By Herman Wasserman
So the Afrikaans advertising award Pendoring has embarked on a campaign to promote, well, itself but also Afrikaans creativity in general. Afrikaans is still big business, even if safari suits are out of fashion (a more serious take on this here).
You would be expecting some cutting edge wit from the gurus at the liegfabriek, right? Perhaps they would choose to showcase avant garde young Afrikaans musicians (surely they would have checked out Gazelle (link) or Tidal Waves, the band behind the catchy “lekka lekka dans“) artists, writers, noem maar op, to underline the point they are trying to make about the vibrancy of the language, its ability to forge new alliances, top assimilate influences, to swerve, flow and dance with the currents.
Sorrie ou pellie. Instead, they revert to the tired old iconic images of Bennie Boekwurm, Haas Das and Riaan Cruywagen to buy into the notion that Afrikaans has to be ‘preserved’ like a jam in ouma se spens or saved like an endangered species (kinda like that old bumper sticker seen on Ford Cortinas in the dizzy days of the transition: ‘Forget the White Rhino. Save the White Ou’).
I suppose old Bennie Boekwurm and Haas Das can still bring a warm gush to the hearts of 40-somethings who remember them from primary school. But the Afrikaans Chuck Norris can only remind us of the days when it was ‘professional’ to keep a straight face while reporting the government’s propaganda.
Does Afrikaans really need nostalgia to survive? If so, it’s already too late for the language. But I still believe Afrikaans is dynamic rather than static- this is indeed where its viability lies. Anyway, Afrikaans can be way cooler than Bennie, Haas and Riaan.
“Afrikaans is still big business,even if safari suits are out of fashion”,falls into the same trap of “preservation” as Bennie and Haas and the ou in the Snortina,just the comb in the sock is missing.Moenie die Taal afskep nie,daai ou storie van Afrikaans = Afrikaner is bolle van gister,as you say dynamic rather than static,”bont” rather than colourless.
Dis vreeslik hoflik geskryf Herman. Mens sou ook kon skryf oor waar Pendoring ‘n hengse pyn veroorsaak, en nie net hierdie keer nie, maar vorige jare ook.
i am really curious about the way in which you would justify the claim that it’s already too late for the language to survive. I’m in no way trying to defend the language but to observe the obvious. While most outsiders associate Afrikaans with the white exploiters under apartheid, in practice, many colored and black people speak the language and use it on a regular basis, 15 years after the apartheid ended. Obviously, there’s an increased resentment for the language itself, and many people swore never to use it again, but language is a fluid process. It’s not simply doomed to disappear. even if it gives one the illusion that it will die. Let me give you an example: the Venda people living at the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. There were concerns in the late 1990s that the language will slowly vanish away as most men left the Hamakuya region towards Johannesburg and some had no intention to come back. The language is only spoken by 1500-2000 people so there were reasons to be anxious about it. And yet the language is still spoken. Things have settled in in their own way. The same will happen with Afrikaans as well, whether we like it or not.
Mense is in n totale wanpersepsie oor die stand van Afrikaans.Na die val van die NP is daar nie meer vir die Afrikaners voorgeskryf “wat a Afrikaner” is nie , en ons is besig om ons voete te vind en is meer as net Afrikaners , Bruinmense en Swart-Afrikaners..ons is besig om te diversifiseer en aan te pas in n moderne wêreld as Afrikaanssprekendes.Ignoreer die doemprofete en kyk vir jou self..Afrikaans groei!!