Talk:South African English/Archive 1

Archive 1

Idiom Scmidiom

The section on idiom is a little weak. Several of the phrases attributed to South African English are used in North America, the UK and/or Ireland.

Tipping

You're supposed to tip at petrol stations? That's news to me. On the other hand, I don't drive.

ManicParroT 03:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Is this correct?

I'm not a linguistics expert, but the intro has too much weight on Afrikaans as an influence. It also doesn't give creedence to the various types of Afrikaans in South Africa. Also, Afrikaans isn't a white language - while the majority of whites in the country speak the language, it's much more common under coloured communities.

I'd also dispute the low figures of English under black communities. English is the most spoken language in South Africa - this cannot be simply due to high penetration amongst minority groups.

Gabbahead 12:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe the weight of Afrikaans influence as opposed to any of the other languages can largely be explained by the simple fact that close contact between English and Afrikaans (Whites) as social equals has been going on for about 200 years whereas contact between English and Bantu speakers has only recently risen above the "master and servant" level. As far as "low figures of English under black communities" is concerned, I believe those statistics apply to mother tongue english speakers only and is thus to be expected. Roger 16:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Separate List

There is a more comprehensive list than this table-form version under the link called "List of lexical differences in South African English" Perhaps that list should replace this table, or the two should be combined?

Also there should be some standard separation for words that are of clear Afrikaans origin.

changed

I've changed "Shees braucken, shees not wekking." to "She's broken, she's not working." while it may give an approximation of what black South Africans sound like (to white South Africans) it is patronising, if not insulting. The section is dealing with idioms, not with pronunciation. Quiensabe 2005-08-25 20:06 UTC

I couldn't agree more!!! The entire article is patronizing and littered with presumptious statements like "South African English spoken by whites bears some resemblances in pronunciation to a mix of Australian English and British English. Afrikaans has heavily influenced only those living in Afrikaans areas." - really? I am a South African English-speaker. I've spent the last decade living in the UK and Australasia. I see little resemblance between South African English pronounciation and Australian pronounciation, also, it seems a bit illogical that there should be any relationship between them since there's not much in the way of shared history or interaction between these groups. As far as the influence of Afrikaans is concerned, it seems very strong indeed to me, in fact South African English speakers often ridicule one anothers' accents for being too Afrikaans sounding.

I find this entire article to be highly subjective, containing many questionable assertions, and some rather offensive ones. An invitation for vandalism or more constructively, a total rewrite by a linguist or scholar with real familiarity with the subject. --The unselfish gene 02:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

more clear

Can someone make the last entry, where it says comma, more clear? I don't quite understand what the author intended. Maybe an example would help

I've paraphrased it, is it better now?

Also, please sign your names with four tildes (~~~~). --Menchi 02:06, Aug 18, 2003 (UTC)

Removing "Like continental Europe, the South African English punctuation differs in that commas replace periods in large numbers, such as "12.03 seconds" in North American English becomes "12,03 seconds".". In South African English, spaces are used where in the USA commas are used in large numbers: 1 000 000 vs. 1,000,000. -- Jeandré, 2003-08-19t20:30z

The first part of the sentence is wrong (re: large number). But is the second part wrong (re: 12.03 second -> 12,03 second)? --Menchi 20:29, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, thanks a lot for that rephrasing, its all very clear now Silentelkofyesterday 00:18, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)silentelkofyesterday

When the comma was introduced to denote the decimal point, the instruction was that it should still be spoken as 'point'. In other words, 3,2 was to be read aloud as three point two. Unfortunately, the broadcasting media ignored this instruction, and the word 'comma' quickly took root. 3 April 2004.

This statement is complete rubbish. " Speakers of African languages may confuse 'he' and 'she', as the third person singular is often the same. "Madam is not here. He is in England." " It does not exist in South African English. Someone had the wool pulled over their eyes.

I live here, and hear it all the time. In Xhosa (and others), there is no gender-specific pronoun, hence the confusion. Greenman 27 Feb 2004

Same here, it definitely does exist. "The boss is not here, she has gone out." is something you hear almost daily. - Dirk 18 July 2004

The only comment I can add is I feel the listed words aren't part of the South African english, unless the speaker has it as a second language. Almost all of the words listed are Afrikaans, and many are afrikaans slang, NOT english. I have lived there for the first twenty years of my life, and I only used braai in general use.

