[Ads-l] Antedating of "Apartheid"

Herbert F. Stahlke hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM
Sat Jul 18 23:08:35 UTC 2020


I learned a German pronunciation at school, not surprising at a Lutheran boarding school in Milwaukee, and pronounced it "a-PART-height," obviously not Afrikaans.

On July 18, 2020, at 11:30 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> On Jul 18, 2020, at 5:01 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Some time more or less in the same era, LIFE published an article on
> apartheid. The article, among other things, explained that _apartheid_ is
> an Afrikaans word and that its pronunciation is approximately "apart-hate."
> 
> Apparently, nobody else in the English-speaking world read this article.
> I've heard this word pronounced as bizarrely as "appe(r)tite" even by UK
> speakers.

I’ve mostly heard it as a-PAR-tide.


> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 1:02 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>> apartheid (OED 1947 Oct.)
>> 
>> 1947 _Rand Daily Mail_ 23 Jan. 9/3 (Readex)  The Opposition had no native
>> policy. He [S. J. Tighy] had asked the Leader of the Opposition for a
>> definition of the word "apartheid." It could not be found in any dictionary.
>> 
>> Fred Shapiro
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


More information about the Ads-l mailing list