Language and Class

Reading a textbook on socio-linguistics this week (Trudgill 1974, 1983), it is interesting to see that Afrikaans is described as a non-reciprocal power-coded language, due to class distinctions. More so than German, French, or Italian, for example. Wife E’s first language is Afrikaans, and I myself speak it, so I asked her what she thought to that. She said no, it is not due to class distinctions, but due to the attitudes that Afrikaans speakers hold. Therefore one cannot strictly say that different classes speak in diffferent ways.