Afrikaans: the Language of Black and Coloured Dissent

Afrikaans: the Language of Black and
Coloured Dissent

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Introduction
Afrikaans, the official language during South Africa’s Apartheid era, often
occupies a politicised space as the ‘colonial’ language of the
White Afrikaner oppressor. Indeed, Afrikaans has a violent and racist history of
oppression during the eras of White Afrikaner nationalism and
Apartheid. [1] Afrikaans is therefore generally associated with White Afrikaans
speakers (White Afrikaners) and perceived as a ‘White’ language. [2] The history
of the oppression of Black and Coloured people by White Afrikaners, especially
during Apartheid, is well-known. Afrikaner hegemony and the utilisation of the
language during Apartheid to discriminate, dominate, and repress cannot be
disputed. The 2015 and 2016 #AfrikaansMustFall protests (part of
the #RhodesMustFall protests) underscore the extent of White Afrikaner
hegemony and the need to ‘decolonise’ the language.
The #AfrikaansMustFall protests have unsurprisingly drawn comparison
with the 1976 protests against Afrikaans: both movements resisted oppression
by White Afrikaner hegemony. [3]
Heritage activist Patric Mellet comments on the reason for the 1976 protests
against Afrikaans:
The rebellion against Afrikaans in 1976 was against Afrikaans, the white
oppressor’s language. Forced on people as a language, a medium of instruction in
schools. You’re hearing commands, you’re hearing abusive language, and so on,
and you’re supposed to learn in this. So it was a natural thing for young people to
say: “To hell with Afrikaans.”’ [4]

The 1976
uprisings against Afrikaans Image source

However, it is important to recognise that Afrikaans was also employed as a
language of liberation during Apartheid (by White and Black/Coloured speakers
alike). This article focuses on the Black history of Afrikaans in this regard. [5] The
majority of Afrikaans speakers in South Africa are not White. [6] Fifty percent are
Coloured people. [7] Indeed, there is a large body of work that focuses on the
contribution of foreign slaves and indigenous Khoikhoi to the historical
formation of Afrikaans: these population groups were subjugated by the
colonists and discriminated against during Afrikaner nationalism and Apartheid,
and yet their contribution to the language of their oppressors is documented and
accepted. [8] Therefore, Afrikaans occupies a somewhat awkward place in South
Africa’s linguistic historiography, it ‘is at once the language of the conqueror and
the language of the oppressed’. [9]
Rather than focusing on the oppression of Black and Coloured people by White
Afrikaans speakers, this article focuses on ways in which oppressed Afrikaans-
speakers historically employed the language ‘to express [B]lack resistance’ in the
eras of colonialism, Afrikaner nationalism and Apartheid. [10]
Afrikaans: A White/colonial or African language?
Afrikaans is the third most spoken language in South Africa. [11] Jansen argues
that the language can be regarded as a unique ‘African-Germanic’ language: it did
not originate within European borders and it ‘is spoken primarily in
Africa’. [12] [13] [14] Afrikaans is also defined as a (southern) African creole
language, spoken in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. [15]
Due to its association with White Afrikaner nationalism and Apartheid, Afrikaans
is popularly perceived as a ‘White’ language. [16] The Apartheid ideology ?

