South African English

South African English is a dialect of English spoken in South Africa and in neighbouring countries with a large number of Anglo-Africans living in them, such as Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

South African English is not unified in its pronunciation: this can be attributed to the fact that English is the mother tongue for only 40% of the white inhabitants (the remainder mostly having Afrikaans as their mother tongue) and only a tiny minority of black African inhabitants of the region. (In addition some 94% of the 1.1 million inhabitants of Asian descent, and 19% of the 4 million Coloured, or mixed race, inhabitants are English mother tongue speakers.) The dialect can be identified, however, by the multiple loanwords drawn largely from Afrikaans, but increasingly also from Zulu and other indigenous languages. Some of these words, like "trek", have seeped into general English usage throughout the globe.

The dialect was exposed to a humorous treatment by Robin Malan in his book 'Ah Big Yaws', first published in 1972. The book is concise, and conforms more or less to the spoken dialect of Cape Town in 1974–76, in the northern Cape Town suburbs of Bellville and Durbanville, where Malan resided, and in the University town of Stellenbosch, where he was at the time a lecturer of spoken English. This book is often considered a high point of South African written wit, and a low point for South African linguistics , although it is now considered an important cultural time-capsule, as it also gives a pocket outline of white South Africa immediately before the social and political chaos of the 1980s.

The fourth edition of the Dictionary of South African English was released in 1991, and the Oxford Dictionary released its South African English dictionary in 2002.

Pronunciation

South African English bears some resemblances in pronunciation to the English of the South East of England and has some similarities to varieties of Commonwealth English spoken in New Zealand and Australia, although there are also key differences. Afrikaans and isiXhosa has heavily influenced only those living in Afrikaans or Xhosa areas.

The most noticeable difference in Afrikaans pronunciation is probably the flat "i". This is a part of the vowel shift that has occurred in South Africa as well as New Zealand. However, the population possessing English as their mother tongue pronounce words in much the same way as the British upper class .

One difference between British South African English and New Zealand English is in the pronunciation of 'ar' and 'ow', as in the pronunciation of the sentence 'park the car downtown'.

• New Zealand: /paːk ðə kaː dɛən tɛən/
• South Africa: /pɒːk ðə kɒː dɑən tɑən/

While there are similarities with Australian English, there are also a number of key differences. For instance, South African English does not have the rising intonation found in Australian English.

English spoken by mother-tongue speakers of Bantu languages is often influenced by intonation and pronunciation of their languages.

Vocabulary

Main articles: List of lexical differences in South African English and List of South African slang words

There are words that do not exist in British or American English, usually derived from Afrikaans or African languages, although, particularly in Durban, there is also an influence from Indian languages. Terms in common with North American English include 'freeway' or 'highway' (British English 'motorway'), 'cellphone' (British and Australian English: mobile) and 'buck' meaning money (rand, in this case, and not a dollar). South Africans generally refer to the different codes of football, such as soccer and rugby, by those names. There is a great difference between South African English dialects: in Johannesburg the local form is primarily English-based, while its Eastern Cape counterpart is more Afrikaans-based. Although differences between the two are sizeable, there are many similarities.

Some words peculiar to South African English include 'takkies', 'tackie' or 'tekkie' for sneakers (American) or trainers (British), 'combi' or 'kombi' for a small van, 'bakkie' for a pick-up truck, 'kiff' for pleasurable, 'lekker' for nice and 'donga' for ditch.

Idioms

The influence of Afrikaans accounts for many idioms in South African English. Probably the most distinctive example is the use of the Afrikaans/Dutch/German/Scandinavian word "ja" as a contraction of "yes" as opposed to using word "yeah" (used by British, Irish, North American, Australian and New Zealand English speakers). The only other English-speaking region where this idiom is found is in the American Midwest where it results from German and Scandinavian influence.

Other idiomatic phrases influenced or taken from Afrikaans include "are you coming with?" ("are you coming with us?" -- also found in the U.S. Midwest), "she'll be here just now" instead of "she'll be here soon", "ja well, no fine" instead of "things are okay, so-so", and "hey bru. You know who I am?" instead of "excuse me but what do you think you're doing?". There is a distinction between " now",which is immediate, "just now" which may be any time later today (or never!) or "now now" which would be soon. So "The surf is looking good today, lets go just now" means at some point today as opposed "Jislaaik! It's cooking ma bru, let's go now now, hey!" which means going soon. Afrikaans words like "Jirre", "Jisses", "Jislaaik" are common even amongst Anglo-Africans. Also, the use of "bru" (from Afrikaans "broer") is analogue to "bro" amongst English speakers in the western US and Hawaii.

The use of "hey" at the end of a sentence (mainly used in Gauteng province) derives from Cape Dutch eg: "Are you well, hey?" or "It's a nice day today, hey?"; there is no relation the Canadian "eh". "Must" is sometimes used figuratively to express a desire rather than a literal command, eg: "You must come say hi after the show" would mean "It would be nice to meet after the show". (The use of "should" in this way is common in the United States.)

'How's it?', or 'Howzit?' is a common greeting for English speaking South Africans and second language speakers of English from all backgrounds. It may derive from the informal Afrikaans greeting "Hoe's dit?" (lit. "How's it?").

Contributions to English Worldwide

Several South African words, usually from Afrikaans or native languages of the region, have entered world English: aardvark; apartheid; commando; veld; impala; mamba and trek.

English Academy of Southern Africa

The English Academy of Southern Africa (EASA) is the only academy for the English language in the world, but unlike such counterparts as the Académie française, it has no official connection with the government and can only attempt to advise, educate, encourage, and discourage. It was founded in 1961 by Professor Gwen Knowles-Williams of the University of Pretoria in part to defend the role of English against pressure from supporters of Afrikaans. It encourages scholarship in issues surrounding English in Africa through regular conferences, but also remains controversial among language scholars in South Africa for its strong encouragement of International English and British English against local variants.

See also

• Formal written English
• List of South African slang words
• Regional accents of English speakers

External links

• English Academy of South Africa
• Rhodes University: The Dictionary Unit for South African English
• Picard, Brig (Dr) J. H, SM, MM. "English for the South African Armed Forces"
• Zimbabwean Slang Dictionary
• "Surfrikan", South African surfing slang
• The influence of Afrikaans on SA English (in Dutch)
• The Expat Portal RSA Slang

Software

• Spell checker for OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox web-browser, and Mozilla Thunderbird email program in South African English
• Project to "translate" Free and Open Source Software into South African English