What is Afrikaans and Why are you learning it?
I post a lot about Afrikaans so I’m sure they is a few of you who are like What the hell is Afrikaans and why are you always writing about/learning it?
What is Afrikaans?
It’s a language! Its spoken by people in South Africa (predominately the Caucasian population) as well as in a few neighboring countries. Approximately 1% of the world’s population speaks Afrikaans as a first language and another half percent speaking Afrikaans as a second or third language. It is considered one of South Africa’s national languages (they have 11) and is one of the most widely spoken in South Africa.
So it’s just a language in South Africa?
No. It’s definitely more then that. It’s a culture as well. People who speak Afrikaans are commonly referred to as Afrikaaners and with the language they have there own culture. They do BBQ’s (referred to as a braai) with large amount of family and friends. They’re descendants of the Dutch Settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 1800′s so the language is closely related to Dutch but also has ties to German as well as Portuguese, Bantu, Malay and Xhosa.
How do you know so much about Afrikaans/South Africa?
My fiance is an Afrikaaner as is his family.
So is that why your learning it?
Exactly why. They speak Afrikaans at home more then they speak English so when we first started dating it was incredibly uncomfortable to go over because I could never understand. His sister and brother in law were incredibly mean to me and actually mocked in Afrikaans claiming that I was lesser then them due to my inability to speak or understand they’re language. Now I’ve started to understand some Afrikaans but I still have trouble speaking it so I’ve decided I want to learn it as my second language because we’ll be getting married and eventually travelling to South Africa so it’ll always be a part of my life.
In terms of a language is it hard to learn?
I don’t find it hard to learn the hardest thing for me is to find online resources to help me, since it’s such a small language that changes so quickly (they create slang almost whenever they feel like it) I find it difficult to keep up to date on it. Other then that I find it strangely similar to English but I think that’s just me.
If you’re curious to hear what Afrikaans sounds like you can click here to hear my favourite band (Die Heuwels Fantasties)