Journal articles on the topic 'Spoken Afrikaans'

Of the official languages of South Africa, Afrikaans has the widest geographical, demographic and racial distribution (Webb 2003). According to the latest South African census of 2011 (StatsSA 2012), Afrikaans as first language is spoken by 13.5% of the country's inhabitants, only surpassed in numbers by Zulu (22.7%) and Xhosa (16%). In neighbouring Namibia, 10.4% of the population has Afrikaans as their first language. A noteworthy number of recent emigrants to United Kingdom, Australia, Europe and North America are likely to be Afrikaans speakers as well.1 A handful of elderly persons in Patagonia still speak Afrikaans; they are descendants of some 600 Afrikaans speakers who settled in Patagonia at the beginning of the 20th century (Du Toit 1995, Coetzee et al. 2018).

In the increasingly competitive media landscape newspapers, among others, are underpressure from digital and social media. As a result, the performance and positioningof traditional Afrikaans newspapers like Rapport, Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad, aswell as the forms of Afrikaans they use, are constantly scrutinised in surveys about therelevance and profitability of the Afrikaans print media. These surveys often point tothe use of Afrikaans ‘as spoken by the people’ in emerging newspapers like Son andSon op Sondag, as the main reason for the growing popularity, healthy sales figuresand advertising revenue of these two newspapers. As a result, Son developed into thelargest Afrikaans daily in an Afrikaans print market long dominated by establishedtitles like Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad. In view of this, this contribution will firstlyinvestigate the profitability (in monetary terms and circulation) of actually using Kaapsin newspapers. Secondly, it will focus attention on the use of this form of Afrikaansin traditional newspapers in which Standard Afrikaans is the dominant form. Thequestion is: What is the nature of the Kaaps in these newspapers compared to theKaaps in Son specifically? The aim of this contribution is to explore how Afrikaansnewspapers create space for the use of colloquial varieties in general and Kaapsspecifically, and to determine the relevance or function of Kaaps in the news domain.On the one hand the focus will be on columns in which Kaaps is the medium and onthe other, on newspaper articles about the Afrikaans language variety. The data onwhich this paper is based were firstly, the responses to a list of questions posed to thenews-editor of Son, and secondly a critical content analysis and interpretation of themanifestations of Kaaps in this newspaper in comparison to the forms in the moreestablished Afrikaans newspapers. The general perceptions of, and attitudes towards,the use of colloquial varieties of Afrikaans, collated in a 2012 survey among readers,are also taken into account.

English and Dutch are both spoken in South Africa in XVIII century and a new language emerges: Afrikaans, which is a mixture of Dutch and English, Malaysian, Portuguese and the tribal substrate. Only certain loans from Afrikaans will be analyzed: those registered in English from Dutch origin. I will focus on the historical frame where all this contribution of Afrikaans into English takes place and on the different semantic fields which these loans can be classified into. I’d like to draw conclusions about the most influential semantic field and about the degree of contact between Afrikaans and English, never to forget the Dutch start point of these words.

Just like the Afrikaans language itself, the use of Afrikaans as a technical language in Botany made meaningful progress during the last 75 years. It cannot, however, be divorced from the general use of Afrikaans by the Afrikaner in his daily contact with his non-Afrikaans speaking compatriots in all other spheres of activities, such as business, sports or politics. Unless Afrikaans as a spoken language can hold its own in a growing English-speaking community and world, it will not survive as a technical scientific language in Botany. As a technical language only, no language can hold its own. The publishing of scientific papers in international journals by Afrikaans-speaking scientists cannot be attributed to selfishness or a lack of appreciation for their mother tongue. It must also be seen as a means of enhancing the scientific image of his country and of the Afrikaner.

The internet as dynamic language environment: manifestations of language change in Internet Afrikaans It is generally accepted that the growing interest in the Internet has opened up new horizons for language research. Chenault (1997:1) asserts that the Internet is not about technology or information, but about communication. The aim with this article is to explore the Internet as a dynamic language environment in which emerging patterns of language change in modernday Afrikaans could be traced. Firstly, attention is paid to ways in which the internet speech community could be defined as a coherent speech community. A second aim with this article is to scrutinise the dichotomy between spoken and written language. This is done in order to indicate that linguistic innovations, which usually emerge from social interaction, find their way into written language in digital communication. The third aim is to take a close look at various forms or patterns of language change in Afrikaans as they are presently used in Afrikaans chat rooms on the Internet. The article concludes that Internet Afrikaans could be regarded as an aspect of virtual reality for Afrikaans because systematic patterns of language change which started long ago in Afrikaans are confirmed by the Internet language environment.

A chatbot is a machine conversation system which interacts with human users via natural conversational language. Software to machine-learn conversational patterns from a transcribed dialogue corpus has been used to generate a range of chatbots speaking various languages and sublanguages including varieties of English, as well as French, Arabic and Afrikaans. This paper presents a program to learn from spoken transcripts of the Dialogue Diversity Corpus of English, the Minnesota French Corpus, the Corpus of Spoken Afrikaans, the Qur'an Arabic-English parallel corpus, and the British National Corpus of English; we discuss the problems which arose during learning and testing. Two main goals were achieved from the automation process. One was the ability to generate different versions of the chatbot in different languages, bringing chatbot technology to languages with few if any NLP resources: the corpus-based learning techniques transferred straightforwardly to develop chatbots for Afrikaans and Qur'anic Arabic. The second achievement was the ability to learn a very large number of categories within a short time, saving effort and errors in doing such work manually: we generated more than one million AIML categories or conversation-rules from the BNC corpus, 20 times the size of existing AIML rule-sets, and probably the biggest AI Knowledge-Base ever.

On Austro-Dutch and the origin of Afrikaans A widely accepted view of the origin of Afrikaans holds that the new language developed autochthonously, after 1652 when the language of the early Cape settlers was influenced by imported slaves speaking Malay and Portuguese, and by the pidgin talk of the Cape Khoikhoi. This “autochthonous hypothesis”, however, does not take cognizance of the fact that shortened (deflected) Dutch verb forms found in Afrikaans, for instance, are also found in loan words in the Ceylon-Portuguese creole, as well as in Indonesian, and Malay-influenced languages of Indonesia. Moreover, large numbers of Dutch East India Company sojourners, who had acquired an “adapted” form of Dutch during their stay in the East, spent a significant time at the Cape on their return voyage. The argument is put forward that they brought with them a number of language features clearly comparable with “distinctive features” in incipient (and developed) Afrikaans, such as the shortened verb and the use of the perfect instead of imperfect verb forms to indicate a simple past tense. The variety of Dutch spoken by them is called Austro-Dutch, which, it is argued, forms the basis of an “oceanic hypothesis” to add a new dimension to theories about the formation of Afrikaans.

AbstractThe Afrikaans word ghoen (‘a shooting-marble’) arose in a setting wherein Malay, Khoekhoe, and Dutch were spoken and in which children played and shared vocabulary. Given the similarity of meaning and sound shape among Malay gundu (‘a marble’), Khoekhoe !gon (‘to throw something on the ground’), and dialectal Dutch koen (‘a shooting-marble’), I propose that these semantically and phonetically similar etyma merged into the word ghoen through a process, here referred to as lexical syncretism, which has been remarked on by other scholars of language history and contact.

Abstract This study investigates the potential role of context-relevant sociolinguistic factors in explaining young L1 indigenous South African language speakers’ IAT (Implicit Association Test) scores towards two varieties largely associated with the white group: Standard South African English and Afrikaans accented English. To this end, a post-IAT sociolinguistic survey on participants’ linguistic background, language exposure and intergroup social distance levels (among other social factors) was used. Separate ANOVAS were performed using the IAT reaction times as a dependent variable and sociolinguistic variables as factors. Notably, the sociolinguistic approach revealed that more positive attitudes towards Afrikaans accented English are correlated with the language range of participants, the dominant languages spoken in their places of origin, and the type of school they have attended.

Background. Autism is a developmental disorder, which presents during the childhood years, with social communication difficulties and signs of delay in early language development. Objectives. The aim of the study was to compare the early language development of children aged 3 - 5 years with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) V diagnosis of autism with that of children of the same age with typical early language development. The secondary aim was to determine if certain children with autism have better language development in the language to which they are exposed on television (English) than in their home language (Afrikaans). Methods. The Language Development Survey was translated into Afrikaans, modified and used as a questionnaire. For the control group, questionnaires were distributed at preschools and completed by the parents. For the sample group, questionnaires were distributed at the practice of a developmental paediatrician. Results. The median percentages of Afrikaans words used in all the categories were lower in the sample group than in the control group. More children in the sample group tended to speak English the best, use words not spoken at home, and imitate words and sounds in the incorrect context. Most of the parents of children in the sample group considered their child’s language development poor. Children in both groups watched television for long periods of time. Conclusions. Afrikaans-speaking children with autism have a poorer vocabulary in Afrikaans and used more English words than in the control group. The television exposure of children under the age of two years is high.

