: a South African of European descent whose native language is Afrikaans.
The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans) meaning "African".
Two main white groups emigrated to South Africa: first the Boers came, mainly from Holland, later calling themselves Afrikaners.
The term Afrikaners or Afrikaans people is generally used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of White South Africans) including the descendents of both the Boers, and the Cape Dutch who did not embark on the Great Trek.
Afrikaans is home language of 2.7-million white South Africans, or about six in every 10 (60.8%) white people. Next up is English, the first language of 1.6-million white South Africans.
Grammatical differences. Grammatical differences are arguably the most considerable difference between Afrikaans and Dutch, as a result of the loss of inflections in Afrikaans, as well as the loss of some verb tenses, leading to it being greatly simplified in its grammar compared to Dutch.
According to the projections that we've made, by 2041 you're going to have 7.1 million Afrikaans speakers. So, there is clear growth. It's not much growth, but it is growing.
Kif (or kiff or kief): Cool, lekker, nice, e.g., That was a kif jol last night.
In Afrikaans the word for mother is just 'ma' and in Swahili it's 'mama'. My mum and me enjoying the sunshine!
Being recognised as a West Germanic language, Afrikaans is first compared to Standard Dutch, Standard Frisian and Standard German. Pronunciation distances are measured by means of Levenshtein distances. Afrikaans is found to be closest to Standard Dutch.
Although Afrikaners have the majority of their ancestry from northwestern Europe, non-European admixture signals are ubiquitous in the Afrikaner population. Interesting patterns and similarities could be seen between genealogical predictions and genetic inferences.
Afrikaners predominantly stem from Dutch, French and German immigrants who settled in the Cape, in South Africa, during the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th. Although later European immigrants were also absorbed into the population, their genetic contribution was comparatively small.
Papà, Dad, Père, Pai, Baba, Embo, Fa, Abba, Aabe, Aabba, Abo. These are just some of the words used to call dads in Africa. Fathers are often marginal figures in this continent, as parental responsibilities are mainly a duty of women.
goose – also chick, cherry: a young woman or girlfriend (used mainly during the 1950s, now dated).
"Baba" means "father" in many of the African languages in southern Africa, with a connotation of respect attached to a highly valued social role and age.
From Afrikaans stukkie (“girl, girlfriend”, literally “little piece”).
Afrikaans doesn't really have an exact equivalent of 'hello'. The norms are 'Goeie more/middag/naand' which mean 'good morning/afternoon/evening. Afrikaners also use the term, 'Hoe gaan dit? ' (how are you) instead of hello.
The reduced Afrikaans/Dutch form hotnot has also been borrowed into South African English as a derogatory term for black people, including Cape Coloureds.
Afrikaans speaking countries
As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 14 percent is in South Africa.
The modern incarnation of the Germanic Afrikaans is a mixture of a much older form of Dutch and a hefty dose of vocabulary from other African, Asian, and European languages.
The challenging. Grammar: Much like Dutch, Afrikaans grammar is a lot simpler than German. If you're someone who likes the German rules about articles, genders, etc., then you might find Afrikaans a bit frustrating.
First, Afrikaners show West African ancestry rather than links to South African Bantu-speakers. This signal most likely stems from two slave ships from West Africa that arrived in 1658.
Afrikaans is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn because--like many of the languages on this list--it's part of the Germanic language family. It's spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and a few other countries.
Even though Afrikaans and Dutch are two separate languages, they are still very close relatives. Therefore, most people who speak Afrikaans will be able to understand Dutch. However, there are certain words that only native speakers of Afrikaans or Dutch would understand.
Baba is a common word for "father" or "dad" in South African English. Many other languages use baba, but the South African word comes from the Zulu language. In Zulu, and in South African English, baba can also mean "sir."