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Deletion?

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I agree in it's deletion, I only created it because I found a red link about it. --Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, we can make this a redirect to Afrikaans and that will solve the red link problem. Alarics (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pee-Sung

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No it is pronunced Pee-Sahng --82.134.154.25 (talk) 16:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you prefer it that way, go ahead and change, but I don't really hear much of a difference between Pee-Sung and Pee-Sahng. Bezuidenhout (talk) 17:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
IPA is better than Ad Hoc approximations.

Unscientific writing

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I have some trouble with this sentence

  • The ch sound (unknown sound in English) that is found in German and Dutch, is replaced simply with the letter g.

What I think the sentence means is that the Dutch difference between the voiced velar fricative (spelled g) and the voiceless velar fricative (spelled ch) isn't retained in Afrikaans who only has one velar fricative, spelled g. (Possibly the voiceless, which seems more common internationally.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 08:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Afrikaans "g" is (almost*) always pronounced as IPA "x". (*I'm not willing to state categorically that it is always so even though I'm a fluent speaker.) BTW It seems very few South Africans know IPA which is frustrating. Roger (talk) 06:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. Thanks for the reply. I'll rewrite. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consonant sounds

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Dutch has a rich volume of labiodentals (see Dutch phonology), my guess is that Afrikaans would be a lot simpler, using /f/ for letters f and v (like German) and /v/ or /w/ for letter w, but that's just a guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? In Afrikaans the letters /f/ and /v/ make the exact same sound (for example foot in Afrikaans is voet) but a /w/ always makes a (english equivilant) of a /v/ (just like German and Dutch). Hope this makes sense, if you have any more questions just ask :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But then again it's actually quite complicated because a /w/ can make a /w/ sound equivilant of that of English when after a /k/ (such as Kwessies) Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I tried writing in IPA, using // as a marker for sound approximation. Apparently, I was correct, since in Afrikaans f and v both cause an /f/ sound (unlike Dutch). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Afrikaans "kw" as in "kwart", "kwessie", "kwyn" is the same sound as the English "qu", in "quarter", "quest", "queen", etc. It is a short voiceless aspiration linking the "k" and the following vowel. Roger (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, f and v are both pronounced like English f (in fact in one early spelling system v was changed to f, eg vry (free) was spelt fry, but that reform didn't catch on). W is pronounced like English v, except in the combinations dw, kw, sw and tw which are pronounced like the English Dwayne, quick, swim and twist.

This is why Afrikaans uses w in places where Dutch uses v, eg Afrikaans hawe and Dutch haven (harbour).

That is the general rule, but there is at least one exception: universiteit (university) is pronounced with an "English" v and so might be expected to be spelt uniwersiteit. There are also a number of words that have two spelling variants, one that conforms to Afrikaans spelling rules and one that doesn't (perhaps under English influence), for example rewolusie/revolusie, ewolusie/evolusie, Sjina/China, Meksiko/Mexiko etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.72.129 (talk) 12:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup

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I just did a fairly large edit in an attempt to address some of the issues the article has. I'd appreciate review and comments on what I've done - also revert parts if you wish. Roger (talk) 19:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, much better, but I did revert one or two changes because I felt they were too important to ignore. Thanks for the help :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure about the reverts you made. Are the Bantu influences really "lesser" than for example Portuguese? Has English influence really significantly increased since 1994? To my mind SA English and Afrikaans (and Cape Dutch before) have been influencing each other for about 200 years, I don't think the last 16 years have been any different than the preceding 200. Roger (talk) 07:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes definitley. I cannot think of a single word in Afrikaans of Bantu origin, but there must be at least one somewhere, while I can think of many from Portuguese, German etc. And yes, since 1994, the apartheid policy of promoting Afrikaans and shielding it from English influence was removed, and eversince one might now find Afrikaans people using words such as 'Pavement', 'Laptop' (instead of Skootrekenaar) etc. And I personally believe that during apartheid English didn't have a big affect on Afrikaans because of the 'barriar' the apartheid government installed protecting it from other foreign languages. Every since this 'barriar came down' in 1994, Afrikaans people have been using English massivley. Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quick few words of Bantu origin just off the top of my head: dagga, assegai, donga, indoena, fundi, impala. I'd bet my first born that there is a lot more Bantu vocabulary than Portuguese in Afrikaans. The English Afrikaans mutual influence dates back from waaaayyyyyy before Apartheid and anyway what the government wants and what the people do are often different things. I'm going to tag the claims for cites. Roger (talk) 08:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'll go find some reference, but you should really be in charge of this since you are the one in South Africa at the moment, not me (hmmphh...) and since I bet your Afrikaans must be wayyyyy better than mine then you should take control, but just before you change a bit please allow me some time to find a bit more reference. Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However then again (please take no offense in this) they say that Afrikaans accents/dialects vary, me and my family are from Joburg, while I see you're from NC, so there might be a difference, especially since the NC has alot of influence from the Khoikhoi (http://www.essortment.com/all/historyafrikaan_rqrs.htm). Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The influence of English on Afrikaans started in 1806 when English became the official language, and the language of schools and churches. The influence wasn't so much on vocabulary level but more on grammatical and syntactical level (e.g. Afrikaans difference between hier and daar or bring and neem, which is like English but unlike Dutch). Also, many anglicisms entered the language in the 20th century because people afraid of anglicisms tried to make the language sound less like English, and not realising that what they think are anglicisms are actually normal in Dutch, they changed it to something which is both un-English and un-germanic (e.g. using kant instead of sy, because sy sounds like English side, but meanwhile sy (zijde) is perfectly good Dutch). I think a section on English influence on Afrikaans may be good (we can borrow from Bruce Donaldson's books). -- leuce (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'De-orphanising'

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I have added the article linked to two other pages, what exactly is the criteria for an article to be 'de-orphanis(z)ed'??? Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

classification of differences

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Hi all, thanks for creating this article, good job! While expanding the different sections I stumbled upon the problem of deciding whether a difference is either phonetic or orthographic. Often they turn out to be both, as for <tjie>, <z> or <s>, <w> and <v>, etc (leven, lewe, vogel, vo:el...), whereas other times it is purely orthographic (as for the <y>, <k>, <tie>...) or purely phonetic (<w>, <oo>, <uu>...). Any help in simplifying the classification would be much appreciated!--Hooiwind (talk) 22:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Phrase comparisons

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The phrase comparison table includes a line | Ek is lief vir jou | Ik hou van je/jou | I love you |. There are small text alternatives given for Afrikaans "Ek het jou lief" and Dutch "Ik heb je lief" which are described as "less common". However, at least in the case of Afrikaans (I can't comment on the Dutch as I don't know it well enough) there is in fact an important semantic difference between the two phrases, they are not exactly synonymous. "Ek het jou lief" signifies romantic/sexual love in the same way that "I am in love with you" does in English. One can say "Ek is lief vir jou" to anyone but "Ek het jou lief" is only for your lover's ears. The "Ek is lief vir" construction can also be used for inanimate or abstract objects "Ek is lief vir voetbal/roomys" means "I love football/icecream" but saying "Ek het jou lief" to your neighbour's wife is evidence of adultery. Roger (talk) 11:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Ik hou van je" is more generic indeed. However "Ik heb je lief" is clearly romantic, it can be used for country or football club, but we are talking passionate love here. Saying "Ik heb je lief" to a person of the same sex, STRONGLY suggests one is either a liar or not heterosexual. On the other hand Dutch makes a difference between "lief zijn" en "liefhebben". Lief zijn is just "being nice"ThW5 (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vocabulary and sentence construction

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I'm missing sections on vocabulary and on sentence construction. For the vocabulary, it may be easiest to start of with a section of faux amis. I've taken a number of words from [[1]] and distilled it into a table (which someone must please wikify):

