Afrikaans language, also called Cape Dutch,
The world's youngest language, coming in at only 100 years old (officially), is the South African language of Afrikaans. Surprised? Afrikaans, the natively spoken language of 7 million South Africans, was born from the white Dutch, French, and German colonizers in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1688 a group of French Protestants, striving for religious freedom, fled from France and settled in the Cape. Together with the Free Burghers they are regarded as the earliest ancestors of the Afrikaner nation.
Afrikaans can trace its roots back to 17th and 18th century Dutch. The language, which is spoken in South Africa and Namibia, as well as some areas of Botswana, began to evolve independently from Dutch in the 18th century.
Genealogical records suggest that Afrikaners have their main ancestry components from Europeans (Dutch, German and French) and estimate the non-European contributions to the Afrikaner to be between 5.5 and 7.2% ([9, 31] and Additional file 1: Supplementary Text).
Afrikaans language, also called Cape Dutch, West Germanic language of South Africa, developed from 17th-century Dutch, sometimes called Netherlandic, by the descendants of European (Dutch, German, and French) colonists, indigenous Khoisan peoples, and African and Asian slaves in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good ...
Afrikaners (Afrikaans: [afriˈkɑːnərs]) are a South African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.
Afrikaans is a creole language that evolved during the 19th century under colonialism in southern Africa. This simplified, creolised language had its roots mainly in Dutch, mixed with seafarer variants of Malay, Portuguese, Indonesian and the indigenous Khoekhoe and San languages.
The world's youngest language, coming in at only 100 years old (officially), is the South African language of Afrikaans. Surprised? Afrikaans, the natively spoken language of 7 million South Africans, was born from the white Dutch, French, and German colonizers in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Home languages of white South Africans
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.
Boer, (Dutch: “husbandman,” or “farmer”), a South African of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent, especially one of the early settlers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Today, descendants of the Boers are commonly referred to as Afrikaners.
Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia; it is a separate standard language rather than a national variety, unlike Netherlands Dutch, Belgian Dutch and Surinamese Dutch.
Den Besten theorises that modern Standard Afrikaans derives from two sources: Cape Dutch, a direct transplantation of European Dutch to Southern Africa, and. 'Hottentot Dutch', a pidgin that descended from 'Foreigner Talk' and ultimately from the Dutch pidgin spoken by slaves, via a hypothetical Dutch creole.
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. It's definitely not shrinking."
This is the second oldest language in the world which is still being used today. Sanskrit is the language of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. 7,000 people are Sanskrit speakers.
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.
Afrikaans – the easiest language to learn for both English and Dutch speakers. Afrikaans, the same as English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, is a Germanic language. This is what makes it obviously easier to learn by a native English speaker.
Theron then says: "There's about 44 people still speaking it. It's definitely a dying language; it's not a very helpful language."
It is an official language of South Africa, spoken by around 6 million people as their first language.” So, Afrikaans is a 17th-century import of Dutch colonialism. It's important to add that while the root of the language is Dutch, it's also an amalgamation of German, French, and Indonesian.
Afrikaans is actually quite simple to learn, and many language learners consider it one of the easiest languages to master. Most Germanic languages have two or even three genders, but Afrikaans, like English, uses a singular gender.
The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire, in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The monarchy came to an end on 31 May 1961, replaced by a republic as the consequence of a 1960 referendum, which legitimised the country becoming the Republic of South Africa.
The majority of English-speaking White South Africans trace their ancestry to the 1820 British, Irish, and Dutch settlers. The remainder of the White South African population consists of later immigrants from Europe such as Greeks and Jews from Lithuania and Poland.
Generally speaking, we Dutch don't think often of Afrikaners. Of course there are a few things that connect us like the history of Dutch settlements there, but that's a long time ago and certainly not enough to make us think of each other as distant cousins.
Afrikaans is a very concise language and is known for its use of compound words. For example, the Afrikaans word for “airplane” is vliegtuig, which is made up of the words vlieg (fly) and tuig (device). This makes Afrikaans a very efficient language. Afrikaans is a unique and exciting language with a rich history.