Comments on: ‘The beginning of Afrikaans’

By: Taeki

Taeki — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:53:01 +0000

This is greast music Thank you for nice post canonSX230BlackFriday

By: Sean Jacobs

Sean Jacobs — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:52:16 +0000

Samboerou,
I see your point, but my Brink reference was tongue in cheek.

By: samboerou

samboerou — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:27:49 +0000

Rustum,as you said I’m certainly not coming from a scolastic angle, so everything is pretty homegrown ,with help from the Net.Random entries for Tuan Guru,Sultunate of Tidore,Moluccan Islands,Slaves at the Cape,BahasaIndonesia.Just a couple of interesting sites,IslamOnline.net – rebirth.co.za – melayuonline.com – geocities.com/sa_stamouers/Slaveglossary,htm .Something interesting that I came across was that Tuan Guru was a decendent of the Sultan of Morocco,so my theory that the Arabic returned to the cradle is not that far fetched.And to connect to another thesis of mine,Without Africa,No Afrikaans,I still believe in something that would be pretty “esoteric” in academic circles,which is something that enters us from below,through the Afrikan Soil,in sounding the word,as described in the article on Brink.”My Sotho nanny who first made me concious of the rhythms of language” The more the attempt has been made to “purify” this language through intellect,the more it has creolized itself through rhythm.To come at it from a musical angle would take me a long way from this dicussion,but at best I would quote something from Henry Shields from his linernotes for the Boereqanga album,”Mankunku was leading his band on the driving township rhythm of his own composition,Guguletu.A jubilant and well- oiled party of Afrikaners stood in front of the bandstand cheering the musicians.In his inimitable and deadpan laconic manner,Mankunku suddenly shifted the typical African melody of Guguletu into the Boeremusiek melody of the time honoured tune Sarie Marais.Mankunku’s rhythm section stayed just where they were in the township groove,the Sarie Marais melody fitted on top,like a glove on Mankunku’s crafty hands…and the crowd went crazy.”

By: Rustum

Rustum — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:49:04 +0000

That track is hot; a real pity I cannot follow all the lyrics. I’ve always thought that younger and younger generations in SA are going to produce a seamless multi-language kind of poetry. I’ve generally been out of the loop of much contemporary music for the past 4 years (age, perhaps, but also not hanging out or not in regular contact with DJs – like Jools, Honey-B – and other music-obssessed friends), especially on the lyrical front. Any other stuff like this in SA – you know, a hiphop that has advanced a few steps away from from kwaito ito music and lyrics?

Saamboerou, this is all fascinating stuff. Any sources that you could share? You seem to be coming in on it from a musical angle, so any history or music-history sources?

By: samboerou

samboerou — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:36:08 +0000

I think the comparison with Papiamento is very interesting.It shows that with just a couple of diffrent spices to the stew it takes a different direction.Here the African and Portuguese elements are more pronounced and Portuguese Sephardic Jewish traders coming from Brazil and Cabo Verde played a big role in the evolution of the language there.This exchange has certainly planted a seed in me for further explorations to the roots of the language and especially ,which islands most of the slaves came from.I know for instance that some came from Bali,the only one of some 13 000 plus islands,where the religion is Hindu,and you can still find the surname Baalie in the Cape till this day.At the same time this would only partially decipher the puzzle,as on many of the Spice Islands(Main Dutch Interest) the local population was annihilated and replaced with people from surrounding islands who had been more friendly towards the colonisers.The Dutch loved spices so much,or lets say the VOC,the first Keysian brothers,that they swopped Nieu Amsterdam(New York)for a small island in the Banda group,so the English who held it ,could not attack their spice laden ships leaving the islands in the group.So we have come full circle as Abdullah said,”Julle kan ,maar New York toe gaan,ons …” I also love the sounds coming from Suriname,Kaseko and all it’s hybrids,while having strong Carribean Melange roots it also has a very strong African sound simmilar to Soukous from the Congo.Of what I’ve heard,I like Carlo Jones and the Surinam Kaseko Troubadours,De Nazaten,a Surinamese -Dutch collaberation and the jazz orientated Fra Fra Sound,who has toured South Africa in the past.They also did an album with some tracks featuring the saxophonist Joe Malinga,with one track being an Abdullah Ibrahim composition.Yes Cross Poly Nations makes the honey sweeter!

By: Sean Jacobs

Sean Jacobs — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:08:38 +0000

BTW, just a footnote of sorts: A search for Hip Hop Pantsula sounds (totally unrelated) brought me to this seamless integration into a hip hop tune by this collective of dj's of Afrikaans as an African language. See how 1:40 into this Youtube video. here.

By: Sean Jacobs

Sean Jacobs — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:37:55 +0000

The late Vernon February’s obsession with Surinamese poetry come to mind.

By: Rustum

Rustum — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:51:56 +0000

F–k, you raise some interesting questions Saamboerou, and I’ve never thought about that angle: how confluences of colonial languages in the Malaysian Archipelago may also be considered at root in the development of Afrikaans. Actually, quite a blinkered look to focus on the South African aspect while the people in whose mouths it originated were from somewhere else. But I know next to nothing about the archipelago’s history or even any real grasp of Tuan Guru and his contemporaries.

I met some Indonesian writers a few years ago in Den Haag, and also jumped and gasped when I recognised some ‘Malayo’ words when they were speaking among each other. It was a bit weird – mostly incomprehensible to me, with two or three words that I recognised. I think one was the good old ‘baie’.

By: samboerou

samboerou — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:22:26 +0000

Sorry,”not to negate Arabic’s role”.Have never for a moment doubted the creolized origins of my tongue,but I must say that it is a totally new thought to me that it might have existed on another continent before and then underwent further evolution in Africa.When speaking of a Dutch-Malayo Pidgin though,where does this put people like Tuan Guru,who came from the Sultanate of Tidore,Molluccan Islands,Indonesia and the colonial tongue switching all the time between Dutch,Spanish,Portuguese and English.Having spent some time in Indonesia,I remember that BahasaIndonesia has a lot of Dutch words,but mostly for modern consumer goods and also recognised some Malay words that we also use in Afrikaans.But this language is pretty new and outside of urban areas only spoken as second or third language.

By: Rustum

Rustum — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:41:23 +0000

“So it could be that the language was from South East Asia, but now spoken by all who shared the economic and geographical situation at the Cape (slaves, the poor, black, white, etc)”

That came out wrong. I meant, spoken by all of the poor who shared economic conditions and geographical space with slaves and freed slaves. I.e. a mixed group of people, black and white, but all poor and mixing it up, and speaking the same tongue.