Also, impi is NOT a hoard of warriors. It IS the individual warrior. They are best known as Zulu Impis. Heck, I even did extras work on the film Rhodes, and in one scene we had a few hundred Impis in full gear charging over the hill to our circle of wagons.

Otherwise a good article. I did laugh at the pronounciations bit as it reminded me of how funny we sound (Living in the UK now, so losing my accent bit by bit.)

Strictly speaking, an Impi is a group of warriors. It was the name given to a Zulu fighting unit, typically 1000 warriors strong. Though common, referring to an individual Zulu warrior as an Impi is incorrect, so in compromise some refer to them as "Impi warriors". You can find the correct definition in any dictionary.

I agree with you about the slang, many of the words are not commonly used by English South Africans, and are only used by second-language English-speakers. I think that should be made a bit clearer.

--Impi 12:49, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RtG Asks - I wonder about the word "blou" being listed a meaning "to be tired". Being born and raised in SA with English as a first language but with relatively strong Afrikaans roots, I know "blou" to be the Afrikaans word for "blue" as in the colour blue. I have never heard it being used to describe any sort of fatigue?

Also I am surprised to find no mention of the word "check" used by many English speaking South Africans as a replacement for the word "see" as in "I'll check you later." meaning "I'll see you later." RtG - Dec 2004.

I'm not sure whether to find this article deeply offensive or just funny because how riddled with inaccuracy it is.

For a start you've lumped together English spoken by people for whom it is their first language (and what I would consider South African English) with English as it is spoken by people for whom it is their 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language. To include "Speakers of African languages may confuse 'he', 'she' and 'it', as the third person singular is often the same. "Madam is not here. He is in England." - "Shees braucken, shees not wekking." is, to my mind, racist and just pointless. Some people may make that error, but they probably speak 2 or 3 other languages fluently and it is like pointing out the grammatical errors that speakers of another language make and calling it a dialect is misguided at best and just plain nasty at worst.

You're right that South African English is not unified in its pronunciation, but you fail to mention that English speaking South Africans born in Cape Town, for example, will have a different accent to those born in Johannesburg much like Londoners have a different accent to people from Liverpool in England. In fact English speaking South Africans born in one part of Cape Town can have subtly different accents to those born in a different area of Cape Town. There are many other accents and pronunciations by people who speak any 1 of the other 11 languages just like German people pronounce English words differently to French people: this has nothing to do with the language or dialect itself.

The 'loanwords' listed in vocabularly are all slang and for the most part vulgar slang at that. They do not form part of all South Africans' common parlance much like the way Ali G speaks is not British English. To mix Afrikaans words in with English is to be speaking in a slang and for the most part considered common or least very informal by English speaking South Africans. You won't find one of those words used in a newspaper etc. And as someone else pointed out, 'blou' does not mean tired! Ablution block does not mean an outside toilet in South Africa, it means a building or area in a campsite or similar where there are washbasins, showers etc. Ablution is in the OED and so is block for a building.

While it is true that a lot of the words are not spoken by (first language) English speaking South Africans, the words often occur when speaking to a person who is speaking English as a second language, e.g. an Afrikaans person.

Words like "ja", "braai", "dagga", "howzit", "lekker", "tackie", "veld", "jol", "boet" etc. are in very common usage by most South African English (first language) speakers. Most, if not all of the words, are understood by everyone in South Africa and thus, even if some of them are outdated or vulgar, form an integral part of the spoken language in the country.

I do not think words that are seen as "common" or unfit for general radio broadcasting should be excluded from a list just because they denote a difference in class from one person to another. If they are in common usage, they should be included.

Please listen to Jeremy Mansfield show (Highveld Stereo) to hear ample examples of many of these words being used by an English speaking South African.

Check you later, my bru.

User:Nausea

As for the English words with different meanings, the overwhelming majority of the words listed fall into one of the following categories: slang / outdated and not used slang / derogatory or vulgar slang / just plain wrong - Adrasteah 23:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Isn't "befok" literally "fucked", or am I wrong, here?