AbstractChubut Province, in Patagonia, Argentina, is home to a group of Afrikaans-speaking Boers, descendants of those who–starting in 1902–came to Argentina from the region of present-day South Africa. Although little Afrikaans is spoken among fourth- and fifth-generation community members, many in the third generation (60 years and older) still maintain the language. According to Joshua Fishman’s model of generational language shift, the Boers’ Afrikaans should have been largely diluted by the third generation; older community members today should have little functional knowledge of the language, and their children and grandchildren none. The goal of this paper is to explore the persistence of bilingualism in the Argentine Boer community and explain why the changes normally associated with the third generation of immigrants are only now being seen in the fourth and fifth generations. On the basis of bilingual interviews with living community members, we argue that the community’s attitude toward Afrikaans as a language of group identity, as well as the relative isolation of the community in rural Patagonia in the first half of the 20th century, were both decisive factors in delaying the process of linguistic assimilation. Only in the middle of the 20th century, when the community came into greater contact with Argentine society as a result of modernization and schooling in the region, did the process of linguistic integration begin in a measurable way.

This contribution shines a critical light on the representation of Afrikaans as a language of the Church in external histories about the development and advancement of the language, inclusive histories particularly. It seems the history of Afrikaans within a Christian or Church context has escaped the critical attention which since the 1970s created awareness of the politicisation of and silences in the history, and the way in which the history is documented. Therefore, the history of Afrikaans as a language of the Christian faith is still told from an exclusively white Reformed perspective and held as a 20 th century phenomenon, despite research pointing to its usage in the Moravian Church (Genadendal) in the 18 th century and the Anglican Church in the 19 th century. Though various denominations are included in so-called inclusive histories, it is done in a manner that suggests the dominance of the white Reformed Churches. These conclusions were primarily drawn from a content analysis of two inclusive histories, subjecting them to the same penetrating, sceptical questions of decades ago, focused primarily on the representation of Afrikaans as a language of the Church. For this purpose, the inclusive histories were analysed within the framework of poststructuralist tendencies which shifted the focus to historiography as a function of power, a meaning-making practice and history as a construct, not a reconstruction of the past. As such it creates space to imagine alternatives to the dominant discourse. To this end, the attention is drawn to the mobilisation of Afrikaans in the Roman Catholic Church since the 1820s as an alternative history of a spoken Afrikaans praying at the altar long before it was formalised and allowed to ascend the pulpit in the Reformed Churches since 1916.

This paper describes the underlying motivation for the proposed structure and design of a corpus of Xhosa English, which aims ultimately to form part of a larger corpus of Black South African English (BSAE). The planned corpus will be exclusively based on spoken spontaneous Xhosa English, and full justification for this decision is provided in the paper. In particular the paper argues that the current South African English component of the International Corpus of English (ICE) cannot be regarded as representative of any particular variety of South African English, because of the wide range of Englishes spoken in the country (by mother-tongue speakers, Indians, white and coloured Afrikaans speakers and the speakers of South Africa's nine indigenous languages). In addition, the article problematises theoretical concepts such as deciding what “educated” or standard English is (in a multilingual country with a very complex socio-political history), and argues that some of the text categories of ICE and other spoken corpora are inappropriate for the planned Xhosa English corpus.

This paper raises the issue of the relationship between language and identity. This subject has been present not only in Sociolinguistics, but also in other social sciences in recent decades. The focus here is to describe and present the relationship between the Afrikaans language spoken by university students who are members of the Coloured population and the ethnolinguistic identity perceived by these speakers. The locus is the multicultural and multilingual Cape Town, located in the South African Western Cape province, where European colonization began. To achieve the objective of this article, we briefly present the language in question: its emergence, its history and by whom it is currently spoken. In addition, since we are dealing with a somehow hybrid ethnicity (“coloured”), we also use anthropological theoretical approaches to understand what is perceived as “ethnicity”. With regard to data collection, we use qualitative content analysis. Internet interviews were conducted through the platform known as Zoom. Eight students were interviewed and answered a set of questions about the social role of the varieties of Afrikaans in Cape Town, attitudes concerning language status and linguistic representation of identity and belonging, in which language(s) they feel best represented, among other issues. The results obtained from the interviews brought a broad understanding of the linguistic practices of these Coloured speakers.

ABSTRACT This article addresses some of the potential of the Internet in building a new South African nationhood, especially through language. However, before the Internet can really promote multilingualism and multiculturalism in South Africa, the severe inequalities that mark access to the medium need to be overcome, possibly by sharing resources between minority languages, of which Afrikaans is economically in the strongest position. Within the globalised world order, English is at the top of the hierarchy of dominance. It is the most commonly spoken second language and the lingua franca in the international business, media, scientific and academic worlds. While some welcome English as a means of communication with the potential of overcoming the global tower of Babel, others argue that minority languages might become threatened by 'language death'. For instrumental purposes, English has become the lingua franca in South African public life. While this means that the use of Afrikaans has been dramatically scaled down to occupy the position of a minority language, the other nine indigenous languages are at an even bigger disadvantage. Probably the greatest barrier in the way of indigenous languages gaining a presence on the Internet remains the problem that has come to be known as the digital divide. Access to the Internet is still marred by severe inequalities.

Abstract L1 background is often described as the main factor accounting for variation in postcolonial ESL varieties. However, recent studies (e.g. Mesthrie 2009, 2017) suggest that variation patterns in ESL varieties can in some cases also be linked to identity factors rooted in local patterns of intergroup relations. This study examines the interrelation between L1 background and such identity factors in the phonetic patterns found in the English varieties spoken in Namibia. The data consist of a corpus of careful style elicited via sociolinguistic interviews from an ethnically stratified sample of L2 English speaking Namibian students with Afrikaans, Bantu languages (Oshiwambo and Otjiherero), and Khoekhoeghowab as L1s. Individual speakers tend to be related in their phonetic behaviors if they share the same L1. However, some features cannot be directly attributed to L1 background, so their distribution is best read against the background of Namibian inter-ethnic relations and ethnolinguistic vitality differentials.

The actor is tasked with embodying text in order to portray the characters’ intentions. This article shows that such a complex task escalates when the actor performs in a second language. In South Africa, where eleven official languages are embraced, the multiplicity and crossover of spoken languages is a daily challenge for actors and theatre makers, leading to a preference for physical performances, which limits the use of text. The production of embodied sound patterns embedded in a text informed the creative process of an experimental production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. It was created with a second-language cast (speakers of Setswana and Afrikaans) whose over-arching goal was to consider the embodied patterns of pre-linguistic expression as a theatre-making tool. When reflecting on their work, the actors indicated that their explorations facilitated a connection with the text in English and generated the relevant dynamics for the play’s sociopolitical themes to be adequately ‘translated’ to a contemporary multilingual South African context. Karina Lemmer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts at Tshwane University of Technology in Gauteng, where she teaches acting and voice. She has directed a number of multilingual productions, including Buried Voices (2018) and Motlotlegi (2019), and has published in the Voice and Speech Review (2018).

Introduction. Whilst the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rollout is well underway, there is a concern in Africa where less than 2% of global vaccinations have occurred. In the absence of herd immunity, health promotion remains essential. YouTube has been widely utilised as a source of medical information in previous outbreaks and pandemics. There are limited data on COVID-19 information on YouTube videos, especially in languages widely spoken in Africa. This study investigated the quality and reliability of such videos. Methods. Medical information related to COVID-19 was analysed in 11 languages (English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Twi, Arabic, Amharic, French, and Swahili). Cohen’s Kappa was used to measure inter-rater reliability. A total of 562 videos were analysed. Viewer interaction metrics and video characteristics, source, and content type were collected. Quality was evaluated using the Medical Information Content Index (MICI) scale and reliability was evaluated by the modified DISCERN tool. Results. Kappa coefficient of agreement for all languages was p < 0.01 . Informative videos (471/562, 83.8%) accounted for the majority, whilst misleading videos (12/562, 2.13%) were minimal. Independent users (246/562, 43.8%) were the predominant source type. Transmission of information (477/562 videos, 84.9%) was most prevalent, whilst content covering screening or testing was reported in less than a third of all videos. The mean total MICI score was 5.75/5 (SD 4.25) and the mean total DISCERN score was 3.01/5 (SD 1.11). Conclusion. YouTube is an invaluable, easily accessible resource for information dissemination during health emergencies. Misleading videos are often a concern; however, our study found a negligible proportion. Whilst most videos were fairly reliable, the quality of videos was poor, especially noting a dearth of information covering screening or testing. Governments, academic institutions, and healthcare workers must harness the capability of digital platforms, such as YouTube to contain the spread of misinformation.

In Afrikaans, medial /g/, /v/, and /d/ have often been lenited or deleted, sometimes giving rise to alternations or the restructuring of stem forms. After an analysis of the distribution of the processes, some of the morphological consequences are briefly sketched. In order to find out more about the determinants of the lenition or deletion processes, which do not seem to have applied exceptionlessly, a quantitative analysis of lexicographical data containing over 200 different items was carried out. A number of probabilistic phonological and grammatical conditions were uncovered that provided insight into the rule-typological status of the processes. The lenition or deletion of /d/ appears to be sensitive to usage frequency as well. Some of the exceptions are due to sporadic reborrowing from Dutch. Cape Dutch Pidgin, one of the two main roots of modern Afrikaans, developed as a result of contact between 17th-century Dutch settlers and Cape Khoekhoen, who spoke Nàmá. Properties of the Nàmá phonology suggest that at least in Cape Dutch Pidgin, the obstruents that were subject to the lenition and deletion processes in question constituted a natural class.*

Purpose The purpose of this study is (a) to examine the applicability of a culturally and linguistically adapted measure to assess the receptive and expressive language skills of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in South Africa and then (b) to explore the contributions of 2 additional language measures. Method In Part 1, 100 children with NDD who spoke Afrikaans, isiZulu, Setswana, or South African English were assessed on the culturally and linguistically adapted Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Clinicians independently rated the children's language skills on a 3-point scale. In Part 2, the final 20 children to be recruited participated in a caregiver-led interaction, after which the caregiver completed a rating scale about their perceptions of their children's language. Results Performance on the MSEL was consistent with clinician-rated child language skills. The 2 additional measures confirmed and enriched the description of the child's performance on the MSEL. Conclusions The translated MSEL and the supplemental measures successfully characterize the language profiles and related skills in children with NDD in multilingual South Africa. Together, these assessment tools can serve a valuable function in guiding the choice of intervention and also may serve as a way to monitor progress.