according to André P. Brink (in Van den Heever) ? ‘colonise[d]’ the
language. [17] Concurrently, Afrikaans is connected to racism, repression and
violence. [18] It was, after all, the medium through which the Apartheid
government (including police officers, ministers and civil servants) enforced
‘laws prohibiting contact between races in matters of housing, sexual relations,
schooling and land ownership’. [19]
The 1976 Soweto protests against Afrikaans as a forced medium of instruction in
Black schools were recognised globally. [20] The well-known photograph of
murdered 13-year-old Hector Pieterson is one of many that reached global
audiences and brought attention to the vitriol that Black people carried towards
Afrikaans. [21] Photographs circulated of slogans on banners which read, for
example, ‘We do not want Afrikaans’. [22] The ‘coercive power’ of the Apartheid
government in forcing Afrikaans upon its populace led to ‘the uprising and
especially in the wake of the state’s violent response, a hardened suspicion of its
speakers’. [23] In addition, the ‘Black history’ of Afrikaans was denied by the
hegemony of Afrikaner nationalism (including indoctrination ‘by Afrikaner
Christian national education, propaganda and the media’). [24] Given this denial
of the Black/Coloured history of the language, it is ironic that most Afrikaans
speakers in South Africa are, as noted, not White.
White Afrikaans speakers only make up 40% of all South African Afrikaans
speakers. [25] Coloured people, Black Africans and South African Indians
constitute the other 60% of Afrikaans speakers. [26]
Extensive scholarly research substantiates the claim that people oppressed by
colonialism, Afrikaner nationalism, and Apartheid significantly contributed to the
formation of the language. [27] Neville Alexander, for example, asserts: ‘[i]f the
Khoi[khoi], the San, and especially the slaves, were not forced to learn Dutch, or
to speak it, then the language Afrikaans would not really have developed’. [28]
It is also argued that varieties of Afrikaans such as Cape Afrikaans are spoken by
Coloured people and contributed greatly to the formation of the
language. [29] Coloured people are the descendants of Europeans, the indigenous
Khoikhoi, and imported slaves from countries such as Indonesia, Madagascar and
Bengal. [30] It is claimed that three main groups contributed to the development
of Afrikaans: the European settlers, the indigenous Khoikhoi and slaves from
African and Asian countries [31]. Other groups who advanced language contact
included Eastern political exiles (between 1652 and 1767, political prisoners
were exiled to the Cape from countries such as Indonesia, India and Sri
Lanka). [32] [33]
Afrikaans is therefore influenced by ‘Dutch; the seafarer variants of Malay,
Portuguese and Indonesian; and the indigenous Kh[oikhoi] and San
languages’. [34] Valley and Valley state: ‘while [A]frikaans’ [D]utch heritage
cannot be denied, it must be acknowledged that it was shaped and molded away
from [D]utch by the [K]hoi and [M]alay slaves.’ [35]

Vocabulary that demonstrates these influences, include, for example, the word
baie/‘many’ (derived from the Malay word banyak) [36]; piesang/‘banana’
(Malay-derived); baadjie/‘jacket’ (Malay-derived); sambreel/‘umbrella’
(Portuguese-derived); mielie/‘mealie’ (Portuguese-derived); and gogga/‘bug’
(Khoikhoi-derived). [37] The expression baie dankie/‘many thanks’ is half-
derived from Dutch (hartelijk dank) and Malay (banyak) respectively. [38]
In order to place these influences into context, a brief overview of the
development of the language is provided in the following paragraphs.
Afrikaans developed in (local) colonial circumstances as a contact
language: [39] The Cape was a ‘melting pot of languages’. [40] In 1595, Dutch
traders and the indigenous Khoikhoi first came into contact at the Cape. [41] The
local language Afrikaans thereby started to develop. [42] In 1652, the VOC
established a refreshment station at the Cape. [43] Afrikaans originated
within the creole community of the Cape Colony during the era of the [44].

The indigenes encounter Jan van Riebeeck Image source

In colonial marketplace settings, the indigenous population is usually forced to
attempt to converse in the invading settler’s language. [45] At the Cape, the local
population had no choice but ‘to quickly adapt to the newcomers’ [Dutch East
India Company officials] shrewd tactics when it came to negotiating and
bartering’. [46] Interpreters, for example Krotoa, Autshomao and Doman,
thereby became significant negotiators. [47] From 1658, the incoming
slaves imported Malay and Portuguese (‘the lingua francas of trade in the Indian
Ocean world in which the Dutch East India Company operated’) to the Cape. [48]

‘Cape of Good Hope’ Image
source

At the early Cape during the Dutch East India Company era, documents of court
cases recorded slaves’ spoken language: their recorded testimonies documented
‘some of the earliest examples of the restructuring of Dutch, which eventually
resulted in the formation of Afrikaans’. [49] According to Jansen, ‘[t]his
significant early shift from standard Dutch was first heard through the “voice of
the slave”’. [50]
According to Shell, the first Afrikaans book was authored ‘by an imam, a slave
descendant’. [51] Davids claims that ‘the first published Afrikaans work’ was the
religious book Gablomatiem (1856), ‘written in Cape Dutch but in Arabic rather
than Roman script’. [52] However, copies of this religious text did not
survive. [53] Before the publication date of this text was discovered, it was
thought that the first Afrikaans book was Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas
Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar (L.H. Meurant, 1862) [54] (Giliomee cites this book
as the first secular Afrikaans book). [55]

