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The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans) [n 3] meaning 'African'. [12] It was previously referred to as 'Cape Dutch' (Kaap-Hollands or Kaap-Nederlands), a term also used to refer to the early Cape settlers collectively, or the derogatory 'kitchen Dutch' (kombuistaal) from its use by slaves of colonial settlers "in the kitchen".
Bilingual sign in Afrikaans and Transvaal Ndebele at the Pretoria Art Museum. isiNdebele (English: / ɛ n d ə ˈ b iː l iː /), also known as Southern Ndebele [1] [4] [5] is an African language belonging to the Mbo group of Bantu languages, spoken by the Ndebele people of South Africa.
Today, Afrikaans is recognised as one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and is the third most common first language in South Africa. In June 2013, the Department of Basic Education included Afrikaans as an African language to be compulsory for all pupils.
Word order in Afrikaans follows broadly the same rules as in Dutch: in main clauses, the finite verb appears in "second position" (V2 word order), while subordinate clauses (e.g. content clauses and relative clauses) have subject–object–verb order, with the verb at (or near) the end of the clause.
/a/ is open near-front , [12] but older sources describe it as near-open central [13] [14] and open central . [15] /ɑː/ is either open near-back or open back . Especially in stressed positions, the back realization may be rounded , and sometimes it may be even as high as the /ɔː/ phoneme. The rounded realization is associated with younger ...
Radio Sonder Grense (RSG), i.e. Radio Without Borders, is an Afrikaans-language radio service run by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for the whole of South Africa. Since Afrikaans is one of South Africa's 11 official languages, the SABC is required to carry an Afrikaans-language service on both radio and television.
The simplification of verbs in Afrikaans, with almost all verbs being regular and the near absence of the simple past tense, means that while the phrase ek het gehelp ("I have helped" or "I helped") would be recognisable by Dutch speakers, the Dutch phrases ik heb geholpen and ik hielp would not be as readily understood by speakers of Afrikaans.
The Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT) is a shorter, concise Afrikaans explanatory dictionary in a single volume, compared to the comprehensive Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), similar to the Concise Oxford Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary. The project was begun in 1926 by Prof. J. J. Smith of Stellenbosch ...