereweerstandsbeweging.co.za/index_files/Page316.htm]




Quote: [ From this, three main dialects emerged, Cape Afrikaans, Orange River Afrikaans and Eastern Border Afrikaans. The Cape dialect is mostly infused with the language spoken by the Malay slaves who worked in the Cape and spoke a form of broken Portuguese, the Orange River dialect developed with the influence of Koi languages and dialects developed in the Namakwaland and Griqualand West regions and the Eastern Border Afrikaans evolved from the settlers who moved East towards Natal from the Cape. ]

From: History Of The Afrikaans Language In South Africa at: [ nc.essortment.com/historyafrikaan_rqrs.htm ]




Quote: [ Towards the end of the nineteenth century, however, a political party known as the Afrikaner Bond had been started in the Western Cape. Its publication Die Afrikaner Patriot made a small and shaky beginning, read mainly by the less well-to-do rural readers whose home language was not Dutch but Afrikaans, sneeringly referred to as the patterjots by Dutch speakers.

Afrikaans was not a systematic language. Dialects differed widely — at the beginning of the century, for example, six dialects existed in the Cape province alone. Furthermore, Afrikaans had an unfavourable image for wealthy Boers. It was associated with both colour and class; the middle class regarded it as a kombuistaal — a ‘kitchen language’ to be used when addressing servants or farm labourers. Generally, the poorer the community, the more its Afrikaans differed from the ‘purer’ version spoken in the Western Cape. For example, the language spoken by the poorer peasants in Namaqualand caused concern:

In (this area) one finds the weakest Afrikaans. Ignored by Church and State, these people have been in constant contact with Griquas and Hottentots, who speak a low semi-barbaric form of Afrikaans. We must make a distinction between civilized Afrikaans and the language of the street, playground and servants.         

Afrikaner intellectuals worked very hard to ‘clean up’ Afrikaans —they appropriated the language developed by the ‘coloured’ lower classes and claimed it as their own, ‘white’ language. They removed black and Malay as well as English influences; for example, many southern Nguni words, which had entered the dialect in the Eastern Cape, were replaced by Dutch words in the new dictionaries devised by teachers and academics, to reinforce the idea that Afrikaans was respectable and ‘white’. 

On the Rand, where the dominant language of an industrial society was English, working-class Afrikaans was riddled with English-based words. For example, the Afrikaans Garment Workers Union magazine Klerewerker (which promoted the use of Afrikaans) adapted many words derived from English — they used words like ‘werkendeklas’, instead of ‘arbeidersklas’. They also included creative new uses of words, like brandsiek, which was used to describe a ‘scab’, a person who broke a strike by working. But these were lost as they arose out of working-class experiences, and were excluded from official recognition by the middle-class compilers of Afrikaans dictionaries, and magazine and book editors. ]  End of quote.

From: Afrikaner Nationalism Captures the State. Found at: [ http://www.home.intekom.com/southafricanhistoryonline/pages/specialprojects/Luli/Place-in-the-city/Unit4/unit4.htm ]  

The excerpt notes some detail concerning the difference between the dialects as spoken in the Western Cape [ Cape Dutch dialect ] & in the Eastern Cape [ Boer dialect ] but also notes that some of those differences were lost to the standardization process of the early 20th cent when the Cape Dutch in effect began to impose a standardized version. 




Quote: [ Mr. Kruger is a speech-maker of no mean ability. His addresses in the Volksraad are filled with good reasoning, homely similes, biblical quotations, and convincing argument. He speaks without preparation, indulges in no flights of oratory, but uses the simple, plain language that is easily understood by the burgher as well as the statesman. All his speeches are delivered in the Boer "taal," a dialect which bears the same relation to the Dutch language as "low" German does to "high" German. Generally the dialect is used by the Boers in speaking only, the pure Dutch being used in correspondence and official state papers. ]

From: Oom Paul's People. Found at: [ http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=hillegas&book=people&story=kruger&PHPSESSID=4b5bc75aadf1d59a6207f6fb8e12d9b3 ]




Quote: [ Those who stayed behind in the Cape became known amongst the independence minded Boers as the "Cape Dutch" - symbolizing their attachment to Europe. This group loyally supported any European colonial government, and vehemently opposed all attempts by the fledgling Boer population to break ties with the colonial governments. This group stood in strong opposition to the fledgling Boer population and differed with them on all levels - starting with their approach to colonialism and extending all the way through even to language. It is not widely known for example that there are for example marked accent and pronunciation differences between the Boers and the "Cape Dutch". ]

From : The Boers of Southern Africa. Arthur Kemp.

The Boers that emerged on African soil abandoned the various languages their ancestors spoke [ ie: High Dutch / Low German / French / Frankonish / Provencal / German / Portuguese etc. ] & adopted as well as helped create the emerging Afrikaans language that developed on African soil to the point of creating their own dialect.