A
representation of a madrassa, an Islamic religious school (‘The Afrikaans language is thought to have
developed as a lingua franca for the slaves, as well as their masters, to be able to communicate
effectively. Educated Muslims were in fact the first to write texts in Afrikaans’) Image source

The Cape Dutch translation of Bayan al-Din (‘Exposition of the religion’), namely
Uiteensetting van die godsdienst, was also written in Arabic script by Abu Bakr
Effendi in Cape Town in approximately 1869. [56] Effendi ? a theologian born in
Turkish Kurdistan ? was dispatched to the Cape in 1862 in his capacity as a
religious advisor. [57] The British government requested his assistance as
mediator regarding a disagreement between Cape Muslims. [58]
The publication of Uiteensetting van die godsdienst in 1877 in Constantinople
(today Istanbul) was authorised by the Ottoman Empire’s Foreign Ministry to be
distributed free of charge amongst Capetonian Muslims. [59] According to
Jansen, ‘[t]he text is especially valuable for its adherence to the norms of Cape
Dutch’. [60]
However, during the late nineteenth century, the creole language Afrikaans was
appropriated by ‘patriotic male European colonists’. [61] These slave owners
therefore ‘adopt[ed] [Afrikaans] … and call[ed] it their own’. [62] In this regard,
Valley and Valley emphasise: ‘there is a side to the [A]frikaans language, the
creole birth and [C]oloured connection that has been overlooked in our collective
[S]outh [A]frican consciousness’. [63] Herewith a brief overview of the socio-
political background of the White appropriation of Afrikaans, starting with the
stigmatisation of the local, multi-racial Cape Dutch spoken language by the Dutch
and English upper classes.

The local Cape Dutch dialect of the early to mid-nineteenth century differed from
metropolitan/standard Dutch: ‘[a]t that stage Afrikaans was still definitely seen
as an uncivilised patois spoken mainly by non-[W]hites’. [64] Dutch was utilised
in the public spheres of the press, in schools and in churches. [65] White people
as well as ‘people of colour’ spoke varieties of Afrikaans in the sphere of the
home and in informal contexts. [66] The Dutch and English upper classes of the
Cape Colony ridiculed Cape Dutch as, for example, Hotnotstaal [Hotnot language,
an extremely derogatory label] and Kitchen-Dutch. [67] The multi-racial
language Afrikaans was perceived as an embarrassment: by this time,
distinctions based on race and class has become entrenched into society. [68]
Cape Dutch was ‘spoken by the peasants, the urban proletariat whatever their
ethnic background and even the middle class of civil servants, traders and
teachers’. [69] It was not considered by the upper classes as a language that
‘could express learning, writing or upper middle class culture’. [70] However,
White, middle-class Cape Dutch speakers aimed ‘to disprove and counter such
elite perceptions’. [71]
Furthermore, various nineteenth century political events ? such as the First Boer
War ? contributed to ‘the struggle to give Afrikaans its rightful
place’. [72] Afrikaner nationalism also arose during the 1870s as a response to
the Anglicisation policy enforced over decades by British governors (such as lord
Charles Somerset [73]) [74] [The first British occupation was between 1795 and
1803 [75], and the second from 1806 [76]]. This policy was enforced in the
church, in schools and the civil service. [77]
The fight for Afrikaans coincided with the rise Afrikaner
nationalism. [78] The Fellowship of True Afrikaners arose during the 1870s era
of the rise of Afrikaner nationalism. [79] This Fellowship was established on 14
August 1875. [80] Their aim ‘was to convince Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking
white people that Afrikaans could play an important role in their national
consciousness and to regard themselves as a special community called
Afrikaner’. [81] At the time, many Afrikaners perceived the language ‘as an
incorrect form of Dutch’. [82] The group thereby endeavoured ‘to get Afrikaans
recognised as a language distinct from Dutch’ and to develop a ‘high’ variety of
Afrikaans. [83] The Fellowship published a newspaper to publicise their
message. [84] The first edition was published on 15 January
1876: [85] Die Afrikaanse Patriot ‘was established to help convince the
Afrikaners that Afrikaans is their own language. [86]
The Fellowship perceived Afrikaans as the language of the White
Afrikaners. [87] The struggle for Afrikaans language rights excluded Coloured
Afrikaans speakers. [88] [Valley and Valley note that these speakers are still
being stigmatised: ‘it seems that the version of [A]frikaans spoken in the
[C]oloured community is seen as a colloquial version of “pure” [A]frikaans and is
almost always represented as being comical and never taken seriously’. [89]]

