The Influence of English on Afrikaans

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5.3 The disadvantages of purism

Many Afrikaans scholars, while usually supporting puristic efforts being applied to Afrikaans, have nevertheless been quick to realise that often more harm can be done than good. The disadvantages can be legion and one could well ask oneself whether they are outweighed by the advantages. Kempen (Ons Eie Boek, Dec. 1946) summed up part of the problem as follows:

‘... die taal kan alleen op gevaar van onnatuurlikheid af heeltemal suiwer wees.’

M. de Villiers makes a similar statement, but gives more detail of the sort of unnatural language caused by the urge to use ‘pure’ language:

‘... die puris... veroorsaak heel dikwels dat die kind met die badwater uitgegooi word. Hy dryf sy mede-Afrikaners weg van spontane gesproke taal tot allerlei gramadoelas: tot boekagtigheid, tot omslagtige korrektheid, of ook wel tot oordrewe idiomatiese beeldspraak, selfs platheid.’

In another article De Villiers (Die Huisgenoot, 18/11/49) makes the interesting observation that sometimes in the effort to avoid a (suspected) anglicism, another one is misguidedly employed:

‘Die sin of sinsnede wat die Anglisisme vervang, is soms 'n ander Anglisisme, of 'n lomp wending of enkele male verskillend van betekenis (opvallend is die neiging tot boekagtige uitdrukkings) e.g. kortliks vir in kort i.p.v. kortom, is hy telefonies verbind vir is hy op die telefoon i.p.v. het hy 'n telefoon, na alles vir agter alles i.p.v. per slot van sake.’

De Villiers' image of throwing the baby out with the bathwater is most appropriate in this context in several respects. The prejudice against international vocabulary which is so prevalent among Afrikaners because of the mistaken belief that such loanwords constitute superfluous anglicisms, leads not only to a reduction in the number of synonyms at one's disposal for stylistic variation, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to an avoidance of items of vocabulary which are not at all replacable by indigenous structures:

‘Selfs wanneer die sg. vreemde woorde nie afgekeur word nie, word gesuggereer dat hulle oortollige sinonieme is. Die feit is egter dat sinonieme byna altyd ten dele ooreenstem en ten dele verskil.’ (De Villiers 1970: 244)

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Schutte (1977) shows conclusively that more often than not simply a skynkongruensie exists between the international structure and the item which the purist may feel inclined to replace it by:

‘In sommige gevalle veroorsaak die Romaanse en Germaanse items in die een konteks 'n toutologie, maar nie in die ander konteks nie. Dit is 'n aanduiding dat daar nie volkome oorvleueling is nie, maar dat die items in 'n bepaalde betrekking van insluiting of uitsluiting tot mekaar staan.’ (Schutte 1977: 13)⁶

In her work Schutte contrasts sets of cognate forms such as admireer, admirasie, admirerend, admirabel and bewonder, bewondering, bewonderend, bewonderenswaardig. (p. 14) She labels the Romance group x and the Germanic group y and illustrates the semantic field of each and their overlapping as follows:

‘'n Betekenis van x is y: in die meeste gevalle kan x deur y vervang word, maar nie noodwendig andersom nie.’ (p. 12)

Schutte also takes up the point of purism often giving rise to unnatural sounding language:

‘Nog 'n beswaar teen die Romaanse vorme is dat dit onnodige “geleerdheidsvertoon” is en dat die Germaanse woord in die proses verdring word. Dit lei dan tot doelbewuste bestendiging van 'n Germaanse teenhanger, ook in gevalle waar daar geen werklike sinoniem bestaan nie, byvoorbeeld “knap” of “hedendaags” in plaas van gesofistikeerd.’ (p. 5)

There are instances in Afrikaans where the puristic counterpart of an international word has established itself to the (virtual) exclusion of the latter and where, compared with Dutch where the two continue to coexist, a useful distinction in meaning has been lost, e.g. ernstig/serieus where the two are seldom interchangeable in Dutch but the former is used in Afrikaans to cover the semantic field of both. The same applies to koek/cake in Dutch where the loanword is simply not tolerated in South Africa. (cf. 7.5)

De Vooys (1925: 23), once again talking from the secure position of a Dutchman whose language is under no real threat whatever its susceptib-

6 Schutte also contributed an article to Klasgids (November 1976: 58-61) in which the essence of her M.A. thesis is summarised.

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ility to borrowing from its neighbours is, defends the retention of foreign words - and thus international vocabulary too - even when they are completely synonymous with indigenous structures:

‘Ook als de begripsinhoud van een vreemd woord geheel overeenkomt met die van een bestaand Nederlands woord, kan het eerste als onmisbaar gevoeld worden.’

He quotes A. Noreen to defend his attitude:

‘De Zweed Noreen die als ideaal van taaljuistheid de doeltreffendheid vooropstelt beweert zelfs: we hebben eer te weinig dan te veel vreemde woorden: voor verschillend doel en ten bate van onderscheiden stijl ontlene men gerust woorden van alle kanten!’