No, "befok" means "very cool", or "awesome", as in "Jissis, daai bonie is befok" (Wow, that motorbike is really awesome). Although it could be used in the sentence "Sy vrou het hom gelos, nou's hy heeltemal befok", (His wife left him and now he's totally fucked) this is not the most common usage in spoken Afrikaans.

Great page! Some of the above objections are well taken. As an expat, I come across South Africanisms often because they elicit a blank look from the English/Aussies. I have to ban the following from my speech and so I propose them as candidates for the page:

"Ag" - Ag no man, stop hassling me about the dishes

"Shoe!" - Shoe! The tea is boiling hot (similar to Jislaaik)

"Schlep" - It's too much schlep to iron linen (or is it simply German?)

"PT" - It's too much PT to iron linen (abbr for Physical Training, i.e. exercise class in school). Louis Joubert. 23-09-2005

Schlep sounds like it could just as well be Yinglish.

From [1] "Yiddish 'shlepn, 'to drag, pull,' from Middle Low German slpen --Dpr 18:19, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

removed

I removed "lift" from the list, since it seems to be a common Commonwealth English word for elevator, not primarily South African.

"sort it out"

I have heard sentences like "Did you sort it out (with …)?" or "Have you sorted it out?" a lot in SA. Is this typical for SAE? – Wikipeditor 01:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, very typical. Greenman 15:39, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. – Wikipeditor

Seems to be common in Australia, and the UK (or, at least, on EastEnders and The Bill.) Format (talk) 18:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

also common in Canada

"More"

There are many difference in the use of english in South Africa. Being married to one and having visited several times, its taken me a little while to get around these ones.

Just Now - Later

Fetch - To collect someone (not a dog)

Dingus - When you can't remember the persons name

To tell you the honest truth - no explaination necessary

Not a hint of a lie

Now look here - sometimes followed by MAN !

Larry (Australia ) December 5th 2005

"Fetch" simply means "go and retrieve something/someone" in all forms of English and is in no way specific to South Africa. Format (talk) 23:21, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. In North America, it may be more common to use it for a dog to fetch something; however, it is still used for people as well. It is less common than simply "get", but it's still used. Kman543210 (talk) 02:44, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

DEfinitely also used in Singaporean and Malaysian English

Regarding the fetch example: "To collect someone (not a dog)"—the use of collect in this case is, I think, distinctively South African. A guy I know from SA thought it very strange to hear about "picking someone up" at an airport, and said that he would instead use the term "collect". This sounds about as strange to my American ears (I have collected baseball cards, but never people!) as "picking up" did to him. _{(suoı̣ʇnqı̣ɹʇuoɔ · ʞlɐʇ)} nɯnuı̣ɥԀ 21:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

…for Africa

I've heard (to) have got (sth) for Africa = "(to) have a lot of (something)" a couple of times. I guess this is a specifically South African English idiom, but being a German, I don't know SAE well enough to confirm whether it is an established idiom, nor do I know English English well enough to confirm whether it is indeed restricted to SAE. —Wikipeditor 02:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Ja, that's a South Africanism. Paulgush 07:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification

The phrase "....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 inhabitants of the region" is slightly misleading. According to the South African Census for 2001 (http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/html/RSAPrimary.pdf), which uses the apartheid racial catagories of "black African", "coloured", "Indian or Asian" and "white", 40% of white South Africans do indeed speak English as a mother tongue. However, while a tiny percentage of black African inhabitants use English as a mother tongue (0.7%), some 94% of the 1.1 million Indian or Asian inhabitants, and 19% of the 4 million coloured inhabitants are English mother tongue speakers. In total roughly half of all English speakers in South Africa are black (using the widespread modern South African usage of refering to black Africans, coloureds and Indians or Asians collectively as "black"). Around 5% of the black inhabitants (and 8% of total inhabitants) of the country are English mother tongue speakers - a fairly significant minority in my view.

To clarrify I have added the sentence: "In addition some 94% of the 1.1 million Indian or Asian inhabitants, and 19% of the 4 million coloured inhabitants are English mother tongue speakers."

