Wedersydse kulturele verryking in die ontwikkelingsgang van Afrikaans en die Afrikatale in Suid-Afrika

Abstract

Mutual cultural enrichment in the developmental process of Afrikaans and the
African languages in South Africa:
The content of this article can be subdivided into three main sections, namely:
a) The adoption in Afrikaans of lexical items related to words in the African
languages.
b) The grammatical integration in the African languages of lexical items related to
words in the Afrikaans language with special references to the Sotho languages.
c) The influence of the African languages in regard to some literary creations in
Afrikaans.
In the first section a selection has been made of lexical items related to words in the
African languages which are recorded in two comprehensive Afrikaans etymological dictionaries. In various instances the explanation in the dictionaries concerning the origin and meaning of the words has been adapted from a Bantu linguistic perspective. Some examples of lexical items which do not occur in any publication are also discussed.
In section two the linguistic integration of loanwords from Afrikaans especially
in the Sotho languages is investigated. An aspect such as the subordening of nouns
taken over from Afrikaans into various noun classes is illustrated. Attention is also
given to other language phenomena borrowed from Afrikaans which have been fully
integrated in the Sotho languages and which are marked by a high usage frequency.
The third section deals with some preliminary observations and remarks concerning
the influence of the African languages on the literary creations of some prominent
Afrkaans authors.

Keywords: African languages, Bantu languages. Afrikaans, cultural enrichment, etimology, loanwords, grammatical integration

South Africa Journal of Cultural History Vol. 22 (1) 2008: pp. 85-111