De Vooys also refers to 0. Jespersen as another anti-purist of renown. De Vooys attacks the purists, claiming ‘Van onderscheid in gevoelswaarde tonen deze taalverarmers geen begrip.’ (p. 27) He offers some advice which could be heeded more in future by those in South Africa who are concerned about the purity of Afrikaans:

‘Wie voor taalzuiwerheid waken wil, zorge er voor, de klove tussen spreken en schrijven niet nodeloos te verbreden.’ (p. 29)

This is somehow reminiscent of the catch-cry of the GRA, Ons skryf soos ons praat, a former aim in the days when Dutch was the adversary that had to be contended with but one which is no longer pursued now that English is in that position. In defending the retention of synonymous loanwords to resort to for stylistic variation or greater precision, one should nevertheless heed the following warning by De Villiers (Die Huisgenoot, 2/12/49):

‘Natuurlik moet ons oppas dat ons nie kunsmatige logiese onderskeidinge skep nie, 'n flater wat al baie taalboekies begaan het...’,

although he is not referring specifically to loanwords here.

The image of the baby being discarded with the bathwater also applies to another facet of purism, hypercorrection. There are many words and expressions in Afrikaans which correspond with English because of the close affinity of the two languages:

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‘Gewone Afrikaanse uitdrukkings is verdag bloot omdat hulle woordeliks ooreenkom met die Engelse idioom: ...in trane uitbars, ...hy pak die koei by die horings, ...hy het hier opgegroei.’ (De Villiers, Die Huisgenoot, 18/11/49)

On occasions, although it is impossible to generalise about exactly when this occurs, Afrikaners avoid a legitimate indigenous structure because their awareness of a similar or identical structure in English leads them to believe that the former is not correct Afrikaans. There are many well-known examples of this: die bus verpas (instead of mis), met vakansie (instead of op), betyds (instead of op tyd) ek kan hom nie verdra nie (instead of uitstaan). Smith (Die Naweek, 28/10/48) even goes so far as to maintain that op my linkerhand is said instead of aan because of the phonetic similarity between ‘on’ and aan. Is this also the motivation behind op die telefoon (Dt. aan), or is this an example of a synonymuos couplet? (cf. 7.15) The former examples are commonly referred to in the literature on the topic as vermeende or skyn-Anglisismes. (cf. 6.00)

The degree of terminological precision that can be lost by too great an insistence on puristic avoidance of foreign, or seemingly foreign, vocabulary can constitute a considerable problem. As De Vooys (1925: 22) says, ‘Onder technici vinden de puristen dan ook niet veel aanhang.’ Cluver (1982: 76), writing in Die Taalpraktisyn on vaktaalwoordeboeke, complains:

‘Die oorvleueling is irriterend genoeg, maar die feit dat daar ook heelwat gevalle voorkom waar dieselfde begrip anders benoem word, is verwarrend en teenproduktief.’

There are many cases in point in Afrikaans, even outside the realm of vakterminologie, where the desire to use indigenous structures leads to competitive forms that can cause some confusion until such time as one is overwhelmingly accepted as the word by the speech community. Until such a time is reached, terms can coexist in free variation - such as komper and rekenaar - which does no harm as long as everyone recognises both words as exact synonyms. A glance at the deodorants in a South African supermarket in April 1985 revealed that of those brands that used bilingual labels and avoided the loanwords deodorant and antiperspirant, only one used sweetweerder (Shield), while all others used the word reukweerder. In practice the latter seems to be more common and is recognised by HAT. The entry in HAT, however, reads as follows: reukweerder, reukweermiddel: Reukverdrywer. But examination of the labels on air-fresheners cum toilet sprays in a supermarket revealed that the vast majority used the term lugverfrisser whereas one brand (Bayfresh) used reukverdrywer. The potential for confusion is illustrated by this example

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whereas retention of deodorant, as in Dutch, avoids such problems. Another potentially confusing situation has been created by the substitution of the word taxi with the purism huurmotor, which can also mean a rented car, as it does in Dutch (huurauto). Both definitions are given by HAT.

Creation of puristic terms to avoid loanwords can lead to new terms coexisting without semantic distinction, as illustrated above. Equally, there is always the chance, given the existence of two words, that a semantic distinction between the two can emerge in the mind of some speakers, for example: there seems to be a variety of opinion about what a calculator is in Afrikaans: optelmasjien? - but an adding machine is not necessarily a calculator; sakrekenaar? - but not all calculators are pocket size and without the prefix, one is left with a computer. The meaning of any puristic avoidance of the word calculator can only be clear from the context. Although Smith (1962: 64, but written 1936-39) apparently did not feel in the late 1930's that hyser, hysbak, hysbus, hystoestel or ligter had much chance of competing against lift, time has proven him wrong. Hysbak and hyser, despite the multiple meanings of the latter, coexist is free variation in Afrikaans today. Interestingly enough, however, HAT makes a subtle distinction between the two which I doubt has any foundation in reality.⁷ A variety of terms is likely to ultimately aid the retention of the loanword because only then can ambiguity definitely be avoided:

‘Hoe meer 'n taaleenheid se krag daarenteen verdeeld is deur eie-talige sinonieme of sterk ander-talige eenhede wat op hom lyk, hoe meer is hy vir vreemde invloede vatbaar.’ (Rousseau 1937: V)

Van den Toorn (1977: 79) sees yet another danger in purism:

‘Bovendien heeft het consequente streven naar taalzuiwering het nadeel dat men zijn taal geheel en al buiten internationale stromingen houdt en daardoor de toegang tot z'n eigen landstaal bemoeilijkt.’

