The Influence of English on Afrikaans

1.2 The importance of the topic being studied again

In case there is anyone who would still feel inclined to query the validity of the topic under discussion, I quote from the writings of one of South Africa's most prolific and most adamant supporters of the equality and purity of Afrikaans, the late Hennie Terblanche:

‘Dat die taal wat sy idioom en sinsbou betref deur Engels beïnvloed is, kan 'n mens geensins ontken nie. Dit blyk veral duidelik as daar na die spreektaal geluister word - en hier geld dit die spreektaal van alle lae van die bevolking, van die mense in die bus, die massa op 'n vergadering en diegene in die werkwinkel, tot by die onderwyser, die lektor, die professor en selfs die lede van die taalliggame. Ek wil my egter nie net by die spreektaal bepaal nie, maar ook die taal van die koerant

[p. 6]

en die boek noem. Daarby sluit ek my eie skryftaal in, want ek weet dat dit nie van Engelse beïnvloeding vry te pleit is nie. Ten spyte van taalinligting en -voorligting gaan beïnvloeding op hierdie gebied voort, en dit kan in die toekoms selfs nog groter afmetings aanneem. Ek glo egter dat die Afrikaanse taal 'n gesonde kern sal behou en as taal sal bly voortleef, al is dit nie heeltemal in die vorm wat taalkundiges vandag nastreef nie... Ek meen dat die invloed van Engels op ons idioom en sinsbou diepgaande sal wees. Die spore is nou reeds onteenseglik daarop en daarin merkbaar.’ (Terblanche 1963: 170-171)

Over fifty years have passed since Rousseau (1937) did a detailed study of English influence on Afrikaans for the University of Cape Town and much has changed since then. Valkhoff (1966: 18) commented:

‘After J.J. le Roux's study nobody seems to have had a mind to study the anglicisms thoroughly. To a connoisseur of Dutch, English and Afrikaans, they are very evident and do not consist of loanwords only: the whole structure of the language has been influenced.’¹

The short monograph of Le Roux's he refers to appeared in the fifties and is one of very few on the topic anyway. (cf. 3.3.1) Of course there have been numerous articles in journals and countless articles in newspapers and popular magazines such as Die Huisgenoot on various aspects of English influence. But it is time for another comprehensive study, given the enormous changes that have occurred since Rousseau's thesis was written. In actual fact it is an issue for the Taalkommissie of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns. It was the Akademie that recognised the urgency of the issue back in the 1930's and it consequently offered a prize for the best analysis of the subject, a prize which was ultimately awarded to Rousseau for his thesis (submitted in 1933) and which subsequently appeared as a book in 1937: Die invloed van Engels op Afrikaans - 'n sosiologies-taalkundige ondersoek. (cf. 3.2.2) But already in 1946 Terblanche recognised the need for the Akademie itself to produce something definite. Johan Combrink reiterated this need in Handhaaf in July 1978:

‘Daar moet op die hoogste vlak van Afrikaanse taalgesag,

1 Following this statement Valkhoff lists ten examples of what he, as a Dutchman, considered to be blatant English influence, but his examples were ill-chosen and he attempted to correct himself in 1972. (Valkhoff 1972: 28-9) His statement was perfectly valid but its validity was undermined by his carelessly researched examples.

[p. 7]

d.w.s. deur die Taalkommissie van die Akademie, 'n deskundige ondersoek na die Anglisismes in Afrikaans ingestel word, en die resultate van hierdie ondersoek moet gepubliseer word as dié gesaghebbende vraagboek oor die status van bepaalde bousels in Afrikaans’. (p. 14)

It is now over twenty years later and we are still waiting. The situation is of course an ever changing one from one generation to the next. There is a perceptible generation gap with regard to the frequency and acceptability of many anglicisms. South Africa is after all now a more perfectly bilingual country than it was in the thirties and because of the electronic media and education, the whole nation is now exposed to more English wherever one lives, be it in a metropolis, a dorp or even on a farm. The volatility of the issue probably means that whatever study is done, it may soon be out of date, but it can always later assume the value of a time capsule, as Rousseau's work has to me.

A systematic diachronic analysis of the influence of English on Afrikaans would be as interesting as it is impossible, due to the lack of written texts in Cape Dutch during the period of first contact with English in the nineteenth century. In fact, with the exception of the works of Changuion (1844) and Mansvelt (1884) plus a few isolated articles from the beginning of the twentieth century, nothing substantial was written on the topic until the 1930's. In this thesis an attempt will be made to evaluate these earlier works in order to give some diachronic perspective to the topic, but this treatment of the topic is essentially, by necessity, synchronic in approach. Such a synchronic study must he based to a degree on an abstraction because it looks at developments still in progress and because it will concentrate on the standard language, itself an abstract concept. (cf. 4.1)

Perhaps the most important innovation of this work compared with all previous writings on the subject, is that it will look at the role English influence has played in inducing true language change within Afrikaans, without my assuming in any way the role of language purifier, as so many of my predecessors have done.

