"Instead of speaking proper Dutch..."

March 10, 2009 3:04 PM

Chris Chameleon is an Afrikaans musician who talks a bit about his native language's origins in this intro to his song Klein Klein Jakkalsies.

Note: I speak neither Afrikaans nor Dutch. I can not be held responsible for anything said in the lyrics.

posted by grapefruitmoon (4 comments total)

kopdokter = head doctor = psychologist
mooimaakgoed = make pretty stuff = cosmetics
moltrein = mole train = subway
baie koud (buy a coat) = very cold
baie dankie (buy a donkey) = thank you very much
Afrikaners is plesierig = Afrikaners are pleasant
Klein klein jakkalsies = Little jackals
posted by PenDevil at 3:38 PM on March 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Have you ever noticed how people from North Edinburgh golf like this... and people from south Edinburg golf... like this?!
posted by phylum sinter at 3:45 PM on March 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

I loved this post, thank you grapefruitmoon! Dutch people are familiar with the differences between Netherlands-Dutch and Belgium-Dutch, but Afrikaans usually leaves us bewonderd. It is a beautiful language. Why would you borrow a word like make-up from English when you can have "mooimaakgoed"?
I wondered if there were any common things between Afrikaans and forms of Dutch that are spoken spoken by specific groups, like Moroccan-Dutch people, and found this interesting article (in Dutch) which says that indeed there are common grammatical characteristics.
posted by davar at 1:00 AM on March 11, 2009

Thanks PenDevil. I figured out "klein," but spent half an hour trying to google "jakkalsies" and all I came up with was lyrics to the song... in Afrikaans. Which was kind of no help.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:24 AM on March 11, 2009