The First Afrikaans

ABSTRACT

Christo van Rensburg is a leading academic in the field of the Afrikaans language and its origins. Having presented on the subject at the Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in the Transformation of School and Tertiary Education in South Africa seminar at the University of Johannesburg in 2018, van Rensburg had intended to submit an article for this special edition for Critical Arts. Due to his untimely death shortly after the seminar this was not possible. The editors thus decided to reprint the first chapter of his book Finding Afrikaans, published by Lapa in 2018 (ISBN 978-0-7993-8477-2), and financially supported by the Afrikaanse Taalraad. As the chapter has been published in this edition in isolation, outside of the book's framework, it has been amended by Julie Grant to include additional references and relevant contextual information. Although, the book is less formal in style than a standard academic text, the research and findings are robust. The book's informal style, and the fact that it is published in English and Afrikaans makes it extremely accessible, particularly to our Khoi and San colleagues. The chapter below provides an alternative version of the emergence of Afrikaans and lays the foundation for the academic study in this issue by Hans du Plessis and Julie Grant, which arose following the presentation by du Plessis entitled Afrikaans on the Frontier: Two Early Afrikaans Dialects which was twinned with van Rensburg's presentation at the symposium.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Elias Nel is a South African author originating from the Northern Cape who writes in Afrikaans. It is difficult to locate information on the author especially in English but Wikipedia provides the best comprehensive overview see (translated to English): https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=af&u=https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_P._Nel&prev=search (accessed 17 April 2020).

2 For more information on the Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls (AWS) see Maroela Media webpages (translated to English): https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=af&u=https://maroelamedia.co.za/afrikaans/boeke/boek-afrikaanse-woordelys-en-spelreels/&prev=search (accessed 17 April 2020).

3 A.M. Scholtz is an award-winning Afrikaans author of fiction from the Northern Cape of South Africa. For a short overview of his books see F.M. Guam (2019) (translated from Afrikaans) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=af&u=http://cke.christians.co.za/scholtz-andrew-henry-martin/&prev=search (accessed 17 April 2020). Again it is difficult to find information on the author but Wikipedia provides a basic autobiography see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Henry_Martin_Scholtz (accessed 17 April 2020)

4 Strandloper was the name given by Dutch settlers to one of the Khoikhoi clans who subsisted from harvesting food from the coastal areas. Their Khoikhoi name was Goringhaicona (Wilson 1990).