  1. Afrikaans word | meaning in English | Dutch word | meaning in English
  2. aardig | strange, weird, unpleasant | aardig | pleasant, friendly
  3. agent | agent (including secret agent, real estate agent, or even sales representative) | agent | police officer
  4. amper | almost | amper | almost, almost not (depending on context)
  5. bees | singular for cattle | beest | animal, including insects
  6. beseer | injured | blesseer | injured
  7. blameer | blame | blameren | put to shame
  8. boodskap | message | boodschap | shopping item (or message, depending on context)
  9. braaf | brave (or respectible in older Afrikaans) | braaf | obedient, innocent
  10. sjaal | shawl | sjaal | scarf
  11. gemeen | cruel | gemeen | common, having in common
  12. grappig | funny | grappig | cute
  13. hek | gate | hek | fence
  14. jas | coat | jas | jacket
  15. jurk | skirt | jurk | dress
  16. rok | dress | rok | skirt
  17. kont | cunt | kont | buttocks, bottom
  18. kuier | visit with friends | kuier | walk slowly
  19. leraar | minister of religion | leraar | teacher
  20. maak | create | maken | fix
  21. meid | female domestic servant | meid | girl
  22. motor | automobile | motor | motorcycle
  23. mug | midge, gnat | mug | mosquito
  24. nael | finger nail | nagel | iron nail
  25. nek | neck and throat | nek | neck (back of neck only, excluding throat)
  26. neuk | assault | neuk | have sex with
  27. nodig | necessary, required | nodig | necessarily, forthcoming
  28. olik | feeling ill | olijk | cute, mischevious
  29. ongesteld | feeling generally ill (both sexes) | ongesteld | having one's periods (female)
  30. fok | fuck | fok | to breed with (animals)
  31. pan | pan, flat cooking pan | pan | saucepan, pot
  32. poep | fart | poep | shit
  33. pikkie | small boy | pikje | small penis
  34. resep | recipe, for cooking | recept | prescription, for medicine
  35. spuug | spit | spugen | vomit
  36. stoep | verandah | stoep | sidewalk
  37. verskoon | pardon | verschonen | undress, change diaper
  38. vervelend | boring | vervelend | unfortunate
  39. waarsku | warn | waarschuwen | inform
  40. suinig | stingy, miserly | zuinig | frugal, thifty


Also, please check my Dutch spelling. I considered having a fifth column for comments, but later decided to keep it as simple as possible. Obviously some of these words have multiple meanings and some of those meanings are not represented here (should we mention that?). -- leuce (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we do add this list we should note that some versions are offensive - for example in Afrikaans "kont" is extremely offensive but in Dutch it's an ordinary word. In modern Afrikaans "meid" is also offensive as it is normally understood to be a racist epithet. I changed your English translation of Afrikaans "fok" because the English "fuck" is in fact an exact cognate. Roger (talk) 11:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
True, some of these words are offensive in Afrikaans, but this is not the Afrikaans Wikipedia, so no need to remove those words. -- leuce (talk) 11:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this list is totally unnessecary. This are just random words, while 90% till 95% of the Afrikaans words has a Dutch background. I90Christian (talk) 17:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

English influence on Afrikaans (just to show you)

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I've taken the first sentence I could find on a Dutch newspaper's web site and compared it with Afrikaans to show how much of Afrikaans is influenced by English.

Dutch: Postbedrijf TNT verwacht bij de komende reorganisatie niet meer dan 4500 mensen gedwongen te hoeven ontslaan.

Afrikaans: Die pos[maatskappy] TNT verwag [dat] hulle [tydens] de komende herorganisering [gedwing sal wees] om [minder as] 4500 mensen te ontslaan.

English: The mail [company] TNT expects [that] they [would be forced] to retrench/fire [fewer than] 4500 people [during] the coming reorganisation.

The word "maatschappy" does exist in Dutch but it means community or society or government. The word "that" is required in both English and Afrikaans, but not in Dutch. Both Afrikaans and English use "during", whereas the Dutch use "at". The inifitive of the word "force" is used in both English and Afrikaans, but not in Dutch. Although the Dutch "niet meer" is similar to the English "no more", Afrikaans uses "fewer than" instead, which is more typical of English than Dutch.