Etymology

I think the article should give the etymology of these words, I am no expert of Afrikaans but at least Bliksem, donner - Nasty person, beat-up, Boer, boertjie - Afrikaner, Braai - Barbecue, Dorp (Dorpie) - Small town, Gatvol - Sick and tired of (Lit. Ass-ful?),

Surely not intended to mean ass-full, but rather full-to-the-mouth similar to English "fed up" i.e. having taken so much irritation that if it were food you would be full inside all the way up to your mouth. Kuratowski's Ghost 21:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Gemors - Junk, mess, Gooi - Throw, Ja - Yes, yeah, Kak - Nonsense, shit, Kief! - Cool!,

Is kief of Lebanese origin? Kuratowski's Ghost 21:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Klap - Hit, Smack, Lekker - Nice, Lieg - Lie, Naartjie - Manderine, Nooit man! - Damn it! Outjie - Guy, Pasop - Watch out, Poep - Fart, Poephol - Asshole, Stompie - Cigarette butt, Swak - Unfair, Unlucky or Too bad, Tackie Training shoe, Veld - Field and Vloek - Swear looks very Afrikaans

Yebo - Hello, yes is from an African language, I think. 惑乱 分からん 23:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

"Yebo" is "Yes" in Zulu - Its use as an informal greeting is a recent development originating from its deliberate humourous missuse in a popular television advertising campaign by the Vodacom cellphone company. Roger 16:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Comma

I'm not convinced by the assertion that we use the word 'comma' for a decimal point. I grew up in Joburg and have never heard anyone say that - it's a point just like in the rest of the English speaking world Joziboy 4 March 2006, 15:13 (UTC)

A comma is a comma and a point is a point. Whoever added the stuff to the article is confused. In SA, schools used the decimal comma notation in mathematics for many years instead of the decimal point notation which had become standard internationally. Its not a difference in SA English its a difference in mathematical notation. Kuratowski's Ghost 21:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

A difference in notation could lead to a difference in language. It would be most notable if some printed source with "1.2 kg" is spoken as "one comma two kilograms", but it is still a difference in language if it is only done when the written version is "1,2 kg". Gene Nygaard 21:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"1.2 kg" is read as "one point two kilograms". "1,2 kg" is read as "one comma two kilograms", I have never heard anyone read a point as "comma". Kuratowski's Ghost 21:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, well I'd never say 'two comma three kilos', but maybe some South Africans do? Joziboy 4 March 2006, 22:07 (UTC)

Loss of consonantal aspiration

This article failed to mention the lessening of prevocalic consonant aspiration in SAE which I hear quite distinctly. Words like "paper" are pronounced with a much tighter bilabial constriction than would be found in other English dialects. It almost sounds like a throwback to the stereotypical British royalty speech, e.g. Prince Charles. Has anyone else noticed/remarked/studied this phenomenon?

Good point, in SA we definitely do not aspirate our consonants. Kuratowski's Ghost 21:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Out of interest, how do you aspirate a consonent? Any examples of aspirated consonant sounds? I don't really know linguistic terms Joziboy 4 March 2006, 22:09 (UTC)

Aspirated means "with a puff of air", see aspiration (phonetics) for an example. In English, it doesn't make much of a difference (i.e. if you aspirate the "p" in "spin", people will still understand what you're saying), but in Mandarin Chinese for example, the distinction is more significant.Ferdinand Pienaar 05:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Listening to people and checking how I pronounce words myself it seems a bit more complicated. South Africans whose first language is Afrikaans and speak English as a second language, never aspirate their consonants as Afrikaans consonants are unaspirated. Xhosa and Zulu speakers who speak English as second language, always aspirate even in cases where aspiration does not occur in other accents. But with first language speakers in SA it various considerably. In my own accent (central Cape Town English first language) I aspirate less than someone from the UK say, but there words where I still aspirate like tore and pool. Kuratowski's Ghost 14:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Ja

