The Influence of English on Afrikaans

7.29 Special registers strongly influenced by English

7.29.1 Swearing

Whereas the official recognition of Afrikaans in 1925 opened the way for the emancipation of Afrikaans from Dutch and English, that emancipation took place predominantly at an official level. The infinite number of English loanwords used across a wide spectrum of fields, particularly among the lower socio-economic classes, is one example of the limits of that emancipation. Another example is the Afrikaner's slang (cf. Ponelis 1984¹: 40), best illustrated in the way in which Afrikanerdom swears: Afrikaners swear like Englishmen - or would it be more appropriate to say like their fellow colonials in Australia? There is nothing remotely akin to the Afrikaner's potential to swear in Holland. Elsewhere in this work reference was made to the old saying that the Afrikaner is trilingual: Hy praat Afrikaans, bid in Nederlands en vloek in Engels. But he does not just swear in English, but à l'anglaise: to refer to an unsavoury character as a doos or to an unpleasant woman as a teef is a translation of English idiom; the exclamations stront and kak or statements such as jy praat kak or hy is 'n pyn all have an English ring to them. Du Toit (1965: 134) says of the many English swearwords in Afrikaans that ‘...sonder veel van

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die inheemse te verdring, het hulle op dié gebied ons woordeskat verryk(!)’ [his exclamation mark]. The borrowing has not just been in the one direction, of course, because English speaking South Africans have also availed themselves of the potential to expand their vocabulary of expletives by borrowing extensively from Afrikaans, for example: donderse, helse, moerse, not a donder. Du Toit (1965: 125) maintains that such foreign expletives are employed as euphemisms, a point also made by I. Feinauer (1983), but I feel that the Afrikaner's knowledge of, and feeling for, English is now too intimate for English swearwords to have any euphemistic value left - jou fokken dief is no more euphemistic in Afrikaans than in English. I think Le Roux's (1926: 358) explanation is closer to the truth: ‘gewaarwordinge en gevoelens word kragtiger uitgedruk deur geleende woorde. Vandaar: demmit, dash it, nonsens, olrait, bloeming, bleddie, cheecky [sic!], bother of bodder.’

The potential of bleddie, bloomin, flippin and fokken to be inserted in the middle of polysyllabic words is in direct imitation of a practice found in colloquial English, for example: abso-bleddie-luut niks, ‘not nece-bloody-ssarily’. The mechanics of this phenomenon are dealt with very competently by I. Feinauer (1983) but to my amazement she does not attribute its existence in Afrikaans to English influence, despite the fact that the very words that are infixed are thinly disguised loanwords. As they are seldom written, it is difficult to know whether to write blooming, bloemen, bloomin, or bloomen:

bleddie/blerrie

bloomen

flippen

fokken (cf. p. 196)

boggerol/bokkerol

boggerop/bokkerol

bogger/bokker (n. & v.)

bogger/bokker julle etc.

doos

poepol - (arsehole?)

teef

shame

not a damn/donder

waar op aarde was jy so lank?

hoe/wat/wie de/the hel/heck

jolly(wel), e.g. hy weet so jolly baie

oh, heng (< hang)

oh, hel(l)

fok off, fok all

7.29.2 Greetings, farewells, thanking and forms of address

Cultural blending in South Africa has led to Afrikaners employing English customs of greeting and thanking etc. Mackey (1972: 574) remarks on a

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similar phenomenon in Amerindian languages. This is a good example of what Barnouw (1934: 41) was referring to when he wrote ‘As a social animal the Afrikaner belongs to the species called Briton’. (cf. p. 45)

The way in which asseblief and dankie are used corresponds exactly with English usage and differs markedly from Dutch and German. In fact, even Mansvelt (1884: 31) remarked: ‘Evenals de Engelschen zegt men ja-danki voor alsjeblieft en nee-danki voor dank-je (u) alleen.’ Dankie on its own implies ‘yes thank you’, as in English, not the opposite, as is the case in several European languages; it also renders ‘yes please’ just as ‘thanks’ can in English. Sometimes even the position of asseblief in the sentence (cf. Basson, i.a. 1982: 79) is in imitation of English (e.g. Asseblief, gaan nou huis toe) and the very European use of alstublieft, bitte schön and s'il vous plaît etc. when handing something to someone, which has no equivalent in English, has no equivalent in Afrikaans either. Having been thanked for a service rendered, one frequently retorts with (Dit is 'n) plesier where once again European languages commonly use a form of ‘please’. Such practices in Afrikaans are in accordance with English protocol.

The farewells bye bye and ta ta, as well as ek sien (vir) jou (later), are integrated loans from English, as are the greeting hallo daar and the standard expressions ontmoet my dogter and pas jouself op. And cheers is just as commonly heard as gesondheid.

Concluding letters with liefde and opreg is an English tradition, as is the formal title Sy Edele die Eerste Minister. Du Toit (1965: 134) observed:

‘'n Interessante gebied is dié van ons aanspreekvorme (titulatuur). Hier tref ons o.a. aan: Mr., mrs, miss, auntie, cousin, deary, darling, daddy ens., in gebruik gekom deels weens 'n wysiging in die sg. “gevoelswaarde” van die ekwivalente Afrikaanse benamings, deels uit modesug en 'n onderskatting van die eie teenoor die vreemde.’

His examples may not all be as valid as in 1934 when this was written, but the principle is still the same: Auntie and uncle⁶¹ are usually (but still not always) found in translated form nowadays and Mrs. and Master are still used in Afrikaans by non-Whites with reference to Whites. Odendal (1976: 107) comments on the increasing frequency of dame over mevrou and (me)juffrou:

61 I have been told that in India, even today, the terms auntie and uncle are used as general forms of address to respected persons, both in Indian English and in Indian languages by those who know no English. The parallel with their use in Afrikaans earlier this century is striking.

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‘'n Redelike jong vorm, moontlik onder Engelse invloed is dame, veral wanneer die huwelikstaat van 'n vroulike persoon onbekend is.’