Afrikaans leid
Afrikaans is a Wast Germanic leid, mainly spoken in Sooth Africae and Namibie. It is a dochter leid o Dutch, originatin in its 17t century dialects, collectively referred tae as Cape Dutch.[n 1] Although Afrikaans borrowed frae leids such as Malay, Portuguese, the Bantu leids or the Khoisan leids, an estimatit 90 tae 95 percent o Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately o Dutch origin.[n 2] Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans.[n 3] There is a degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form—although it is easier for Dutch-speakers to understand Afrikaans than the other way around.[n 4]
Wi aboot 6 million native speakers in Sooth Africae, or 13.3 percent o the population, it is the third maist spoken mither tongue in the kintra.[1][2] It haes the widest geographical an racial distribution o aw offeecial leids, an is widely spoken an unnerstood as a seicont or third leid.[n 5] It is the majority leid o the wastren half o Sooth Africae—the provinces o the Northren Cape an Westren Cape—an the primary leid o the coloured an white communities.[n 6] In neighbourin Namibie, Afrikaans is spoken in 11 percent o hooseholds, mainly concentratit in the caipital Windhoek an the soothren regions o Hardap an Karas.[n 7] Widely spoken as a seicont leid, it is a lingua franca o Namibie.[n 8]
While the number o total speakers o Afrikaans is unkent, estimates range atween 15 an 23 million.[n 9]
Vouel soonds[3]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||
| Close | i | yː | u | |
| Mid | ɛ, ɛː | œ | ə | ɔ, ɔː |
| Open | ɐ | ɑː | ||
Orthography
There are mony parallels tae the Dutch orthography conventions an those uised for Afrikaans. There are 26 letters.
In Afrikaans, mony consonants ar dropped frae the earlier Dutch spellin. For example, slechts ('ae') in Dutch becomes slegs in Afrikaans. Part o this is because the spelling o Afrikaans words is considerably mair phonemic than that o Dutch. For example, Afrikaans an some Dutch dialects make no distinction atween /s/ an /z/, haein merged the latter intae the former; while the word for "sooth" is written ‹zuid› in Dutch, it is spelled ‹suid› in Afrikaans tae represent this merger. Similarly, the Dutch digraph‹ij› is written as ‹y›, except where it replaces the Dutch suffix –lijk, as in waarschijnlijk > waarskynlik.
Anither difference is the indefinite airticle, 'n in Afrikaans an [een] error: {{lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Dutch. 'A book' is 'n boek in Afrikaans, whereas it is either een boek or 'n boek in Dutch. This 'n is usually pronounced as juist a weak vowel, [ə].
The diminutive suffix in Afrikaans is ‹-tjie›, whereas in Dutch it is ‹-tje›, hence a "bit" is bietjie in Afrikaans an beetje in Dutch.
The letters ‹c›, ‹q›, ‹x›, and ‹z› occur almost exclusively in borrowings frae French, Inglis, Greek an Latin. This is usually because words that haed ‹c› an ‹ch› in the original Dutch are spelled wi ‹k› an ‹g›, respectively, in Afrikaans. Similarly original ‹qu› an ‹x› are spelt ‹kw› an ‹ks› respectively. For example ‹ekwatoriaal› instead o ‹equatoriaal›, an ‹ekskuus› instead o ‹excuus›.
The vowels wi diacritics in non-loanword Afrikaans are: ‹á, é, è, ê, ë, í, î, ï, ó, ô, ú, û, ý›. Diacritics are ignored when alphabetisin, though they are still important, even when typin the diacritic forms mey be difficult.
Initial apostrophes
A few short words in Afrikaans take initial apostrophes. In modern Afrikaans, these words ar always written in lower case (except if the entire line is uppercase), an if they occur at the beginning o a sentence, the next word is capitalised. Three examples o such apostrophed words ar 'k, 't, 'n. The last (the indefinite airticle) is the ae apostrophed word that is common in written Afrikaans, since the ither examples are shortened versions o ither words (ek an het respectively).[4]
Here are a few examples:
| Apostrophed Version | Usual Version | Translation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'n Man loop daar | (none) | A man walks there | |
| 'k 't Dit gesê | Ek het dit gesê | A said it | Extremely uncommon |
| 't Jy dit geëet? | Het jy dit geëet? | 'd Ye eat it? | Extremely uncommon |
The apostrophe and the following letter are regarded as two separate characters, and are never written using a single glyph, although a single character variant of the indefinite article appears in Unicode, ʼn.