During this period, when disciples were growing in number, a grievance arose on the part of those who spoke Greek, against those who spoke the language of the Jews; they complained that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution.When Americans think of ethnic conflict, conflict between blacks and whites comes to mind most immediately. Yet ethnic conflict is pervasive around the world. Azerbijanis and Turks in the Soviet Union; Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; Arabs and Jews in the Middle East; Maoris and English settlers in New Zealand; Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan; French and English speakers in Quebec; Africans, Afrikaaners, and mixed-race people in South Africa, in addition to the tribal warfare among the Africans themselves: these are just a few of the more obvious conflicts currently in the news. We observe an even more dizzying array of ethnic conflicts if we look back just a few years. Japanese and Koreans; Mongols and Chinese; Serbs and Croats; Christians and Buddhists in Viet Nam: these ancient antagonisms are not immediately in the news, but they could erupt at any time. And the history of the early Christian Church recounted in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that suspicion among ethnic groups is not a modern phenomenon; rather, it is ancient.The present paper seeks to address the problem of ethnic conflict in modern western democracies. How can our tools and traditions of participatory governments, relatively free markets, and the common law contribute to some resolution of the ancient problems that we find within our midst? In particular, I want to focus here on the question of ethnic integration.

De brief heeft van 1917 tot 2017 een merkwaardige geschiedenis gekend met betrekking tot de teksteditie. In deze bijdrage wordt de laatste, wetenschappelijke editie in de Open Brieven (Antwerpen, 2017) gevolgd.Een van de belangrijkste documenten uit de voorgeschiedenis van de brief is het essay 1830-1908, een ongepubliceerde tekst die door Lodewijk Dosfel in februari 1918 te Gent werd uitgegeven. Dit essay openbaart de opvattingen van Verschaeve over natie en staat, geheel verschillend van die van Mercier. De kapelaan volgde hier de Zuid-Afrikaanse generaal uit de Boerenoorlog, Christiaan De Wet, en de Luikse hoogleraar Emile de Laveleye. De voorbereidende stappen tot de brief zijn merkbaar in de dagboekaantekening van 25 januari 1915, gewijd aan de beroemde Patriotisme et Endurance (verzet tegen de Duitsers) en in die van 18 september 1916, over de twee politieke objectieven van Verschaeve: de vernederlandsing van de Gentse universiteit en de inrichting van de bestuurlijke scheiding.De eerste week van augustus 1917 voelde kapelaan Verschaeve zich bedreigd. Hij maakte zich zorgen over het uitblijven van het antwoord van koning Albert I op de Open Brief van 11 juli door de leiding van de Frontbeweging aan de vorst gestuurd en bij de soldaten verspreid. Bovendien was aan de top van de regering De Broqueville een wissel doorgevoerd: het Ministerie van Oorlog kwam in handen van Armand De Ceuninck, een hardvochtig generaal. Verschaeve vreesde het ergste voor hem en voor de soldaten.In die omstandigheden nam hij het initiatief om op eigen houtje een (tweede) open brief aan de koning te schrijven en een oud plan uit te voeren: een brief gericht aan paus Benedictus XV en een aan kardinaal-aartsbisschop Désiré Mercier.In het eerste deel van zijn brief sprak de kapelaan zijn grote bewondering uit voor de kardinaal en zijn verzet tegen de Duitse overweldiger. Vervolgens herinnerde hij aan de homilie van 21 juli 1916 in Sint-Goedele te Brussel over de betekenis van de soldaten aan de IJzer: ils sont nos sauveurs. En dat bracht hem vanzelf tot de beklagenswaardige situatie van de Vlaamse piotten, de spanningen in het leger en het repressieve optreden van de overheid. In het tweede deel trok Verschaeve scherp van leer tegen de aartsbisschoppelijke maatregel, met betrekking tot het activisme, de Duitse maatregel voor de vernederlandsing van de Gentse universiteit en het doorvoeren van de bestuurlijke scheiding in België en de autonomie van Vlaanderen. Het zijn uitgesproken politieke statements van de kapelaan over de Vlaamse beweging.Met deze brief heeft Verschaeve Mercier willen counteren maar is daar niet in geslaagd. De brief is in oktober 1917 in Londen afgegeven aan de vertegenwoordiger van de kardinaal, Mgr. Antoon De Wachter. Of hij Mechelen heeft bereikt weten we niet. Wel werd de tekst aan het front verspreid. Verschaeve dacht daarbij een keerpunt te bewerkstellingen in de Frontbeweging en in de Vlaamse beweging in het algemeen.__________ “Our situation compels us to speak.” Cyriel Verschaeve’s Letter to Cardinal Mercier, 6 August 1917 From 1917 to 2017, this letter has had a noteworthy publishing history. This article follows the latest, scholarly edition in Open Brieven (“Open Letters”, Antwerp, 2017).One of the most important documents from the prehistory of this letter is the essay 1830-1908, an unpublished text that was issued by Lodewijk Dosfel in February 1918 in Ghent. This essays reveals Verschaeve’s views on nation and state, quite different from those of Mercier. Here, the chaplain follows the Afrikaner Boer War general, Christiaan De Wet, and the Liège university professor Émile de Laveleye. The preparatory steps toward the letter can be gleaned in his journal entry of 25 January 1915, dedicated to the well-known Patriotisme et Endurance (“Patriotism and Endurance”, an address of Mercier’s relating to resistance to the Germans) as well as in the entry pf 18 September 1916, about Verschaeve’s two political objectives: transforming the University of Ghent into a Dutch-speaking institution and establishing administrative separation.In the first week of August 1917, chaplain Verschaeve felt himself to be under threat. He worried about the lack of a response from King Albert I to the Open Letter of 11 July, which had been sent to the sovereign by the leadership of the Front Movement and spread among the soldiers. In addition, a change had recently taken place in the ranks of the De Broqueville government: the War Ministry came into the hands of Armand De Ceuninck, a stern general. Verschaeve now feared the worst for himself and for his soldiers.In these circumstances, he took the initiative on his own accord to write a (second) Open Letter to the king and to put an old plan into action: a letter to be sent to Pope Benedict XV and Cardinal-Archbishop Désiré Mercier.In the first half of his letter, the chaplain spoke of his great admiration for the cardinal and his resistance to the German usurper. Subsequently, he remembered the homily of 21 July 1916 at the Cathedral of Saint Gudula about the soldiers on the Yser: “they are our saviours”. This brought him right to the pitiable situation of the Flemish infantrymen, the tensions in the army and the repressive conduct of the government. In the second half, Verschaeve very angrily attacked the archbishop’s attitudes on topics such as Activism, the German measures for the transformation of the University of Ghent and the implementation of administrative separation in Belgium and autonomy for Flanders. These were outspoken political statements from the chaplain about the Flemish Movement.Verschaeve had wanted to counter Mercier but did not succeed in doing so. In October 1917, the letter was handed to the representative of the cardinal, Mgr. Antoon De Wachter. It is unknown whether it made it to Mechelen. The text was, however, spread at the front. In doing so, Verschaeve intended to bring about a turning point in the Front Movement and in the Flemish Movement in general.

When a language commission was stopped in its tracks. In the course of the standardisation of Afrikaans, the first two editions of the Afrikaanse woordelijs en spelreëls, published in 1917 and 1918, were heavily inundated with Dutch words. During that time Afrikaans was a well-known spoken language, and since 1860 it was sporadically written as well, without any uniformity, however. In the third edition of the Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls of 1921, the third spelling commission made some telling changes to the first editions, and a good part of the Dutch content was replaced with Afrikaans words, and spelling rules were altered for the spelling of Afrikaans as well. The fourth edition of this publication tried to follow suit, but contrary to expectations, was subjected to some changes by a conference chaired by the minister of education in 1930. This conference requested for the content of this edition to be Dutchified in some important ways, shortly before its publication in 1931. These changes didn’t satisfy the delegates of a second conference, held in 1932. An unheard-of decision was subsequently taken: corrections were published in 1932 to accompany the fourth Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls. This decision wasn’t very effective and resulted in much uncertainty about the spelling of Afrikaans until the publication of the next Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls, of 1937.