Also note that whereas the Dutch uses "meer dan", Afrikaans speakers would be likely to think that that is an Anglicism, since the English is "more than". This is an example of Afrikaans changing away from Dutch because Afrikaans speakers were going to extremes to prevent using something that looks English (since Afrikaans speakers do not hear Dutch all the time, and can't judge if something is good Dutch). -- leuce (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Leuce, your understanding of Dutch Dutch idiom is clearly not native level. To start with, "maatschappij" is a common word for Dutch enterprises, take the KLM for example. More importantly you fail to understand that "gedwongen" here is used as an adverb, it means that 4500 people will be "forcedly fired", i.e. people retiring, changing jobs on their own account and so on have already been taken into account. ThW5 (talk) 17:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. I'm not a native Dutch speaker, ThW5. 2. It is true that "maatschappij" is sometimes used in Dutch for an enterprise, but try googling for "postmaatschappij" :-). Also, I said "it is more common" for government or society. 3. Thanks for spotting the "ontslag" blunder. In Afrikaans, "ontslag" is always forced, whereas in Dutch the word can mean both to be retreched and to resign (so this is a faux amis). I suppose this means that the Afrikaans sentence will be even further removed from the Dutch, because it would have to be "Die pos[maatskappy] TNT verwag [dat] hulle [tydens] die komende herorganisering [minder as] 4500 mensen sal [hoef] ontslaan." and the English sentence to "The mail [company] TNT expects [that] they would [need to] retrench/fire [fewer than] 4500 people [during] the coming reorganisation." -- leuce (talk) 12:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you get the Afrikaans sentance Die pos[maatskappy] TNT verwag [dat] hulle [tydens] de komende herorganisering [gedwing sal wees] om [minder as] 4500 mensen te ontslaan.. That is not Afrikaans. "De" and "Mensen" don't exist in Afrikaans, so I don't get where you are getting your facts from? Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"De" and "mensen" are obviously typos :-). Where did I "get" it? Nowhere -- I translated it myself to illustrate the point. If those typos are corrected, it is 100% Afrikaans. The point of the illustration is not the influence of Enlgish on *words* but on sentence construction, fixed expressions and idioms. -- leuce (talk) 12:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is sufficient to show a similarity to prove cause and effect, as English, Afrikaans and Dutch are sufficiently closely related to have inherited many similarities and there are also cases of parallel evolution. For example Afrikaans is like English but unlike Dutch in that gramatical gender has been lost, but the loss has happened independently in each language.
Dutch might use "meer dan" for "more than", but "meer als" also appears to be widely used, if considered incorrect. That could imply that Afrikaans has standardised "meer as" and Dutch "meer dan" quite by chance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.72.129 (talk) 21:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that similarity does not prove cause and effect. Obviously I believe that there is probable cause and effect, but the similarity merely illustrates it -- leuce (talk) 12:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is probably true that English has had a strong influence on Afrikaans. However, there is only one reference to support this claim. This reference is now dead but can still be retrieved using the Internet Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20100727090945/http://www.lycos.com/info/afrikaans--standard-afrikaans.html). As you can see, the reference is just a directory entry: hardly authoritative. Unless I, or someone else can find a proper academic reference to support this claim, I am going to delete the sentence in the introduction that reads "Afrikaans has also been significantly influenced by South African English". Wynand.winterbach (talk) 16:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Difference between "Ek is lief vir jou" and "Ek het jou lief"

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I have changed the entry in the comparison table for the above phrases. It incorrectly marked "Ek het jou lief" as being less common. This is incorrect. There is in fact a very significant semantic difference between the phrases: "Ek is lief vir jou" is the platonic/generic sense. E.g. the biblical injunction to "Love thy neighbour" is covered in this meaning. "Ek het jou lief" is said only between lovers. Hearing your wife tell the man next door "Ek is lief vir jou" is generally unremarkable (depending on the context), whereas if she said "Ek het jou lief" it would be grounds for divorce. An approximate English equivalent is the difference between "I love you" and "I am in love with you". I hope this adequately explains my edit. Roger (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there tends to be a difference but it is not clear-cut. I do agree that "Ek het jou lief" is far more likely between lovers, but "Ek is lief vir jou" can be used by both lovers and family members. I don't think "Ek is lief vir jou" would be used for a neighbour. -- leuce (talk) 12:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe that is a poor example but my main point that "Ek het jou lief" is always romantic/sexual - "eros" as distinct from "agape" if you'll forgive my abuse of "Biblical Greek" - is valid. Roger (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am a native Afrikaans speaker and to me, there is virtually no distinction between those two phrases. My mom will often say "ek het jou soooo lief". Now I grant that this may be specific to my family's variety of the language. Or maybe only small pockets of the Afrikaans-speaking population make a distinction between "Ek is lief vir jou" and "Ek het jou lief". So unless we can find an authoritative source, I suggest that we remove one of these sentences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wynand.winterbach (talkcontribs) 16:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some inaccurate examples?