Furthermore, the creole nature of Afrikaans was actively rejected; [90] written
Dutch was utilised as the foundation for the standardisation of Afrikaans. [91]
In addition: the endeavour of language planners to separate ‘high’ Afrikaans from
‘low’ Afrikaans included the advocating of Afrikaans as ‘a formal written
language with real cultural clout’. [92] However, ‘a standardised form of
Afrikaans … became a marker of “[W]hiteness”; “Coloured Afrikaans” was
considered quaint and sub-standard’. [93] It was thought that ‘high’ Afrikaans ‘as
a written language … should have an image that was as ‘civilised’ (read: [W]hite)
as possible’. [94] Valley and Valley confirm this point: ‘[A]frikaans, originally a
language of the free slaves and the [K]hoi[khoi] inhabitants of the [C]ape, became
a tool used by the oppressor’. [95] Standard Afrikaans is, according to social
opinion, the ‘prestige’ Afrikaans variety; other varieties are viewed as inferior
and lower in status. [96]

Stephanus Jacobus (S.J.) du Toit, leader of the Fellowship of True Afrikaners Image source

Willemse cites the consequences of Afrikaans constructed as a White language
by, for example, Afrikaner language nationalists such as the Fellowship of True
Afrikaners: [97]
In denying the commonality of their fellow Afrikaans speakers who were
descendants of slaves, indigenous people or simply poor, they were elevating the
language to a narrow ethnic nationalist cause. Through a web of actions and
policies that influenced education, cultural and economic policies well into the
20th century, Afrikaans was constructed as a ‘[W]hite language’, with a ‘[W]hite
history’ and ‘[W]hite faces’ [as previously stated]. [98]
However, several authors argue that the language does not exclusively signify
suppression and racism. For example, Jansen states that ‘Afrikaans is not merely
the language of [W]hite Afrikaner nationalism … Afrikaans predates and extends
beyond [A]partheid’. [99] Similarly, Titus asserts that ‘Afrikaans does not equate
Afrikaner’. [100] Willemse emphasises the language as one of resistance:
While our recent sociopolitical history often casts Afrikaans as the language of
racists, oppressors and unreconstructed nationalists, the language also bears the
imprint of a fierce tradition of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, of an all-
embracing humanism and antiapartheid activism. [101]
Similarly, Cecyl Esau [Memories of a political prisoner on Robben Island, 1987-
1991] reminisces that many Coloured people ‘fought just as hard [as the 16 June
1976 protestors] in the struggle against apartheid … in
Afrikaans’. [102] However, Van den Heever emphasises the ambivalence
experienced by Coloured Afrikaans speakers, namely, ‘the conflict between his
Afrikaans mother-tongue and his vision of liberation from Afrikaner-dominance
[which] unleashed an intense ambivalence in the mind of the oppressed
Afrikaans-speaker’. [103]
Similarly, Sonn highlights this ambiguity faced by Coloured Afrikaans speakers
(on the back cover of a book which focuses on the role of Coloured Afrikaans
speakers in the development of Afrikaans): they speak the language and were
oppressed in the language. [104] To elaborate: Sonn notes ‘the ambivalence
about the Afrikaans of our heart and the distasteful way in which we were
oppressed and disregarded’ in this language. [105] However, he also affirms that
‘Afrikaans is not only the language of [A]partheid; Afrikaans is also the language
of the struggle and reconciliation’. [106]
The next section of this article focuses on Afrikaans utilised as a language to
express resistance by slaves and Coloured people during the historical eras of
colonialism, Afrikaner nationalism, Apartheid, and the post-Apartheid era.
Resisting colonialism: the ghoemaliedjies [ghoema songs] and the
Genadendal printing press