In the search for the roots of Afrikaans, early linguists focused on similarities between Afrikaans and Dutch. The influence of non-European languages received little attention. In the course of time, the focus of this field of study changed. Closer attention was paid to language in contact situations in different regions where non-Dutch speakers, as well as Dutch speakers were involved. Data gained from these studies contributed to a better understanding of the origin and history of Afrikaans, and gave more answers to earlier unsolved questions. Discussed here are the details and importance of the contact and the interchange of languages among groups in the interior border area. Khoi-Afrikaans and stock farmers’ Afrikaans were both spoken in this region and gradually modified between 1700 and 1800. This could easily have been the most important phase in the history of Afrikaans, in which there were fundamental changes in the way the language was spoken. The circumstances under which contact took place and the change in social roles of these two languages are also discussed. Forms that were at first stigmatised as Khoi-Afrikaans, later became part of the general Afrikaans vocabulary and grammar. The central question is: How did this happen? The shifting of the norms regarding the spoken language in the interior border area can be understood when the sociohistorical situation in which these varieties of Afrikaans were used, is studied closely. One of the results of this contact and interchange between languages, and the gradual shifting in norms that followed, is discussed by way of illustration: the Khoi usage of ‘ons’ as subject and its integration into everyday Afrikaans.

Purpose: Language sample analysis is widely regarded as the gold standard of language assessment. However, the uncertainty regarding the optimal length of sample and the limited availability of developmental language data for nonmainstream languages such as Afrikaans complicate reliable use of the method. The study aimed to provide guidelines on representative length of sample and concurrently provide a preliminary description of the spoken language skills of Afrikaans-speaking children. Method: The study involved 30 typically developing Afrikaans-speaking children aged between 3;6 and 9;6 (years;months). A descriptive research design was used to transcribe and analyze 1-hr interactions collected in natural environments of participants who were recruited using referral sampling. Video and audio recordings of the samples were transcribed using adapted Sampling Utterances and Grammatical Analysis Revised analysis procedures. Results: Results indicated that mean length of utterance in words per minute, number of different words per minute, and total number of words per minute stabilized at 30 min and no significant differences were found between 30 min and longer time segments. Morphology results concur with existing developmental findings in Afrikaans. Lexical diversity results correlated with the findings of the lexical specificity and accuracy in the Prutting and Kirchner Pragmatic Protocol (Prutting & Kirchner, 1987). The developmental trajectories for pragmatic and phonological development were consistent with existing guidelines. Conclusions: The study concluded that a 30-min interaction segment provides a representative language sample for Afrikaans-speaking children who are between 3;6 and 9;6. It provides promising preliminary developmental data and clinical guidelines, confirming the potential of language sample analysis (LSA) as a reliable component of language assessment in Afrikaans.

AbstractThis study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by colonial regimes. The case study that it presents involves Namibia, a Subsaharan African country formerly administered by South Africa, where Afrikaans was the dominant official language before being replaced by English upon independence. Afrikaans in Namibia still functions as an informal urban lingua franca while being spoken as a native language by substantial White and Coloured minorities. To what extent does the downranking of Afrikaans in Namibia co-occur with divergence from standard models historically located in South Africa? To answer this question, the study identifies variation patterns in Namibian Afrikaans phonetic data elicited from ethnically diverse young urban informants and links these patterns with perceptions and language ideologies. The phonetic data reveal divergence between Whites and Non-Whites and some convergence among Black L2 Afrikaans-speakers with Coloured varieties, while suggesting that a distinctive Black variety is emerging. The observed trends generally reflect perceived ethnoracial distinctions and segregation. They must be read against the background of shifting inter-group power relations and sociolinguistic prestige norms in independent Namibia, as well as of emergent ethnically inclusive Black urban identities.

Graphic symbols form an important part of most augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users' communication systems. Studies focusing on the way different graphic symbols are learned and retained are pivotal for a better understanding of the processes involved. The current study set out to determine how accurately typically developing urban, 6-year-old Afrikaans-speaking children could identify 16 Picture Communication Symbols™ (PCS) presented thematically on a communication overlay, and also how accurately they could recognize these symbols following exposure to a learning experience. Participants, divided into two cohorts, were presented with a 16-matrix overlay and required to match symbols with spoken Afrikaans labels. They were then divided into two groups, one group receiving training in the meaning of the symbols and the other group receiving no training. Finally the test-procedure was repeated. Results indicated that the 16 PCS™ symbols had an iconicity of 12.5 % (accuracy score > 50 %), and that there was a significant improvement in both the experimental and the control groups' post-test results.

Background: South African speech-language therapists (SLTs) currently do not reflect the country’s linguistic and cultural diversity. The question arises as to who might be better equipped currently to provide services to multilingual populations: SLTs with more clinical experience in such contexts, or recently trained SLTs who are themselves linguistically and culturally diverse and whose training programmes deliberately focused on multilingualism and multiculturalism?Aims: To investigate whether length of clinical experience influenced: number of bilingual children treated, languages spoken by these children, languages in which assessment and remediation can be offered, assessment instrument(s) favoured, and languages in which therapy material is required.Method: From questionnaires completed by 243 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)-registered SLTs who treat children with language problems, two groups were drawn:71 more experienced (ME) respondents (20+ years of experience) and 79 less experienced (LE) respondents (maximum 5 years of experience).Results: The groups did not differ significantly with regard to (1) number of children(monolingual or bilingual) with language difficulties seen, (2) number of respondents seeing child clients who have Afrikaans or an African language as home language, (3) number of respondents who can offer intervention in Afrikaans or English and (4) number of respondents who reported needing therapy material in Afrikaans or English. However, significantly more ME than LE respondents reported seeing first language child speakers of English, whereas significantly more LE than ME respondents could provide services, and required therapymaterial, in African languages.Conclusion: More LE than ME SLTs could offer remediation in an African language, but there were few other significant differences between the two groups. There is still an absence of appropriate assessment and remediation material for Afrikaans and African languages, but the increased number of African language speakers entering the profession may contribute to better service delivery to the diverse South African population.

A prologue to this volume: A unique group and perspective on the Bible and New Testament Studies This introduction explains the motivation for and background of a unique meeting between Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans New Testament scholars that took place in January 2008 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The conference focused on the theme of “Violence and the New Testament”. The introductory essay explains the nature, proceedings and outcomes of the meeting. It points out the historic nature of the meeting and that the members of the conference decided to promote a regular forum where Dutch-speaking scholars from different continents (where forms of Dutch are spoken by 60 million people) can meet.

OPSOMMING Pragmatiese merkers is 'n frekwente verskynsel van gesproke taal. Daar is egter nog baie min studies onderneem na pragmatiese merkers in Omgangsafrikaans. Pragmatiese merkers tree op as belangrike kontekstualiseringswenke deurdat dit gespreksgenote rig in terme van die relevansie van die uiting, en die spreker in staat stel om, op bondige wyse, 'n houding teenoor die proposisie van die uiting te openbaar. In hierdie studie word gefokus op 'n bepaalde tipe pragmatiese merker, naamlik vaekategoriemerkers (VKM's). Vaekategoriemerkers in Afrikaans is 'n meerwoordige leksikale eenheid, of woordkluster, wat as pragmatiese merker optree, byvoorbeeld "en goed" en "of iets". Hierdie ondersoek het ten doel om aan die hand van korpuslinguistiese metodes te bepaal watter vaekategoriemerkers in Omgangsafrikaans gebruik word en watter pragmatiese funksies dit verrig. Trefwoorde: pragmatiese merkers, vaekategoriemerkers, relevansieteorie, pragmatiek, korpuslinguistiek, skermers, vae taal, kwaliteitsbeginsel, kwantiteitsbeginsel, hoflikheidstrategieë ABSTRACT Pragmatic markers are a frequent phenomenon in spoken language. However, there have been very few studies on pragmatic markers in spoken Afrikaans. Pragmatic markers act as important contextualization cues in the sense that it directs interlocutors in terms of the relevance of an utterance and enables the speaker to succinctly reveal an attitude towards the proposition of the utterance. In this study the focus is on a specific type of pragmatic marker, namely vague category markers. Vague category markers (henceforth VCMs) are a subcategory of pragmatic markers which include a multiword lexical unit or word cluster such as "and things/stuff" ("en goed") and "or something" ("of iets"). VCMs are a specific realisation of vague language. Vague language refers to language use that is intentionally vague. Although VCMs are prevalent in many languages, it has not been studied by way of corpus-linguistic methods in Afrikaans. The present study uses corpus-linguistic methods to identify, categorise and analyse vague category markers in a self-compiled spoken corpus namely the Pretoriakorpus van Omgangsafrikaans (Pretoria corpus of Colloquial Afrikaans) (henceforth PO corpus). The PO corpus consists of transcribed conversations of native Afrikaans speakers recorded in Pretoria between 2015 and 2018. The data shows that VCMs do occur frequently in spoken Afrikaans. Table 1, attached as an addendum, gives a detailed account of the various VCMs as well as their normalised frequencies in the PO corpus. The two most frequent VCMs are "en goed" ("and things/stuff) and "of iets" ("or something") and variations thereof. In the literature, a distinction is made between adjunct and disjunct VCMs. The adjunct VCMs typically start with "and" and enable the speaker to comply with Grice's maxim of quantity indicating that more could be said. Disjunct VCMs typically start with "or" and enable the speaker to comply with Grice's maxim of quality, indicating that the given information might not be completely accurate. In Afrikaans, both adjunct and disjunct VCMs are found - the adjunct form starting with "en" ("and") and the disjunct form with "of ("or"). VCMs function on textual, epistemic and sociopragmatic levels. On textual level, it acts as an anaphoric device indicating that the previous element(s) could be understood as an example of a more general set of elements thereby creating textual cohesion. On epistemic level, it can function as a hedge to soften expectations regarding the truth or accuracy of an utterance. On sociopragmatic level, it creates common ground between speaker and listener and confirms ingroup membership. In this article, the relevance theory is used as theoretical framework to describe and analyse VCMs. According to the relevance theory, communication is intentional. An utterance is relevant when it has a cognitive effect on the listener without requiring high processing. Pragmatic markers, including VCMs, are seen as ostensive stimuli that enable the listener to understand the speaker's communicative intent. Three basic forms of adjunct VCMs were identified in the corpus data: "en goed" ("and things/stuff), "en so (aan)" ("and so on") and "en alles" ("and everthything"). "En goed" has many variations (see table 1) and is the most frequentform. It has a clear textual function and refers back to vague referents - mostly physical objects, but also actions / events and abstract referents. "En so (aan)" is used specially to comply with Grice's maxim of quality by indicating that more could be said. It is often used in conjunction with more abstract categories. "En alles" is often used in situations where sensitive and emotional sentiments are shared. The most frequent disjunct VCMs in the corpus data were "of iets" ("or something"), "of wat ook al" ("or whatever") and "of so" ("or so"). "Of iets" and its variations are the most common form. It is a versatile VCM used for textual, epistemic and sociopragmatic functions. It seems to be the preferred form to use when indicating that a number should be taken as an indication rather than an accurate fact. "Of wat ook al" displays predominantly textual functions by acting as anaphoric reference to a vague referent but also indicating that the speaker has given enough information to enable the listener to fill in the missing information. "Of so" collocates rather often with vague categories of place and time but is also used for epistemic and sociopragmatic functions. The following general trends can be identified by studying the VCMs in the PO corpus. • VCMs are used to refer to vague categories. The nature of these categories differs. Some VCMs like "en goed" are predominantly used with vague categories containing concrete examples while others are more often used with abstract categories. • The reach of different VCMs differ. Some only refer to what immediately precedes them in an utterance while others refer to more general ideas or feelings emanating from the utterance. • VCMs show differing degrees of flexibility concerning their form. Some like "en goed" and "of iets" leave room for the inclusion of other words. Others, like "en alles" are fixed and do not allow any insertion of additional words. • Most of the VCMs appear at the end of an utterance or intonation segment, but some VCMs such as "of so" can also appear in the middle section. • VCMs serve textual, epistemic and/or sociopragmatic functions, but the dominant function is context specific. • Some VCMs (such as "of wat ook al") have become fillers for some speakers which might indicate an advanced state of semantic bleaching. In this case, it loses its anaphoric function and becomes a mechanism which aids with processing. Keywords: pragmatic markers, vague category markers, relevance theory, pragmatics, corpus-linguistics, hedges, vague language, quality principle, quantity principle, politeness strategies