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I'm not a native speaker of Dutch or Afrikaans, so I won't change the article, but some of the examples may be misleading to an extent:

jas is used in Afrikaans

Ek hou van[vir?] jou is valid Afrikaans. Park3r (talk) 09:45, 1 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Diphtong

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"oe" (pronounced [u]) and "ee" (pronounced [e:]) are not diphtongs in Afrikaans, as claimed in one of the sections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.221.67.198 (talk) 09:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Seconded. 41.160.161.117 (talk) 14:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I pronounce "ee" as as something like "iə" (in IPA) and I am fairly certain that a lot of other Afrikaners do something similar. Wynand.winterbach (talk) 16:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

sambreel

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Does anyone know where the Afrikaans word for Umbrella (sambreel) comes from? It's quite different from it's Dutch equivalent, paraplu. Bezuidenhout (talk) 17:30, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's from there Portuguese sombrinha. I'll see if I can find a ref to confirm. --NJR_ZA (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ref was easier to find than expected. Here you go: Ponelis, Fritz (1999). "1.2.4.2 Portugese invloed". Die Oorsprong van Afrikaans. --NJR_ZA (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive citing in the lead, inadequate in the rest of the article

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Language distance of Dutch dialects according to Standard-Dutch.

Is it really necessary to have five references for the opening statement "Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch"? Twenty different references are used 27 times in the lead consisting of two paragraphs totalling only 170 words. Meanwhile the rest of the article has only seven references, four of them to the same source. Roger (talk) 14:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is needed (sarcasm), because it is totally NOT proven that Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch. There is also scientific evendence that Afrikaans is just a Dutch dialect, according to the Feature Frequency Method of prof. Hoppenbrouwers. As you can see at the Dutch wikipedia Afrikaans is way closer to Standard-Dutch as 18 other Dutch dialects. (Ranked by city on number 22/23/24) The dialects of number 25-41 are commonly accepted as Dutch dialects and they 're "language distance" to Standard-Dutch is further than Afrikaans, while Afrikaans is "accepted" as a language. That's an inconsistency. Another very old and outdated theory says Afrikaans is a half-creole of Dutch. But this last theory is refuted. I90Christian (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

National variety

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Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch and —unlike Belgian Dutch and Surinamese Dutch— a separate standard language rather than a national variety

Shouldn't "Dutch Dutch" (Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands) be added as a national variety as well? Dutch Dutch is no more "standard" or "correct" than Dutch spoken in Flanders or Suriname. --Lamadude (talk) 15:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Really? Please don't see me as ignorant but in my mind I always thought that Dutch from North/South Holland (the provinces) was almost the "standard" Dutch, just like the Queen's English is the standard English (well maybe not to all Americans). But please don't judge me as ignorant, if I'm wrong please educate me on the subject. Bezuidenhout (talk) 15:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The official language of both The Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname is the same standard Dutch (or at least one of the official languages) in all three of these countries there are certain words that are mostly or exclusively used in that country and that can (but aren't necessarily) be part of standard dutch. There exist "hollandic" words that are not part of standard dutch, just as there exist "flemish" words that ARE part of standard dutch. Plus let us not forget that a large part of Dutch speakers live in language areas that cross the Belgian-Dutch border (flemish-zeelandic, brabantic, limburgish). The spoken dialects of Holland certainly differ from standard dutch, and many words that are standard dutch would never be used in Holland. A standard dutch word that is used almost exclusively in Flanders will often be marked as (belgian dutch) in a dictionary such as van dale, whereas the opposite is not always the case. However most dictionaries (including Van Dale and Prisma [[2]]) are moving toward a system of clearly marking (Belgian-Dutch-Surinamese) dutch for words that are only used within one country. --Lamadude (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ik heb het Nederlands-Nederlands variant wel genoemd in de - veel uitgebreidere - Nederlandstalige versie van dit artikel. || Op die Nederlandse Wikipedia word Nederlands-Nederlands wel gebruik. || At the Dutch Wikipedia the Dutch-Dutch is used in the same sentence. I90Christian (talk) 23:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I've gone ahead and changed it in the article, if somebody objects I am more than happy to change it back if someone can give me an objective argument as to why Dutch Dutch should be classified differently. --Lamadude (talk) 14:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tickey - from Malay?

