Monday, September 20, 2021

New Afrikaans

There's a "new Afrikaans" on social media. I came across this example this morning:
"icii xz wat so dah by [Name] chtii ... xz jamr but xz lankli mee in daii accountiii"
My translation: "It wasn't me chatting there, over at [Name]. I'm sorry, I haven't been in that account for a long while." There's a fusion of words, and a compression of words, and the absorption of a lot of English, too. This is how Afrikaans is actually spoken today. If this were written in formal Afrikaans, a Dutch person would surely understand. But this? Will the purists win the day?

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