This paper explores South African hip-hop activist Emile YX?'s work to suggest that he presents an alternative take on mainstream US and South African hip-hop. While it is arguable that a great deal of mainstream hip-hop is commercially co-opted, it is clear that a significant amount of US hip-hop (by Angel Haze or Talib Kweli, for example) and hip-hop beyond the US (by Positive Black Soul, Godessa, Black Noise or Prophets of da City, for example) present alternatives to its co-option. Emile YX? pushes for an alternative to mainstream hip-hop's aesthetics and politics. Foregoing what Prophets of da City call “mindless topics” (Prophets of da City “Cape Crusader”), he employs hip-hop to engage audiences critically about social and political issues, including language and racial identity politics. Significantly, he embraces AfriKaaps, which is a challenge to the hegemonic speech variety of Afrikaans. From Emile's perspective, AfriKaaps preceded Afrikaans because it was spoken by slaves during the Cape colonial era and was later culturally appropriated by Afrikaner Nationalists in the apartheid era to construct white, Afrikaner identity as pure and bounded. AfriKaaps in hip-hop therefore presents an alternative to mainstream US-centric hip-hop in South Africa (via AKA or Cassper Nyovest, for example) as well as Afrikaner Nationalist representations of Afrikaans and race by promoting multilingual hip-hop aesthetics, which was initially advanced by Prophets of da City in the early '90s.Pursuing Alternative TrajectoriesEmile YX?, a former school teacher, started out with the Black Consciousness-aligned hip-hop crew, Black Noise, as a b-boy in the late 1980s before becoming an MC. Black Noise went through a number of iterations, eventually being led by YX? (aka Emile Jansen) after he persuaded the crew not to pursue a mainstream record deal in favour of plotting a career path as independent artists. The crew’s strategy has been to fund the production and distribution of their albums independently and to combine their work as recording and performing artists with their activism. They therefore arranged community workshops at schools and, initially, their local library in the township, Grassy Park, before touring nationally and internationally. By the late 1990s, Jansen established an NGO, Heal the Hood, in order to facilitate collaborative projects with European and South African partners. These partnerships, not only allowed Black Noise crew members to continue working as hip-hip activists, but also created a network through which they could distribute their music and secure further bookings for performances locally and internationally.Jansen’s solo work continued along this trajectory and he has gone on to work on collaborative projects, such as the hip-hop theatre show Afrikaaps, which looks critically at the history of Afrikaans and identity politics, and Mixed Mense, a b-boy show that celebrates African dance traditions and performed at One Mic Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 2014 (48 Hours). This artist’s decision not to pursue a mainstream record deal in the early 1990s probably saved Black Noise from being a short-lived pop sensation in favour of pursuing a route that ensured that Cape hip-hop retained its alternative, Black Consciousness-inspired subcultural edge.The activism of Black Noise and Heal the Hood is an example of activists’ efforts to employ hip-hop as a means of engaging youth critically about social and political issues (Haupt, Stealing Empire 158-165). Hence, despite arguments that the seeds for subcultures’ commercial co-option lie in the fact that they speak through commodities (Hebdige 95; Haupt, Stealing Empire 144–45), there is evidence of agency despite the global reach of US cultural imperialism. H. Samy Alim’s concept of translocal style communities is useful in this regard. The concept focuses on the “transportability of mobile matrices – sets of styles, aesthetics, knowledges, and ideologies that travel across localities and cross-cut modalities” (Alim 104-105). Alim makes the case for agency when he contends, “Although global style communities may indeed grow out of particular sociohistoric originating moments, or moments in which cultural agents take on the project of creating ‘an origin’ (in this case, Afrodiasporic youth in the United States in the 1970s), it is important to note that a global style community is far from a threatening, homogenizing force” (Alim 107).Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concepts of ethnoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes and mediascapes, Alim argues that the “persistent dialectical interplay between the local and the global gives rise to the creative linguistic styles that are central to the formation of translocal style communities, and leads into theorizing about glocal stylizations and style as glocal distinctiveness” (Appadurai; Alim 107). His view of globalisation thus accommodates considerations of the extent to which subjects on both the local and global levels are able to exercise agency to produce new or alternative meanings and stylistic practices.Hip-Hop's Translanguaging Challenge to HegemonyJansen’s “Mix en Meng It Op” [“Mix and Blend It / Mix It Up”] offers an example of translocal style by employing translanguaging, code mixing and codeswitching practices. The song’s first verse speaks to the politics of race and language by challenging apartheid-era thinking about purity and mixing:In South Africa is ek coloured and African means black raceFace it, all mense kom van Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionEk’s siek en sat van all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s om te expose onse behoort aan een rasHou vas, ras is las, watch hoe ons die bubble barsPlus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir daai potjie want ons wietie wattie mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSoe hulle moet gemix het om daai clicks to employ(Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; my emphasis)[In South Africa I am coloured and African means black raceFace it, all people come from Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionI’m sick and tired of all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s to expose the fact that we belong top one raceHold on, race is a burden, watch as we burst the bubble Plus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir that pot because we don’t know what the mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSo they must have mixed to employ those clicks]The MC does more than codeswitch or code mix in this verse. The syntax switches from that of English to Afrikaans interchangeably and he is doing more than merely borrowing words and phrases from one language and incorporating it into the other language. In certain instances, he opts to pronounce certain English words and phrases as if they were Afrikaans (for example, “My” and “land’s”). Suresh Canagarajah explains that codeswitching was traditionally “distinguished from code mixing” because it was assumed that codeswitching required “bilingual competence” in order to “switch between [the languages] in fairly contextually appropriate ways with rhetorical and social significance”, while code mixing merely involved “borrowings which are appropriated into one’s language so that using them doesn't require bilingual competence” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, he argues that both of these translingual practices do not require “full or perfect competence” in the languages being mixed and that “these models of hybridity can be socially and rhetorically significant” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, the artist is clearly competent in both English and Afrikaans; in fact, he is also departing from the hegemonic speech varieties of English and Afrikaans in attempts to affirm black modes of speech, which have been negated during apartheid (cf. Haupt “Black Thing”).What the artist seems to be doing is closer to translanguaging, which Canagarajah defines as “the ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages, treating the diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). The mix or blend of English and Afrikaans syntax become integrated, thereby performing the very point that Jansen makes about what he calls “the lie of purity” by asserting that the “mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sir” (Emile XY? “Mix en Meng It Op”). This approach is significant because Canagarajah points out that while research shows that translanguaging is “a naturally occurring phenomenon”, it “occurs surreptitiously behind the backs of the teachers in classes that proscribe language mixing” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). Jansen’s performance of translanguaging and challenge to notions of linguistic and racial purity should be read in relation to South Africa’s history of racial segregation during apartheid. Remixing Race/ism and Notions of PurityLegislated apartheid relied on biologically essentialist understandings of race as bounded and fixed and, hence, the categories black and white were treated as polar opposites with those classified as coloured being seen as racially mixed and, therefore, defiled – marked with the shame of miscegenation (Erasmus 16; Haupt, “Black Thing” 176-178). Apart from the negative political and economic consequences of being classified as either black or coloured by the apartheid state (Salo 363; McDonald 11), the internalisation of processes of racial interpellation was arguably damaging to the psyche of black subjects (in the broad inclusive sense) (cf. Fanon; Du Bois). The work of early hip-hop artists like Black Noise and Prophets of da City (POC) was therefore crucial to pointing to alternative modes of speech and self-conception for young people of colour – regardless of whether they self-identified as black or coloured. In the early 1990s, POC lead the way by embracing black modes of speech that employed codeswitching, code mixing and translanguaging as a precursor to the emergence of music genres, such as kwaito, which mixed urban black speech varieties with elements of house music and hip-hop. POC called their performances of Cape Flats speech varieties of English and Afrikaans gamtaal [gam language], which is an appropriation of the term gam, a reference to the curse of Ham and justifications for slavery (Adhikari 95; Haupt Stealing Empire 237). POC’s appropriation of the term gam in celebration of Cape Flats speech varieties challenge the shame attached to coloured identity and the linguistic practices of subjects classified as coloured. On a track called “Gamtaal” off Phunk Phlow, the crew samples an assortment of recordings from Cape Flats speech communities and capture ordinary people speaking in public and domestic spaces (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”). In one audio snippet we hear an older woman saying apologetically, “Onse praatie suiwer Afrikaan nie. Onse praat kombius Afrikaans” (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”).It is this shame for black modes of speech that POC challenges on this celebratory track and Jansen takes this further by both making an argument against notions of racial and linguistic purity and performing an example of translanguaging. This is important in light of research that suggests that dominant research on the creole history of Afrikaans – specifically, the Cape Muslim contribution to Afrikaans – has been overlooked (Davids 15). This oversight effectively amounted to cultural appropriation as the construction of Afrikaans as a ‘pure’ language with Dutch origins served the Afrikaner Nationalist project when the National Party came into power in 1948 and began to justify its plans to implement legislated apartheid. POC’s act of appropriating the denigrated term gamtaal in service of a Black Consciousness-inspired affirmation of colouredness, which they position as part of the black experience, thus points to alternative ways in which people of colour cand both express and define themselves in defiance of apartheid.Jansen’s work with the hip-hop theater project Afrikaaps reconceptualised gamtaal as Afrikaaps, a combination of the term Afrikaans and Kaaps. Kaaps means from the Cape – as in Cape Town (the city) or the Cape Flats, which is where many people classified as coloured were forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act under apartheid (cf. McDonald; Salo; Alim and Haupt). Taking its cue from POC and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Mr FAT, who asserted that “gamtaal is legal” (Haupt, “Black Thing” 176), the Afrikaaps cast sang, “Afrikaaps is legal” (Afrikaaps). Conclusion: Agency and the Transportability of Mobile MatricesJansen pursues this line of thought by contending that the construction of Shaka Zulu’s kingdom involved mixing many tribes (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”), thereby alluding to arguments that narratives about Shaka Zulu were developed in service of Zulu nationalism to construct Zulu identity as bounded and fixed (Harries 105). Such constructions were essential to the apartheid state's justifications for establishing Bantustans, separate homelands established along the lines of clearly defined and differentiated ethnic identities (Harries 105). Writing about the use of myths and symbols during apartheid, Patrick Harries argues that in Kwazulu, “the governing Inkatha Freedom Party ... created a vivid and sophisticated vision of the Zulu past” (Harries 105). Likewise, Emile YX? contends that isiXhosa’s clicks come from the Khoi (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; Afrikaaps). Hence, the idea of the Khoi San’s lineage and history as being separate from that of other African communities in Southern Africa is challenged. He thus challenges the idea of pure Zulu or Xhosa identities and drives the point home by sampling traditional Zulu music, as opposed to conventional hip-hop beats.Effectively, colonial strategies of tribalisation as a divide and rule strategy through the reification of linguistic and cultural practices are challenged, thereby reminding us of the “transportability of mobile matrices” and “fluidity of identities” (Alim 104, 105). In short, identities as well as cultural and linguistic practices were never bounded and static, but always-already hybrid, being constantly made and remade in a series of negotiations. This perspective is in line with research that demonstrates that race is socially and politically constructed and discredits biologically essentialist understandings of race (Yudell 13-14; Tattersall and De Salle 3). This is not to ignore the asymmetrical relations of power that enable cultural appropriation and racism (Hart 138), be it in the context of legislated apartheid, colonialism or in the age of corporate globalisation or Empire (cf. Haupt, Static; Hardt & Negri). But, even here, as Alim suggests, one should not underestimate the agency of subjects on the local level to produce alternative forms of expression and self-representation.ReferencesAdhikari, Mohamed. "The Sons of Ham: Slavery and the Making of Coloured Identity." South African Historical Journal 27.1 (1992): 95-112.Alim, H. Samy “Translocal Style Communities: Hip Hop Youth as Cultural Theorists of Style, Language and Globalization”. Pragmatics 19.1 (2009):103-127. Alim, H. Samy, and Adam Haupt. “Reviving Soul(s): Hip Hop as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in the U.S. & South Africa”. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice. Ed. Django Paris and H. Samy Alim. 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As part of a linguistic research team I recorded a Khoisan language currently spoken by three people in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Since the variety of language spoken in this location is close to varieties of both the Khoekhoe and Tuu language families, the question of genetic affiliation and classification within the Khoisan language cluster becomes significant. Although reported to have significant lexical similarities due to intensive language contact (Güldemann 2006), extensive research provides evidence of numerous linguistic differences which distinguish between the varieties within the Khoisan families mentioned above (Beach 1938, Bleek 1930, Ladefoged & Traill 1994, Miller, Brugman, Sands, Namaseb, Exter & Collins 2007). Overall, this project attempts to answer the question: How unique is this undocumented language TumɁi in comparison to varieties of geographically neighbouring Khoisan language clusters? This comparative analysis is comprised of a detailed description of the vowel and consonant systems, as well as evidence of phonetic and phonological contrasts. The clear focus on the analysis of sound contrasts is a consequence of limited data due to speaker competence. As a result of intense incomplete acquisition and linguistic attrition, the consultants produce utterances using Khoisan content words within an Afrikaans framework (Killian 2009). Specific research questions include: What is the sound inventory of this language? Are there phonation or glottalization contrasts in vowels? Are there laryngeal contrasts in consonants? What kinds of clicks make up the inventory? This project is a direct effort toward the revitalization and documentation of indigenous languages. Determining the genetic affiliations of this language which is positioned relatively equidistant to the surrounding languages, would also contribute to gaps within the linguistic isoglosses in South Africa.