I think that the most distinctive and possibly the only universal feature of first language SA English speakers is the use of the word "ja" instead of "yeah". But my only evidence for this is anecdotal- namely, whenever I am unsure if I am hearing an SA English speaker or not (this can happen, for example, if I hear a New Zealender) I wait to hear the word "ja". Does anyone have any solid academic evidence to back up my theroy or is this merely an idle observation on my part? If I am wrong, then I think I should take out my entry on "ja" in the article. (by the way, I am distinguishing SA English speakers from Afrikaaners and others (such as Swedes or Germans- who use "ja" as a result of first language interferance)

No, you're not wrong at all. We definitely say 'ja' :) Joziboy 7 March 2006, 17:41 (UTC)

Although "yeah" is used on occasion. Banes 20:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Fetch", as in "What time will you fetch me",is also a good one particularly in Australia, most noticible in new arrivals. Larry (Australia) 29 March 2006

Actually the only universal distinctive feature of SAE is the kit-bit split. Roger (talk) 16:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Nooit! I'm chuning you!

How does one spell "nort"? Like:"The waiter gives me the bill and I check it and I'm like 'Nort hey bru!' and he's like 'I think it comes to a bit more than nought, hey bru'" (from a Super-C radio ad)? Yeah, those "she, he, it" examples are certainly disturbing. What African language are they talking about that doesn't distinguish bet. he/she and it? Also, is everything that "black" people say related to servitude? Also, the many "dialects" mentioned are just accents and colloquialisms imo. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 16:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, as you say in the title of the section - it's spelt nooit :) And all the Nguni languages (I don't have any knowledge of the Sotho languages, sorry) don't differentiate between he, she, and it (although 'it' and people generally aren't confused because they use different noun classes). They both take the prefix u- Joziboy 14 April 2006, 19:16 (UTC)

I always thought it was "tuning" like tuning a radio. Totorotroll (talk) 15:51, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

(continuing, glue to above)

No, Jozi. Although they have different classes they use concords of typical words to say "it" and use special (non-class) concords for he/she. So yona for "it" (pronoun for class 9 "into/ntho" - thing) and "yena" for he/she (using the correct subject concords to form the sentence, of course). Note how in Setswana they use class 5 concords since "thing" is "selo". My main concern, however, are those insulting/borderline examples ("madam"?) Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 22:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Um. I don't really understand what you're saying. Let me stick to Zulu because that's the only Nguni language I know well-ish. If you are referring to someone in the third person (which would be either 'he' or 'she' in English) there is only one subject concord u-. So: "John is hungry" = uJohn ulambile. "Mary is hungry" = uMary ulambile. "He/she is hungry" = Ulambile. Of course if you use other words then you follow the rule for that class, ie "The daughter is hungry" = Indodakazi lilambile. I think whoever wrote that in this article (South African English) is referring to the fact that there is no he/she dichotomy in Zulu etc. You don't know the gender of the third person unless it is stated by either using a name or a word (such as son, boy, grandmother). That said, I don't really think any of this is relevant to South African English because (to me anyway) South African English is the dialect spoken by South Africans who's home language is English. Otherwise every student of English would potentially have their own dialect. Joziboy 15 April 2006, 15:35 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your edits! I actually think the reason there is confusion between she/it is because English does not consistently use "it" for inanimate objects ("She's a beaut! How much did you pay for her?" has nothing to do with Russian mail-order brides) so it's a misunderstanding of a useless idiom.

Your recent edits were great! You know why I couldn't do them myself, right? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 09:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I do. Glad you like the changes :) Joziboy 16 April 2006, 09:51 (UTC)

English Academy of Southern Africa

I'm not sure the section on this organisation is correct. I emailed someone from the Academy to ask about their policy and she assured me that they do not promote British English over South African English. She said that is a misunderstanding due to the fact that there are essentially two spelling standards in English - Standard American and Standard British, and South Africa uses Standard British (Ie, harbour instead of harbor, democratise instead of democratize etc). Apart from spelling (well, not even 'apart from' because SA does use those spellings - the Academy isn't making that up), they encourage SA English idiom, grammar, vocabulary etc (and they cooperate with the Rhodes English Department which is responsible for the Oxford Dictionary of South African English). Joziboy 16 April 2006, 14:58 (UTC)