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The following slang words used in South African originated in other parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and subsequently came to South Africa. bint – a girl, from Arabic بِنْت. Usually seen as derogatory. buck – the main unit of currency: in South Africa the rand, and from the American use of the word for the dollar.
Became part of the iconic slogan Yebo Gogo (Yes, Grandma) from the South African cellular service-provider Vodacom. gogo. In Tswana has the same meaning as gogga - it refers to a creepy crawly or an insect. homeland Under apartheid, typically referred to a self-governing "state" for black South Africans. howzit
Mzansi - South Africa (uMzantsi is Xhosa for 'south'). Invented by journalist/ editor Thami Masemola while working for the now-defunct South African youth publication Y magazine in 1999. Taken from the isiXhosa words 'Mzantsi Africa', meaning 'South Africa' but without the 't', hence the difference. Mother City - Cape Town; Moz - Mozambique ...
sjambok (an ox-hide whip): used by the South African Police Service for riot control, formerly used as a disciplinary tool for misbehaving school children spoor (literally "tracks" or "footprints"): the Afrikaans "spoorweë" refers specifically to the National Train Route, often indirectly as the train-tracks as well.
After the abolition of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, kwaito, already a popular music form in South Africa, and its artists came to embrace the use of tsotsitaal in lyrical content. Because they are associated with urban thugs and the criminal subculture, tsotsitaals and Iscamtho are seen by many as a South African form of gangsta slang.
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Kaffir (/ ˈ k æ f ər /), [1] is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa and to some degree Namibia and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to non-Muslims of any ethnic background before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj (black African) who ...
South Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject South Africa , a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of South Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.