The Influence of English on Afrikaans

6.1 Misconceptions and witch hunts (wanopvattings en Anglisismejag)

On reading what has been written about anglicisms in Afrikaans, one is immediately struck by the degree to which scholars have contradicted each other in the past as to which structures are or are not anglicisms and which are or are not ‘acceptable’. Too often the emphasis has been on the origin of a given phenomenon and on whether it displaces an indigenous one rather than on usage and how the speech community perceives it, regardless of its origin. That attitude, quite apart from the impossibility of scholars ever agreeing on the origin of certain structures, has contributed to the linguistic insecurity of many Afrikaners in that what their ear tells them is correct, prescriptive bodies such as grammars, dictionaries and teachers claim is incorrect. This overdeveloped sensitivity towards English inspired constructions has unfortunately commonly led to legitimate indigenous structures being avoided which, for a variety of reasons (cf. 6.2), can resemble English structures.¹ This is the most lamentable aspect of the Anglisismevrees that is so common in South Africa and which is aided by the grammars and dictionaries currently in use in educational establishments. The only way to minimise contradiction and the doubts it gives rise to in the minds of speakers of Afrikaans, is to abandon etymology as a valid criterion for accepting or rejecting a given structure: frequency can be the only valid criterion for assessing acceptability. The wisdom of such an approach is borne out all the more by the fact that so many scholars who have written on anglicisms have not regarded English origin alone as grounds for rejecting a particular phenomenon, but whether an English inspired construction displaces an indigenous one. (cf. 4.3) Thus one is

1 De Villiers (Die Huisgenoot, 18/11/49) conducted a brief survey among circa 30 educated Afrikaners to see if they would recognise English influence: ‘...van die 137 sinne en sinsnedes waarvan die ondervraagdes moes sê of dit Anglisismes is of goeie Afrikaans, was 63 werklik Anglisismes en 74 goeie Afrikaans. Maar meer as die helfte van die proefpersone het geantwoord dat daar 82 Anglisismes was en 43 korrekte verbindings (12 uitdrukkings onseker).’

[p. 162]

faced with a double subjectivity: 1) what is of English origin?, 2) does it displace an indigenous structure?

The traditional attitude has been that if it is English and does not displace, a structure is acceptable and therefore does not constitute an anglicism, this label usually being reserved for English structures that one wishes to oppose, rather than being used as a general term for any English inspired phenomenon in Afrikaans. But if one accepts that Dutch is an acceptable voedingsbron for Afrikaans and preferable to English, which seems to have been the attitude of many who have written on anglicisms, then one can assume that any English structure used in Afrikaans could well be replaced by whatever the Dutch say in that instance - except in the very few cases where the Dutch also resort to English vocabulary - and consequently that all anglicisms in Afrikaans displace one or other Diets structure. Therefore, from that point of view, no anglicism is necessary and thus acceptable: the Dutch cope without them, so why not the Afrikaners? Clearly such an approach, which condemns all English structures, would be as impractical as the current one seems to be where prescriptive bodies all decide subjectively and unilaterally what they consider acceptable - often with an (unconscious?) bias towards Dutch. (cf. Steyn, p. 78) Usage is the only valid determinator of acceptability and as usage changes with time, so will acceptability. Authoritative prescriptive works such as HAT and WAT require total revision with this in mind. Their compilers have lost touch with reality in many instances: if they consider a Dutch structure preferable in one instance, even if it is at odds with general practice, why not in all cases?

Because of his lack of linguistic training, the average speaker of Afrikaans falls victim to two misconceptions: 1) he does not recognise many structures as English which are, and 2) he perceives many which are not English as being so. De Villiers (19762: 32), referring in this instance to international vocabulary in Afrikaans, maintains correctly:

‘Vir die leek moet dit soms lyk asof sommige woorde met hierdie uitgange [i.e. -eer etc.] bloot vermomde Engels is. Dit is dan net die taalkundige wat - gewoonlik - weet of die betrokke woord 'n onlangse en regstreekse oorname uit Engels is, en of dit al 'n langer tyd as leenwoord gevestig is. Maar hierdie “taalkundige” kennis weerspieël natuurlik nie noodwendig die gewone gebruiker se oordeel nie.’

This statement can be applied to other vermeende Anglisismes too, although international vocabulary is certainly the prime example of this misconception in the speech community at large.

[p. 163]

The literature abounds with statements and counterstatements on the origin, and thus usually the acceptability, of expressions such as aangaan, 'n mooi een, storie, welaf, wonder, voel, op/met vakansie, etc. The final example even prompted Smith (1962: 54) to draw a semantic distinction between the two, a distinction which I for one do not understand; in Holland on the other hand, the former is supposedly typically Catholic and the latter Protestant, or typical of southern and northern usage respectively, if you will. Another strange extreme the phobia of anglicisms has led to is the common occurrence of verpas, a germanism, to avoid the legitimately Diets expression mis, which happens to resemble English:

‘Dis merkwaardig hoe mense 'n taalgebruik kan verwerp waarteen eintlik niks in te bring is nie, maar glad nie gehinder word nie deur 'n ander wat heeltemal foutief is en sterk af te keur.’ (Le Roux 1968: 169)

Smith (1962: 72) says of H.J. Rousseau's work:

‘In sy ywer om alle “Engelshede” op onverbiddelike wyse bloot te lê, gaan die skrywer egter soms te ver.’

Unfortunately the finger that Smith points at Rousseau here can be pointed at almost everybody that has written on the topic; alternatively, scholars have gone overboard at times in trying to prove that phenomena which resemble English and don't exist in standard Dutch have their origins in archaic or dialectal Dutch. Without a more complete knowledge of the volkstaal of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many such claims cannot be made with certainty - but nor can the reverse. It is a legitimate academic pursuit to theorise on such issues and substantiate one's claims with documentary evidence if it can be found, but one must not for one moment be deluded into thinking that such findings bear any relevance to the language as perceived and used by the speech community. Many academics in the past have apparently considered their findings and opinions on the origins of structures in Afrikaans as bearing some relevance to the acceptability of those structures. More often than not they have done the Afrikaans speech community a disservice by each pursuing his own line of argument, however at odds it might have been with common practice, and thus sowing the seeds of linguistic insecurity so prevalent among Afrikaners today.