OPSOMMING Storievertelling word wêreldwyd aangewend om individue op 'n informele wyse te onderrig. Persoonlike vertellings of lewensverhale is 'n onderafdeling van storievertelling as groter fenomeen en hierdie persoonlike lewensverhale kan suksesvol as onderrigstrategie ingespan word. In hierdie verband het McAdams (2001:101) bevind dat lewensverhale veral belangrik is as uitdrukking van die individu se identiteit en hom of haar sodoende help om sin te maak van persoonlike ervarings. Storievertelling is dus 'n uitdrukking van identiteit, want om die storie van 'n mens se lewe te vertel, help jou om sin te maak van jou ervarings en kweek 'n gevoel van self, oftewel "wie ek is". Dit is gevolglik baie belangrik dat leerders van 'n vroeë ouderdom af blootgestel word aan en opleiding ontvang in lewensverhaalvertellings. Hierdie blootstelling lei daartoe dat leerders geleidelik daaraan gewoond gemaak word om as 't ware die storie van hul lewe aan ander te vertel. Op hierdie manier verseker blootstelling aan die deel van persoonllike lewensverhale dat individuele leerlinge nie geïntimideer sal voel deur dergelike aktiwiteite wanneer hulle die ouderdom bereik waar die stories van hul persoonlike belewenisse met vertroue vertel kan word nie. Daar is daarom veral gekyk na die Kurrikulum en Assesseringsbeleidsverklaring (KABV) om vas te stel of daar in die KABV voldoende ruimte geskep is om leerders vanaf 'n vroeë ouderdom bloot te stel aan lewensverhale. Daar is ook ondersoek ingestel of hierdie blootstelling en opleiding in die vertel van lewensverhale toeneem totdat leerders in vroeë adolessensie spontaan en met selfvertroue hulle persoonlike stories aan ander kan vertel. Trefwoorde: Afrikaans Huistaal, dokumentontleding, Kurrikulum en Assesseringsbeleidsverklaring (KABV), lewensverhale, literatuurontleding, McAdams se lewensverhaalteorie, outobiografiese stories, persoonlike vertellings, rol van storievertelling, storievertelling, storievertelvaardighede ABSTRACT Storytelling, in general, is used worldwide as a strategy in informal education. Telling one's personal life story, a subdivision of the encompassing phenomenon, is a valuable educational tool. In this regard storytelling on an individual level possesses important characteristics that can be used to enhance teaching strategies. McAdams (2001:101) found that life stories are especially important in expressing an individual's identity, thereby enabling them to make sense of their experiences. It is therefore very important that learners receive exposure to and training in telling life stories from an early age. This exposure guides learners in gradually becoming familiar with different storytelling activities, thereby enabling them to participate confidently in sharing their life stories upon reaching the age when such activity may be practised successfully. Given the fact that telling life stories is a subdivision of storytelling as a larger global phenomenon, it was important to have a closer look at the functions of storytelling in general. Storytelling as a general educational tool supports the value of learning the art of telling one's life story, especially when considering the influence of storytelling with regard to the neuro-development and associated processes and changes in learners. According to Gazzaniga (2011:75), storytelling reflects a basic ability of the memory to organise, helping a person to present memory thoughts coherently. Particular attention was therefore paid to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) to determine whether the CAPS underlines Gazzaniga's findings on storytelling and memory functions. It is generally accepted that most people learn best by means of their own meaningful experiences that enable them to connect new knowledge to that which they already believe or understand (Killen 2019:3). The guidelines in the CAPS support the notion that storytelling represents the way in which people use spoken language (discourse) and written language (text) in coherent and meaningful ways (Department of Basic Education 2011:14). It is necessary to determine whether enough time has been allocated in the CAPS to expose learners to storytelling from an early age. Since McAdams found that life stories can only be told successfully in early adolescence, it was necessary to determine whether this exposure to and training in storytelling skills accumulate until learners in early adolescence have reached the point where they are able to participate spontaneously and with confidence in telling their life stories. In this study, the CAPS documents were analysed by means of document analysis to see what kind of storytelling is encouraged, how much time is allocated to storytelling from Grade R to Grade 12 and which skills are acquired, according to the CAPS, for learners to be able to successfully participate in personal storytelling (listening and speaking). Findings in this article show that although learners are exposed to storytelling at a young age, the time allocated in the CAPS for storytelling is not enough to establish a storytelling culture. Also, the time spent on storytelling in class decreases as learners grow older, instead of increases, as would be expected. It is recommended that a partnership be established between the school and the community to address this issue. Teachers do not have enough time in the classroom for personal storytelling to take place, and therefore such a partnership will make a positive contribution in this regard. Moreover, the class situation is not always a safe environment in which to engage in personal storytelling - a problem that can, however, also be addressed by means of a partnership. When storytelling is learnt in the community, it should not be a strange concept for the individual when he or she encounters it in class. In this way, storytelling should facilitate the teacher's task in the classroom. It is important that trustworthiness be established in a partnership in order for it to become the medium through which the participants may safely expose their identity, thereby also assisting others in engaging in a similar activity. In this way such a partnership will be mutually beneficial to all the role players. Keywords: Afrikaans Home Language, autobiographical stories, Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), document analysis, life stories, literature analysis, McAdams's life story theory, personal stories, role of storytelling, storytelling, storytelling skills