As long as the purists, who have achieved a surprising degree of success in Afrikaans, are satisfied with only partial success and leave it to the speech community to accept or reject their creations, no harm can be done. Such exaggerated attempts to purify the language as Van den Toorn's example from Icelandic jafnaðarmaður (socialist, lit. fair or impartial man), are rare in Afrikaans.

7 HAT sees a hysbak as constituting part of a hyser.

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Reference has been made earlier in this book to the preference of some purists for Dutch structures to replace English inspired structures in Afrikaans with which the average Afrikaner, certainly these days, is much better acquainted. The wisdom of such purists' wishes is all the more questionable when the construction they aim to retain is a gallicism in Dutch. De Bruto (1970: 41), where he discusses the new meanings in Afrikaans of words such as partikulier, eventueel and definitief as a result of the ‘klankooreenkoms’ with cognate forms in English, asks ‘opnuut ontstaan die vraag waarom die taalpolitikus die Franse “leenwoord” bo die Engelse een verkies?’ In the same article he also goes on to defend the new stress pattern in minister, telegram etc. (cf. p. 51) De Bruto's tolerance towards certain English structures in Afrikaans was supported earlier by Langenhoven (1935: 103) even in 1935 when the purists were at their most active.

Appeals such as Le Roux (1968, but written in 1947) makes for the replacement of constructions like wat van (p. 167) and bly (p. 171) by Dutch equivalents are not only all the more doomed to failure now than in 1947 because of the minimal acquaintance with Dutch, but such expressions are simply not recognisable as anglicisms without a knowledge of Dutch. If a given structure is no longer felt to be an anglicism and occurs frequently in speech, and sometimes now even in writing, nothing positive will be gained by attempting to instil in people's minds a realisation that it is English in origin and should thus be avoided. The new reality must be accepted and recognised for what it is - linguistic change. A new evaluation of such phenomena is hinted at by Combrink (1983)⁸ where he refers to as sodanig as a ‘puristiese vervanging’ of as sulks. The following astute observation is made by Suffeleers (1979: 206) who is critical of purists and who, unlike De Vooys, is a Fleming and thus talks from that relatively insecure position that has several similarities with South Africa:

‘Het is een paradox in de geschiedenis van de taalverzorging dat het oude puristische streven om het taalgebruik door vertaling van (vooral Franse) leenwoorden “Nederlandser” te maken, precies een factor is van verwijdering van de standaardtaal, aangezien de voorgestelde “oplossingen” - meestal vruchteloos - functionerende aliënismen proberen te verdringen. De radicale purist schiet op die manier zijn doel voorbij: hij isoleert zich voor een deel van de taalgemeenschap.’

8 Combrink's (1984) article was originally written as a confidential report for the Taalkommissie in 1983. When it eventually appeared in 1984, the list of anglicisms that accompanied the original report was not included. This example is taken from that appendix.

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Louw (1959: 22), an avid supporter of purism, maintains:

‘... persoonlik glo ek dat Afrikaans vandag oor die algemeen suiwerder, d.w.s. korrekter en beter gebruik word as ooit vantevore in ons geskiedenis!’

De Villiers' (1970: 245) reservations in this regard are totally warranted, however:

‘Maar ons mag nie te trots wees op die vordering nie, want in die plek van talle [leenwoorde] wat verdring is, het honderde nuwes gekom.’

If this is the case for vocabulary, it is all the more so when it comes to borrowed idioms and loan translations. Suffeleers mentions that the same phenomenon occurs in Belgium:

‘J. Obrie wijst op de blinde vlek in het gezichtsveld van de meeste Vlamingen: zij menen dat taalzuiwerheid erin bestaat de vreemde woorden te vermijden.’ (p. 189)

There would seem to be little doubt that puristic endeavours in South Africa have been much more successful in replacing English loanwords with neologisms and loan translations than they have been in reintroducing indigenous (Dutch?) expressions to replace the many English idioms - the speech community has translated them for itself and it unlikely to abandon them, for example: jou eie beuel blaas, iemand se been trek, iemand oor die kole haal. Valkhoff (1972: 28), who was notoriously wrong in so many of the conclusions he came to with regard to ‘impurities’ in Afrikaans, was not far from the mark, however, when he stated:

‘Generally speaking where Dutch and Flemings borrowed their culture and their terminology from the French, the Afrikaners have done so from English. Nevertheless, on account of the synchronic purism, which is prevalent in South Africa all words and idioms that had an English aspect have been eliminated by the various bureaux of terminology. In this way Afrikaans has come to look much purer than standard Dutch, which does not suffer from purists and accepts foreign loanwords very easily. Yet this “Dutch” appearance of literary Afrikaans is deceptive, for the English influence goes much deeper than meets the eye.’