hello! im a french person whose mother is a white afrikaner, and i was just in south africa and visited the western cape. i do not speak afrikaans but visited the taal afrikaans monument and museum, which had a lot of interesting stuff about muslim slaves in the cape and their influence on afrikaans' development as a language, as well as the fact that the first written afrikaans texts were in fact in arabic script. if it doesnt bother you too much, do you know of any good english-language books or articles on the subject? im now really interested in learning more. thank you so much and have a wonderful day!
I actually have an unfinished post about this very topic, which has been in my drafts since 2019. which is a bit embarrassing
research into the rôle of brown people (the slaves, Cape Malays, as well as the Khoekhoe and San/Bushmen) in the history of Afrikaans has only really taken off since the 1990s, which is pretty recent, so there's not a lot published yet (there was some work done before the 90s, but as it didn't conform to the apartheid regime's narrative it wasn't mainstream or widely published). and of course, unsurprisingly, most of the research being done is in Afrikaans
luckily, perhaps The Best source on the topic is in English ! "The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915" by Achmat Davids (eds. Hein Willemse & Suleman E Dangor) published posthumously by Protea in 2011. this is a fantastic book. it focuses specifically on the Afrikaans of the Cape Malays (descendants of the slaves brought to the Cape) and on Afrikaans written in (a modified) Arabic script, a practice also called Jawi. It also gives an overview of like all the research which had been done up to that point which is great. this is absolutely the first text to read if you're doing research on this subject
the trouble is, this book is out of print and I've been unable to source a copy for the last 8 years. my uni library had a copy so I have read the book and can recommend it, but just note that a library is probably your best bet to find it
the book is based on Davids' 1991 MA thesis, which is archived on the University of the Western Cape website. the thesis is like 300 pages long, so full of information and definitely worth consulting if you can't find the book. I'd then suggest looking for any English citations in his bibliography if you still want to read more
Davids also wrote a couple of shorter articles and essays, which you should be able to find online or through google scholar/jstor etc. if you can't, lmk I may still have them downloaded on an old harddrive somewhere.
there is also a more recent collection of articles which focuses on the contributions of brown folks in general to the development of Afrikaans, and also includes sociological discussion, not just linguistic. I was so certain that there was an English translation. but I can only find reference to the Afrikaans edition online. I've decided to mention it anyway in case other folks who can read Afrikaans find this post. the books is "Ons kom van vêr: Bydraes oor bruin Afrikaanssprekendes se rol in die ontwikkeling van Afrikaans" edited by WAM Carstens & Michael le Cordeur, published by Naledi in 2016.