LL-L "Afrikaans" 2004.04.17 (02) [A/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 17.APR.2004 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
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From: ezinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Afrikaans" 2004.04.17 (01) [E]

Hi all,

Stephen wrote:
>It would be useful if M Dreyer could elaborate on the concept
of Afrikaner 'native land' as used in his article. To my knowledge
and to most people's Afrikaans isn't native to Africa but evolved
from the Dutch language

Afrikaans developed as a different language in Africa just as Afrikaners
developed from a misch-masch of Dutch, French, German, Khoikhoin
and Indonesian forefathers (or mothers).

If you question this, you have to question, to mention just a few historical
possibilities, the Angles and Saxons' place in the British Isles, the
American's place in the USA, or English in Australia.

>The fact that it arrived at the southern tip of the continent a century
earlier than the others does not then accord it native status to the
exclusion
of other European languages.
>whilst excluding this status from being applied to other equally key
immigrant-settler groups (the British and English).

That is just the dilemma about the language and its people. It did
not arrive like English arrived elsewhere; it evolved from bits of Europe
and parts of Africa and if there is any exclusion (people or language),
it is self-emposed. English became native in England yet it evolved
from Saxon and Norman French.

One part of my forebearers arrived in South Africa in 1670 and I
cannot claim to be a native of Africa?

I think what you are missing in M Dreyer's sarcasm is that if Afrikaners
had behaved like settlers and imperialists usually behaved, we would
not have been a minority and nobody would question our right to, or
our language in Africa.

>If we white Afrikaners, today, are a minority in our native land,
unlike the case in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, or the racially
defined elite in a racial melting pot like Columbia, Brazil, & India,
to name but a few, it is not to our shame, but our (modest) pride,
that we saw what was good in the past & built on it, even if it
was British from the outset.

History has been written: It was not the Afrikaner who initiated
scorched earth techniques, chuck women and children (even the
'Natives') in concentration camps and then promulgated land
alienation laws against them. Why do you think Irish and Russian
groups came to fight with the Boere against the British in the South
African War?

Elsie Zinsser

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From: ezinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Afrikaans" 2004.04.16 (01) [A/E]

Haai almal,

Gabriele wrote:

>...I am totally fascinated with the whole concept (the way one is
fascinated with a train wreck), if not to say flabbergasted. I had no idea
the system was that complicated, and that so many distinctions are still
made today...totally fascinated with the whole concept (the way one is

Hence my words 'the more things change the more they stay the same'.
All I can say is let's not be rubbernecks.

Liza, your poem of Adam Small is not written in Griekwa Afrikaans
but in Cape Afrikaans. Small was born in Wellington.

Here are a few lines in Griekwa Afrikaans:
Johannes 3:16 Hy't Hy se tjent gestuur

So lief het die Jirre
die mense gehet
lat hy nou Hy se tjent
gekom gestier het
lat dies wat in hom glo
en vi hom bit
vi ewig innie jimmel ka ga sit

>I doubt that the would have let us do  great Coloured and Griekwa
>poems in Afrikaans class, like this one by Adam Small:

I finished schooling in 1969 (Helpmekaar) and was exposed not only to
Small, but also to Peterson and Philander.

Críostóir said:

>We should also factor in the recent (well, mid- to late-1990s) controversy
>over the under-reporting of white emigration from SA.

Yes, that crossed my mind.

Regards,
Elsie Zinsser

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