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Regarding Afrikaans words derived from Malay, I remember reading (what struck me as) a very plausible explanation for the derivation of the word "tickey" - [denoting a South African threepenny piece] - i.e., that it came from "tiga", the Malay word for "three". I cannot, however, provide a specific reference to a book or article supporting that ... but if we search, maybe we will find one. --DLMcN (talk) 09:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Assegaai

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The article gives assegaai as a word of Khoisan origin. However Assegai gives its origin as Berber through Arabic. I would remove it but there is a (not very trustworthy) reference. --Error (talk) 00:31, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Skoenlapper

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Can anyone find a reference as to where the Afrikaans for Butterfly (Skoenlapper) comes from? Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From the Dutch word "schoenlapper", which is a compound of "schoen" (shoe) and "lapper" (someone who uses patches to repair). A butterfly often has patch-like coloured wings, which resemble the patchwork on a repaired shoe. (Source: http://www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/schoenlapper). Morgengave (talk) 19:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Influences from other languages

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I believe that this section is too much written from a Dutch speakers' point of view. The differences in the two standards are primarily driven by changes in Dutch rather than changes in Afrikaans. Intelligibility of Dutch is for Afrikaans speakers lower than vice versa, not only because of syncope on the side of Afrikaans, but also because of stronger influence of other languages on Dutch, meaning that for many words there is no cognate in Afrikaans. Afrikaans, in its standard form, is linguistically much more purist. Morgengave (talk) 12:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Braaien

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It is claimed in the phrase list that braaien is a recent loanword from Afrikaans into Dutch. No it isn't. It's a common way of pronouncing braden which is 'roasting'. You hear this sort of dropping of the letter 'd' in many other words: gelejen instead of geleden; benejen instead of beneden. An example identical in structure to braden/braaien is: maden/maaien which is 'maggots'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.72.180.236 (talk) 20:52, 21 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As a native Dutch speaker, I can confirm it is a recent loanword. Whilst braaien - as a dialectal variant of braden "to grill" indeed exists in a few dialects (which should be no surprise as this is where Afrikaans got its word from), the non-dialectal word "braaien" is a recent loanword used as a synonym for "to barbecue" (esp. a South-African style barbecue). Morgengave (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Afrikaans does have continuous tense

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The following statement in the article is untrue (although it indeed seems as if the continuous tense is used less these days than it has been in the past):

ARTICLE SAYS: Unlike Dutch, which, like English, has a continuous tense using the verb zijn ("to be") with aan het ("on the") and the infinitive, Afrikaans has no direct equivalent. However, "I am reading", which in Dutch is ik ben aan het lezen, may be expressed periphrastically in Afrikaans as ek is besig om te lees (literally "I am busy to read") or "I am busy reading".

BUT: Afrikaans does have "aan die" plus the verb to express continuous action. One could say: Ek was hard aan die werk toe hy hier aankom" ("I was working hard when he arrived here").

How to change this misinformation without naming a source, is a problem. My only source is being a speaker of Afrikaans for close to eighty years. Mieliestronk (talk) 04:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mieliestronk, If it's unsourced you can simply remove it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:49, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation Cheque: French and English pronunciation in Netherlandish (not "Dutch")

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In Netherlandish (Dutch (and Holland) are imprecise terms.) cheque is pronounced as French chèque, not as the English check. Though check/checken are loanwords and are used as simple replacements for controle/controleren, both French loanwords. Occasion (a bargain car) used to be pronounced in the French way, but nowadays, because of the lack of decent education in the French language, it is pronounced in the English way.Amand Keultjes (talk) 12:02, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Afrikaans possessive 'se'

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Methinks it is interesting to know that possessive constructions like in Afrikaans with 'se' are sometimes used in Netherlandish (not Dutch!) as well, especially when names end in 's': Hans z'n hond, Mies d'r hondje. These possessive constructions exist in German as well: dem Hans sein Hund, der Marie ihr Hündchen; these possessive constructions originally included the dative case. This type of possessive constructions used to be common all along the German-Netherlandish dialect continuum.Amand Keultjes (talk) 12:39, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]