Abstract Background In South Africa, the prevalence of symptoms of common mental disorders (CMD), i.e. depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are high. This study aimed to use a cognitive interviewing technique to validate the content and structure of a 4-item screening tool, to adapt the tool accordingly, and to use receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis to determine the optimum cut-point for identifying pregnant women with symptoms of CMD. Methods We conducted a mixed method study at a Midwife Obstetric Unit in Cape Town. Women attending the clinic for their first antenatal visit during the recruitment period, whose first language was English, Afrikaans or isiXhosa, were invited to participate. A 4-item screening tool was administered in the first language of the interviewee, after which a cognitive interviewing technique was used to examine the question-response processes and considerations used by respondents as they formed answers to the screening tool questions. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to identify women with symptoms of CMD. Results A 2-week recall period performed well. Questions about (1) being unable to stop worrying, or thinking too much, (2) feeling down, depressed or hopeless, and (3) having thoughts and plans to harm yourself, were well understood. The question that referred to feeling little interest or pleasure in doing things, was poorly understood across all languages. Using ROC analysis with the EPDS as the reference standard, and a cut-point of ≥13, we showed that a 3-item version of the screening tool was able to correctly classify 91% of the women screened. Conclusions Cognitive interviewing enabled testing and refining of the language and constructs of an ultra-brief screening tool. The shortened, 3-item tool is well understood and effective at identifying pregnant women with symptoms of CMD, across the three most commonly spoken languages and cultures in Cape Town.

OPSOMMING Die ondersoek na idiome, uitdrukkings en spreekwoorde as drie tipes meerwoordige leksikale items (MLI) bou voort op die beskrywende ondersoek van Bosman (2000a, 2000b, 2000c) oor MLI's. Die veelvuldige gebruik, verdraaiing en aanpassing van MLI's in gesproke taal blyk ook neerslag te vind in gedrukte advertensiekommunikasie. Die analise van die MLI's in advertensies wat in 2019 en 2020 op die Pendoring-reklamekompetisie se webblad verskyn het, is vir bepaalde patroonmatighede ondersoek. Aan die hand van die relevansieteorie (Wilson & Sperber, 2004) se onderskeid tussen kognitiewe poging (effort) aan die een kant en kognitiewe effek (effect) aan die ander kant is 'n analiseraamwerk opgestel vir die ontleding van alle advertensies in die datastel wat 'n MLI ingesluit het. In terme van letterlikheid (literality) het vier tematiese kategorieë duidelik geblyk. Die analiseraamwerk het ook getoon dat die MLI's konsekwent meer oor die bedoelde teikenmark gekommunikeer het as wat daar iets oor die handelsmerk gekommunikeer is. Die gebruik van MLI's blyk dus mee te werk tot marksegmentering. Daar word 'n opgaaf gebied van die beskrywing (tekening) van die teikenmark, aldus die MLI's wat in 2019 en 2020 in die Pendoring-advertensies ingesluit is. Trefwoorde: Meerwoordige leksikale item (MLI), spreekwoorde, idiome, vaste uitdrukking, relevansieteorie, advertensietaal, kognitiewe effek ABSTRACT The spontaneity with which idiomatic expressions are included and adapted in spoken language is clearly seen in the use of multi-lexical items (MLIs) such as, "Die kalf is op die spit", instead of, "Die kalf is in die put" (meaning a complex situation difficult to solve) and the expression, "Van 'n kers 'n kandelaar maak", instead of the conventional idiomatic expression, "Sy maak van 'n molshoop 'n berg" (meaning to exaggerate). The use, adaption and interplay with the literality of MLIs in printed advertising is the focus of this investigation to determine: • the thematic patterns in MLIs in printed advertising in Afrikaans and • the link between MLIs and market segmentation. A pilot investigation revealed that 91 examples of the total data set of 200 advertisements in magazines gathered between 2009-2019 for a copy-writing project including MLIs such as idioms, proverbs and biblical proverbs that were all linked to one of four themes in terms of literality. For this investigation, all Afrikaans printed advertisements in the 2019 and 2020Pendoring advertising competition that included any of the above-mentioned MLIs were analysed, as is evident in Table 1. A thematic pattern in terms of literality was evident from the start. All examples could be placed in one of four categories (Table 1, Column A), namely spirituality (biblical reference), food, nature and human character. The three articles by Bosman on MLIs in 2000 were a central part of the theoretical point of departure in the investigation. Insights from the Relevance Theory of Wilson and Sperber (2004) formed the basis of the analysis, as can be seen in Table 1 and in the headings, "Cognitive effort" and "Cognitive effect". The analysis in Table 1, Column E also highlights another interesting pattern in the use of MLIs in the dataset. In all instances the implied marketing message communicated something positive about the target audience and almost nothing about the brand name/ (product/service) per se. The use of MLIs such as idioms, proverbs and biblical proverbs can directly be linked to market segmentation, since the comprehension of complex structures such as MLIs is aimed at a very specific audience that can associate or at least comprehend the implied message as target audience. The analysis in Table 1 indicates the cognitive leap required from the non-conventional meaning (Column A to Column F). This cognitive distance is justified in the description by Bosman (2000a:36) focusing on the fixedness of meaning, idiomaticity and the meaning of the unit (and not individual words). Based on the information in Columns A and F of Table 1, the intended Afrikaans target audience of the Pendoring advertisements in 2019 and 2020 is characterised by one or more of the following characteristics: • Pride in language, which includes an active idiomatic language knowledge; • A person with a love for nature and animals; • Spiritual awareness and/or active knowledge of the Bible; • Human character known for intense emotion, a belief in hard work and an appreciation for feeling at home. Language choice in advertisements and the use of higher-order language forms such as MLIs (idioms, proverbs) can be regarded as a form of market segmentation. Only the intended target audience will be able to identify the MLI and the relevant meaning put into the effort to reach the implied marketing message (Column F) in Table 1. Keywords: Multi-lexical item (MLI), proverbs, idioms, fixed expression, Relevance theory, advertising language, cognitive effect

The prophetic voice of the Dutch Reformed Church to the South African Government in the decade after 1994When referring to the viewpoints of the Dutch Reformed Church as a whole, one should look for the decisions of its general synod. In trying to be a church and a prophet, this General Synod should speak out according to the Bible and in the way of a church or an institution of faith.The Dutch Reformed Church indeed spoke as a prophet to the government in the decade after 1994. However, it was done with a certain reluctance and not from an overall perspective. Two main factors contributed to this. There is a difference in worldview between this church and the government. The Dutch Reformed Church had the experience that a little came of its efforts.In the meantime the Dutch Reformed Church remains convinced that it should promote the kingdom of God in South Africa as a church and through its individual members.