Previous scholars such as Rousseau (1937) and Le Roux (1952) were possibly not in a position to recognise many of the interference phenomena they observed as already constituting linguistic change, although they invariably from time to time felt compelled to admit that one or other structure seemed to have acquired burgerreg. These days, more than sixty years after the official recognition of Afrikaans and an era in which virtually the whole of Afrikanerdom is bilingual and has long since turned its back on the language of Holland - even to the extent where Dutch is now

[p. 8]

more foreign to them than English - one can look once again at the comments of scholars of the past on English influence and ascertain where their observations have stood the test of time or where subsequent developments have taken Afrikaans on a different course. A reappraisal of these older works on Afrikaans in the light of more recent developments is as informative about the direction the language is headed as it is important to understand the attitudes, often quite emotional in nature, of the many people who have written on various aspects of the influence of English on Afrikaans since Changuion first dealt with the issue in 1844.

1.2.1 Why the topic has been avoided for so long

When I first contemplated writing a dissertation on this subject in 1973, I was amazed that what seemed such an obvious subject for a PhD had been tackled only once before, and that as long ago as 1933. Another ten years passed before I found myself in a position to be able to commence. In that period, to my further astonishment, still no substantial monograph or thesis had appeared on the topic. Clearly there had to be an explanation - I offer the following.

Linguistics is now a much more sophisticated discipline than it was back in the 1930's when so much was written on anglicisms in Afrikaans (cf. 3.2). The need must also have seemed so much greater then than now, but this is deceptive: then it was predominantly superficial lexical interference that was the centre of attention plus the fact that it was felt that the newly recognised official language that had replaced Dutch was in need of some tender loving care. With Dutch still within easy living memory, people did not hesitate to refer back to it as the norm and regard anything that deviated from it as suspect. The extensive relexification - if I dare to use that term from creolistics - from Dutch which occurred in the 1930's, is evidence of the influence the language of Holland still wielded in South Africa at that time. (cf. Van Rensburg 1983: 139) Nowadays people neither have a knowledge of Dutch nor is it agreed any more that Dutch is a yardstick which Afrikaans can be validly measured by. Consequently it has become all the harder to decide what is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ and what is or isn't due to English influence. Lacking any totally empirical means by which one can identify English influence - there is little doubt that the scholars of the thirties were often too simplistic in this regard - it seems to me that people in more recent times have tended to shy away from the topic, one can even say have been intimidated into leaving it alone. Is it not a formidable task to measure up to the prerequisites stipulated as necessary for the research worker into anglicisms as enumerated by Combrink (1984: 100) in the most recent work on the subject?:

[p. 9]

‘Om na te gaan of 'n bepaalde element in Afrikaans wel aan Engelse invloed toe te skryf is, is nie 'n kitswerkie wat sommer enigiemand kan doen nie, dis 'n taak vir een of meer deskundige spesialiste. Dié kontrolering verg onder meer (i) goeie kennis van 18de-, 17de-, 16de en Middeleeuse Nederlands, asook die Nederlandse dialekte van dié tyd; (ii) goeie kennis van dieselfde tydperk se Platduitse dialekte, want op een tydstip was hier meer Platduitsers as Nederlanders aan die Kaap; (iii) goeie kennis van vandag en vroeër jare se Engels, in ander dele van die wêreld en in Suid-Afrika.’

One must agree with Combrink that anyone privy to such a wealth of knowledge would be admirably equipped to face the task, but isn't such a person een schaap met vijf poten? Neither I nor Combrink himself, I fear, could satisfy all these requirements. But is the difficulty of the task ahead sufficient reason for it to be continually ignored? The interference and subsequent linguistic change currently occurring in Afrikaans under English influence is not going to go away but, on the contrary, is assuming gigantic proportions. In the same article Combrink (1984: 99) maintains Afrikaans runs the risk of becoming a mengtaal:

‘...volgens die taalbewuste meningsvormers beweeg Afrikaans die afgelope twintig jaar in hierdie rigting, en nogal vinnig.’

I have heeded Combrink's warning even if I am not able to measure up to all the requirements enumerated by him. The necessity of his warning becomes obvious to anyone who reads the many ill-considered and often irresponsible statements that have been made on anglicisms in Afrikaans, not seldom by influential people. To a degree, of course, every school-teacher is an influential person and in this matter he/she can do irreparable damage to the linguistic performance of his/her students and above all to their self-confidence in their self-expression. I fear many teachers in South Africa have a great deal to answer for here, as Boshoff (1964: 33) so rightly complained:

‘Ons het ons byna 'n eeu lank teen die oorneem van Engelse woorde geweer, maar oogluikende Anglisismes aanvaar, omdat baie van ons daagliks Engels gehoor en gebruik het en omdat ons taalraadsmanne en onderwyskragte dikwels taalkundig nie voldoende geskoold was om hulself rekenskap te kan gee van wat eintlik 'n isme is nie.’