Table o characters
For mair on the pronunciation o the belaw letters, see Wikipedia:IPA for Dutch an Afrikaans.
| Grapheme | IPA | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| a | /ɐ/ | appel ('apple') |
| aa | /ɑː/ | aap ('ape') |
| aai | /ɑːi/ | draai ('turn') |
| ai | /aj/ | baie ('mony' or 'vera') |
| b | /b/ | boom ('tree') |
| c | /s/, /k/ | (foond mainly in borrowed words; the umwhile pronunciation occurs afore 'e', 'i', or 'y'; featured in the plural form -ici, as in the plural o medikus (medic), medici) |
| ch | /ʃ/, /x/, /k/ | chirurg ('surgeon'; /ʃ/, typically 'sj' is uised instead), chemie ('chemistry'; /x/), chitien ('chitin'; /k/). Foond ae in loanwords an proper names |
| d | /d/ | dae ('days') |
| dj | /d͡ʒ/ | djati ('teak') (uised tae transcribe foreign words) |
| e | /ɛ/, /iˑe/, /ə/ | se (indicates possessive, for example 'Jan se boom', meanin 'John's tree') |
| ê | /ɛː/ | sê ('say' or 'says') |
| ë | /i/ | oë ('ees') |
| ee | /eə/ | weet ('know' or 'knows') , eet ('eat') |
| eeu | /iu/ | sneeu ('snaw') |
| ei | /ɛi/ | Mei ('Mey") |
| eu | /eø/ | seun ('son' or 'lad') |
| f | /f/ | fiets ('bicycle') |
| g | /x/ | goed ('guid') , geel ('yellow') |
| gh | /ɡ/ | gholf ('gowf'). Uised for /ɡ/ when it is no an allophone o /x/; foond ae in borrowed words |
| h | /ɦ/ | hael ('hail'), hond ('dog') |
| i | /i/ | kind ('child') |
| ie | /i/ | iets ('something') |
| j | /j/ | jonk ('yung') |
| k | /k/ | kat ('cat') |
| l | /l/ | lag ('laugh') |
| m | /m/ | man ('man') |
| n | /n/ | nael ('nail') |
| ng | /ŋ/ | sing ('sang') |
| o | /ɔ/ | op ('on' or 'up') |
| ô | /ɔː/ | môre ('tomorrow') |
| oe | /u/ | boek ('book') |
| oei | /ui/ | koeie ('cows') |
| oi | /oj/ | mooi ('pretty' or 'bonnie') - Sometimes spelled 'oy' in loanwords and surnames |
| oo | /oə/ | oor ('ear') |
| ooi | /ɔːi/ | nooi (sayin for little girl) |
| ou | /ɵu/ | oupa ('grand(pa/father) , koud ('cold') |
| p | /p/ | pot ('pot') , pers ('purple') |
| q | /k/ | (found only in foreign words with original spelling maintained; typically ‹k› is used instead) |
| r | /r/ | rooi ('red') |
| s | /s/ | ses ('sax') , stem ('voice') |
| sj | /ʃ/ | sjaal ('shawl') |
| t | /t/ | tafel ('table') |
| tj | /tʃ/, /k/ | tjank ('whine like a dog' or 'tae cry incessantly'). (The umwhile pronunciation occurs at the beginnin o a word an the latter in ‹-tjie›) |
| u | /œ/ | kus ('coast') |
| û | /œː/ | brûe ('bridges') |
| ui | /œj/ | uit ('oot') |
| uu | /y/ | uur ('hour') |
| v | /f/ | vis ('fish'), vir ('for') |
| w | /v/ | water ('water') |
| x | /ks/ | xifoïed ('xiphoid') |
| y | /ɛi/ | byt ('bite') |
| z | /z/ | Zoeloe ('Zulu'). Foond ae in onomatopoeia an loanwords |
References
- ↑ "Census 2001 - Home language". Statistics Sooth Africae. Retrieved 2 Februar 2010.
- ↑ "Census 2001: Primary tables Sooth Africae: Census 1996 an 2001 compared" (PDF). Statistics Sooth Africae. Statistics Sooth Africae. 2001. p. 19.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- ↑ Lass (1984:93)
- ↑ "Retrieved 12 April 2010". 101languages.net. 26 August 2007. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
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