The Free State and Northern Cape make up some 40% of the land area of South Africa, while being home to only 10% of the total population. Haematology and Oncotherapy outreach clinics were established in Kimberley, Bethlehem and Welkom to provide a more accessible service to the thinly spread population. A previous study showed these clinics to be cost-effective, but we had no idea how the patients experience them. Our aim was to obtain information about the demographics of the patients, the logistical support of the clinics, the medical needs of the patients and how they experience the clinics. This can help us to improve the service. A questionnaire was tested in a pilot study. The demographic questions covered age, sex and ethnicity. The logistical questions dealt with distance travelled to the clinic, mode of transport, length of time as a patient and cost. The medical need questions dealt with type of disease, treatment received, type of doctor seen and origin of referral. The questions about experience covered satisfaction with the service, staff, waiting times and involvement of non-governmental organizations. Of the 95 patients interviewed 42% were from the haematology clinics. The mean age was 59.5 and the male: female ratio was 0.6:1. Forty-six percent of the patients spoke Afrikaans and 31 % spoke South Sotho. The black:white ratio was 1:1. Twenty-eight percent used the government ambulances (of whom 80% were satisfied) and 56% used their own cars. The median payment at a clinic was R20 (R0 to R200). Only 19% of patients were paying privately. Ninety-five percent of the patients were follow-ups, with the median length of follow-up being 24 months (1 to 468). The patients were mainly referred by local hospitals. Twentytwo percent of the patients had chronic haematological malignancies, while 68% had solid tumours. Thirty-seven percent of the patients received drugs to take home and only 6% got intravenous chemotherapy. Consultants saw 44% of the patients. The median waiting time to be seen was 1.5 hours (0 to 5). Consultation time averaged 10 minutes and most patients were satisfied with this. Despite the study’s small size the system of outreach clinics seems to be delivering a satisfactory service. Criticisms were few. However there were suggestions to create better clinic facilities and to shorten the waiting times at the clinic.

OPSOMMING Die waardering vir president MT Steyn onder sy mense het weerklink in beskrywings waarmee hulle hom gekarakteriseer het, soos "Afrikaner van die Afrikaners" en "siel van die Vryheidstryd". Steyn (1896-1902) was die laaste president van die Republiek van die Oranje-Vrystaat, maar die eerste een wat in dié onafhanklike Boererepubliek gebore is. Omstanders kon sy belydenis van God Drie-enig as die Driemaal Heilige God uit sy eie mond hoor. Hy het sy taak, waaronder die Vrystaat se deelname aan die Anglo-Boereoorlog, in die geloof aangepak. Sy reaksie op probleme was gegrond op Christelike lewenswaarhede. Hoewel hy soms in onpersoonlike, onsydige terme na God verwys het, sou dit hom nie verhinder om die Bybel as gids vir die lewe te aanvaar nie. Vanuit sy agtergrond as 'n Vrystaatse boerseun sou Steyn 'n spontane band met die Afrikaner en veral die Vrystaatse Afrikaner ontwikkel. Deur studie en opleiding as 'n Afrikaner uit Afrika in Nederland en Brittanje, asook deur sy vriendskap met bekende Engelse van Bloemfontein en sy werk as 'n Vrystaatse regter, sou Steyn ontwikkel in 'n moderne, belese en berese staatsman. Hierdie Vrystaatse president het gedurende sy ampstydperk (1896-1902) getoon dat hy deeglik op hoogte was van Suid-Afrikaanse en Westerse denkrigtings en dat hy sy eie posisie as Vrystater in hierdie opsig na binne en buite kon verantwoord. Steyn se optrede as president op nasionale sowel as internasionale vlak is deurgaans gerig deur die beginsel van reg en geregtigheid. Hy was uitgesproke Afrikaans, maar met lewensruimte vir ander groepe. Daarby was hy 'n voorstander van die strukturele gelykwaardigheid van state, ongeag hulle mag of vermoë. Steyn se sentrale lewenskompas is op die Vrouemonument aangebring: "Uw wil geschiede …". Trefwoorde: Afrikaner van die Afrikaners; belydende gereformeerde Christen; eerste seun van die land as president; Britse imperialisme; "Laat U wil geskied" ("Uw wil geschiede …") ABSTRACT MT Steyn was the last president of the Republic of the Orange Free State (1896-1902), since his term as president coincided with the Anglo Boer War (1899-1902) in which the small republic, together with its sister state, the South African Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, ZAR), had to defend themselves against imminent invasion by Great Britain. His inspirational leadership during this war gave rise to nicknames such as "Afrikaner van die Afrikaners" (the outstanding Afrikaner) and "Siel van die Vryheidstryd" (the spiritual driving force behind the fight for freedom), simultaneously showing his close ties with the Afrikaner people. This article takes a closer look at MT Steyn as an able leader of Christian Afrikaners in his time. It focuses on Steyn as an outspoken reformed Christian, his credo or expression of faith in God and his application of biblical truths to everyday life. His spontaneous identification with and leadership of the Afrikaner people are discussed with reference to his term as president, but also taking into consideration his conduct as an ex-president and community leader. Steyn was born near the town of Winburg in the Free State on 2 October 1857, the first president to be born in the republic as such and educated within an Afrikaner farming community - according to him he was a "simple" son of a farmer ("'n gewone boerseun"), familiar with both "a horse and a gun". Given this kind of background Steyn's spiritual and emotional bond with the Afrikaner people was never doubted. It was simply accepted. He was the political and spiritual leader - the real first citizen - of the Republic of the Orange Free State at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war in 1899. His reading of this momentous event was that the very existence of the Afrikaner people was at stake. In his opinion, imperialists such as the British High Commissioner in Southern Africa, Lord Alfred Milner, precipitated the Anglo-Boer War with the intent of discouraging the Afrikaner people in trying to resist the proposed expansion of the British Empire, which would cost them their freedom as citizens of an independent Boer republic. Steyn spoke of the Triune God as our God who is three times holy. Apart from certain unpersonal names associated with the influence of the Enlightenment from 1750 onwards, he used scriptural or biblical names for the Lord. He accepted the beneficial effect of the providence of God in human life. His notion that nothing happened outside the will of the Lord, was shared by his fellow Afrikaners' unquestionable belief in the providence of God. Although the Boers could not explain it properly, they nevertheless believed in God's guiding while engaging in fierce battles with the English. Even the unimaginable suffering endured by women and children in concentration camps, where more than 34 000 Afrikaner women and children reportedly died of unnatural causes, eventually resulted in the words, "Let thy will be done.." being included in the inscription on the Women's Memorial in 1913. It is important to note, here, that the by then ex-president Steyn was instrumental in having this particular inscription approved, thereby showing his ability to influence the opinion of his fellow Afrikaner people. It should be clear that Steyn knew his people well enough to persuade them to follow his lead. Towards the end of the Anglo Boer War a well-known British enemy, Lord Kitchener, while in charge of the British troops in Southern Africa, remarked that Steyn had the ability to turn his people around in not accepting a peace treaty and, instead, to continue with the war. Undoubtedly, it was no easy decision for Steyn to surrender to the British, thereby accepting the reality that the Republic of the Orange Free State would cease to exist. At the end of the peace talks, his absence from signing the peace treaty due to serious illness, as far as he was concerned, could be ascribed to the providence of God. During the war Steyn often took the initiative of leading by example, thereby inspiring citizens of both the republics engaged in the war. According to his perspective the Afrikaners or Boers could physically lose the war, but still overcome the British emotionally and spiritually. However, should the Boers cowardly surrender to the British, they would lose both their self-esteem and self-respect. A similar view was shared by Emily Hobhouse, the British Florence Nightingale who had endeavoured to alleviate the suffering of the Boer women and children in the concentration camps during the Anglo Boer War. In an address, read on her behalf at the opening of the Women's Memorial in Bloemfontein in 1913, she urged women and children to forgive the British aggressors, because, in her opinion, the Boers had gained the upper moral ground and could therefore afford forgiveness. This sentiment was echoed by Steyn in his reference to the triumphant martyrdom of the Afrikaner people, in particular the women and children. According to him they had lost the war but won the peace, and to his satisfaction they had also retained their self-esteem, Christian faith and proven values of life. In Steyn's view, then, the struggle against British oppression could be justified as an attempt to uphold justice between the states of the world. As a Christian he opted for the structural equality of states, irrespective of their military power, material wealth or superior numbers. He chose to help the sister republic of the Free State, the ZAR, against the British, because as a Christian state, the Free State had to keep its promise, which was included in a treaty with the ZAR in 1889 and 1897. In the representative assembly of the Free State or the meeting of his "Volksraad" before the war, on 22 September 1899, he declared in public that although the Free State was a small and weak state, it was strong enough to keep its word. Steyn saw in a republic with democratic customs the preferred way whereby a Christian Afrikaner state could be established. He chose a republic as the right of his people and one in which he as a Christian was willing to accommodate other cultures and languages. Already before his term as president, the Republic of the Free State was complimented as a model state. As a republican and a man with insight in the ways of the Afrikaner people, Steyn embraced the Free State as his homeland. Keywords: outstanding Afrikaner; confessing reformed Christian; first president born in the Republic of the Orange Free State; British imperialism; "Thy will be done …" ("Uw wil geschiede …")