South African Children's Literature: Languages


Figure 1.--

South Africans speak a great diversity of languages. The two principal European languages are English and Afrikaans. The latter language is easy to understand by Dutch people. According to a Dutch reader, " Afrikaans tickles one's funny bone, because it seems such a primitive, child-like language, derived from 16th century Dutch, enriched with some native African and Malayan words. But they always make up new words that make a lot of sense, like refrigerator = ijskassie (ice box) , automobile = wa (from the word wagon), etc." HBC of course has a Dutch glossary, but not one on Afrikaans for clothing related terms. We suspect that the clothing terms are quite similar. A South African reader tells us, "Afrikaans literature is very much alive, vigorous and pursued with great enthusiasm." Both English and Afrikaans continue to be spoken in South Africa, but the black majority strongly prefers English, in part because most associate Afrikanns with Apartheid. There are a much larger number of idigenous African languages. The two most important are Xhosa and Zulu.

Afrikaans

Afrikaans is the language developed by the Dutch settlers in South Africa. The latter language is easy to understand by Dutch people. According to a Dutch reader, " Afrikaans tickles one's funny bone, because it seems such a primitive, child-like language, derived from 16th century Dutch, enriched with some native African and Malayan words. But they always make up new words that make a lot of sense, like refrigerator = ijskassie (ice box) , automobile = wa (from the word wagon), etc." HBC of course has a Dutch glossary, but not one on Afrikaans for clothing related terms. We suspect that the clothing terms are quite similar. A South African reader tells us, "Afrikaans literature is very much alive, vigorous and pursued with great enthusiasm." Both English and Afrikaans continue to be spoken in South Africa, but the black majority strongly prefers English, in part because most associate Afrikanns with Apartheid.

English

English is the language imposed upon the Dutch settlers after the defeat of the Boer Reublics. As the English community was not as harsh with majority blacks, however, it was the language that most turned to for their education. Many black youths saw Afrikaans as the langiage of te oppressors. Today in South Adrica, English is seen as not only an indespensible language for international communication, but a comprompse language for balcks, unwilling to adopt one of the African language as the national language. We know little about South African children's literature in English. It may be more difficult for South African English authors to compete as their is such a wealth of English language children's literature avilable from Britain and America.

African Languages

There are a much larger number of idigenous African languages. The two most important are Xhosa and Zulu. We simply at this time know very little about these languages and children's literature published in them. Hopefully our South African readers will provide us some information.








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Created: February 15, 2003
Last updated: February 15, 2002