South African English

South Africa has twelve official languages, among them the imported English and Afrikaans and the indigenous Zulu and Xhosa. European settlement began with the Dutch in the 17th century. With time and distance the language diverged from Dutch to become Afrikaans. South African English has adopted many Afrikaans words. Early settlers encountered many new plants and animals. Perhaps the best known are the meerkats [E18th]. Their name is a transferred use of the Dutch meerkat, a term for a type of long-tailed monkey (the form mercat is also found in Late Middle English), reinforced by Afrikaans mier ‘termite’, a favourite food. Bok [E19th] is the Afrikaans for an antelope, and there are many antelopes that contain the word as part of their name, such as the springbok [L18th] from springen ‘jump, leap, spring’. Two animals that are favourites with word gamers are the aardvark [L18th] and the quagga [L18th], the brown form of the zebra; the former gets its name from aarde ‘earth’ and varken ‘hog, pig’, the latter via Afrikaans kwagga probably from Khoekhoe ||koaah, probably based on the animal’s bray (the || represents one of the click sounds found in this language). The wildebeest [E19th] simply means ‘wild beast’ and is another name for the gnu [L18th], the name in Khoikhoi and San which again may be imitative of its alarm sound. Many decorative plants come from South Africa, but one utilitarian one that has become well known in recent years is the rooibos [E20th], used as a tea and which simply means ‘red bush’ in Afrikaans.

The Boers [L18th], from the Dutch for ‘farmer’, were settlers who wanted territory independent from British rule, and in 1835 many set out northward on what became known as the Great Trek [E19th], from the Dutch for ‘pull, travel’ (also the source of trigger [E17th]). On overnight stops they formed their wagons into a laager [M19th] or protective circular encampment, which has given us laager mentality for an entrenched viewpoint. Their term for open grassland was veld [M19th] ‘field’, while a kop [M19th] from the word for ‘head’ is a hill. During the 1899–1902 second Boer War a major battle was fought between the Boers and British at a place called Spion Kop. Many of the British soldiers were from Liverpool, which is how the high bank for spectators at Anfield, home of Liverpool Football Club, got the nickname Spion Kop, soon shortened to the Kop.

One universally useful word we get from Afrikaans is dingus [L19th] from ding ‘thing’, adopted into English for a ‘thingummy’, something you cannot remember or do not know the name of.

See also commando, scale, slim.