[p. 10]

In the past patriotic feelings have perhaps played a role in the topic being largely ignored:

‘Dis met 'n mate van teensin dat 'n mens al hierdie Anglisismes op papier stel en dus as 't ware publisiteit daaraan verleen.’ (Le Roux 1952: 48)

Nowadays, however, I feel sure that either no-one dares tackle the subject for fear of not meeting criteria such as those stated by Combrink above and thus of venturing out onto thin ice, and/or alternatively one does not quite know where to begin as English has spread like a cancer into every facet of Afrikaans, although certain aspects of the language have undoubtedly been more susceptible to influence than others. This raises a further complication in studying the influence of English on Afrikaans: how does one empirically distinguish between mere interference phenomena on the one hand and true linguistic change on the other, for such is the degree of influence on Afrikaans today that the latter has occurred and is continuing to occur.

The topic is vast and I may well be reproached with having attempted to tackle too broad a field in this book, but to have limited myself to certain aspects of the influence of English on Afrikaans would have been to do what so many of my predecessors have done. Only Rousseau has tackled the whole topic head on; it is time for that to be done again, even at the risk of certain issues being covered perhaps in less detail than others. I refer to Smith's articles in Die Naweek (2/12/48, 10/2/49) on whether welaf is or is not an anglicism in Afrikaans as an example of the degree of detail into which one can go on one tiny issue. If the research worker is expected to give such a detailed account of every word or expression where English influence is suspected, the task of tackling the issue as a whole would be so mammoth, it would never be completed.

Although the relative scarcity of recent articles and above all total lack of recent monographs and theses on the topic are undoubtedly a reflection of the unwillingness of Afrikaans academics to approach it, I would venture to maintain that there is also, whether they are aware of it or not, an inability among even those involved in Afrikaans/Nederlands as an academic discipline, to recognise fully and objectively the degree of English influence in their language. If, on the other hand, the lack of recent works is a reflection of the feeling that there is nothing new left to say, I hope this book will dispel that idea.

1.2.2 Neglect of Afrikaans by Dutch scholars.

It should be regretted that more interest is not shown in Afrikaans by

[p. 11]

neerlandici in Holland. Some of the prerequisites for identifying English influence set out by Combrink (1984) above are inevitably the preserve of Dutch academics. Unfortunately their talents are now seldom, if ever, directed at the study of the history of Afrikaans, which was not the case earlier this century. Nowadays the Dutch seem to make a naive equation between showing an interest in Afrikaans and being pro the present South African regime. The current hostile attitude to anything South African in Holland also intimidates any Dutch academics from making the valuable contributions to a further understanding of the factors that have shaped Afrikaans that many of them would surely be capable of making.

Strangely enough there is still no definite study of the influence of English, or German for that matter, on Dutch either; only the influence of French has been done in detail (Salverda de Grave 1913). The influence of English on Dutch is certainly much more superficial than its influence on Afrikaans. However, German, primarily because of the close affinity between it and Dutch, must have had a much more subtle, far-reaching influence on Dutch, a process which has perhaps much in common with the influence English has had on Afrikaans, once again because of the affinity of the two. (cf. 2.1.4) It is interesting to note that as early as 1925 De Vooys remarked on the influence of German and English on Dutch that ‘Germanismen en Anglicismen trokken meer de aandacht van taalzuiveraars dan van taalgeleerden.’ (De Vooys 1925: 71) The same can be said of English influence on Afrikaans. Another interesting parallel from the Low Countries is reflected in the following statement about gallicisms in Flemish:

‘De Franse tussenkomst in Vlaanderen kan “gemakkelijk” - daarom nog niet deskundig - worden tegengegaan zolang er een duidelijke signaalwerking is waardoor die invloed herkenbaar is. Dit geldt voor de leenwoorden en de bastaardwoorden. Met leenvertalingen uit het Frans of gallicismen ligt het niet zo eenvoudig.’ (Suffeleers 1979: 186)

1.2.3 The importance of a study of the English-Afrikaans contact situation to the world at large

The linguistic diversity of South Africa, and specifically the contact situation between English and Afrikaans with their mutual influence, deserves far greater attention by the world at large than it has had to date, particularly - as I hope to show in the course of this work - with regard to what this case study can teach us about linguistic change in general. Perhaps

[p. 12]

the processes I will be describing here have a wider validity, both in the present world and above all in explaining linguistic change throughout history. (cf. p. 5)