The earliest forms of resistance to colonial linguistic influence include ghoema
songs (that form part of Cape Muslim slave culture) and texts (originating from
the printing press of the first South African mission station, Genadendal).
 Firstly, the ghoemaliedjies of the Cape Muslim slave culture are explored. As
stated previously, slaves and Eastern political exiles arrived in 1658, and
between 1652 and 1767 respectively. Indonesian prisoners transferred their
literary traditions such as the pantun to the Cape and [107] the ghoemaliedjie
shares likenesses with this form of song. [108] Even though ghoemaliedjies are
tricky to date [109], they ‘include references that could, arguably, be used to
claim that during the period of the Dutch East India Company rule slaves created
adaptations of both … the pantun, and the Dutch popular song, the mopje’. [110]
Ghoemaliedjies formed a significant part of slave culture. [111] They are a
mélange of Dutch and Indonesian folksongs. [112] Historically, ghoemaliedjies
were sung in Malay-Portuguese, Malay-Dutch, Afrikaans and
English. [113] Furthermore, numerous early Dutch folksongs ‘developed into
Afrikaans (sometimes in a dialect which reveals their Dutch
origins)’. [114] Ghoemaliedjies also appropriated the forms of Dutch folk
songs. [115]
In general, ghoemaliedjies are overtly satirical: they were used by slaves to
comment on the colonists. [116] A specific form of this song utilises the form,
rhythm and lyrics of traditional Dutch (and subsequently Afrikaans)
folksongs. [117] Winberg notes the significance of language use in these songs:
The adaptation of the colonists’ language by slaves was not an act of submission.
They took the [W]hite man’s language, altered it, added new words and, very
often, threw it back in parody … Song, as Vernon February has pointed out, was
one of the few means by which [W]hite society could be satirised (February 31).
Adaptation of the oppressor’s language and culture is a feature of many slave
societies. [118]
The Dutch colonists’ songs were subtly altered by their servants for commentary
on their masters. [119] The ghoemalied is mainly influenced by a specific form of
Dutch folk song, the ‘pieknieklied’ (picnic song). [120] In this regard, the
ghoemalied ridicules respected elderly figures within the conservative Dutch
community: many ooms [uncles] and tannies [aunties], such as ‘oom [uncle]
Jannie’, were mocked as so-called picnic personae. [121]
The appropriated ghoemalied also mocks the ‘sentimentalised boerenooi [farm
girl]’ (‘The idealised farm girl is the heroine of a multitude of romantic
folksongs’). [122] In addition to the boerenooi, the slaves mocked their White
madams [123]/the boerevrou [boer woman]. [124]
Slaves sung ghoemaliedjies on their annual picnics (which slave owners were
required to provide). [125] Therefore, the ghoemaliedjie is (also) referred to as,
for example, a ‘Malay picnic song’ or a ‘moppie’. [126] At present, Ghoemaliedjies

are still performed at the annual Malay Choir Competition. [127] Traditionally,
these songs form an important part of the Cape Minstrel Carnival. [128]
Winberg finds the appropriation of Malay songs by Afrikaners ‘as expressions of
a folk consciousness’ ironic: [129] ‘[t]he satirical traditions of the ghoemaliedjie
live on … in the most soulful utterances of Afrikanerdom’. [130] The (perceived)
Afrikaner folk songs, for example, Siembamba and Suikerbossie, were created
within the Muslim community (Du Plessis: 1935:113, 134). [131] Therefore,
‘[s]ongs which originated in the Dutch community were sung as parodies by
Muslims and then re-emerged as Afrikaner folk songs’. [132]
           The Cape Minstrel Carnival marches to the tune of Suikerbossie.
Other texts that oppose colonialism include a monthly journal (De Bode van
Genadendal, 1859) and a novella (Benigna van Groenekloof of Mamre, 1973),
both printed at the printing press in Genadendal (initially called
Baviaanskloof [133]). Genadendal is the oldest mission station in South
Africa, [134] established in 1738 [135] by the missionary Georg
Schmidt. [136] His ‘main task was to teach the Khoikhoi the Christian
doctrine’. [137]
In this Moravian mission town, Afrikaans is ‘the mother-tongue’. [138] Titus
notes the role the Genadendal printing press played in resisting colonial
linguistic influence: ‘[o]ther than the Fellowship for True Afrikaners in 1875,
Genadendal Dutch had already in 1816 cut itself off from the High Dutch and is
also printed on a Gutenberg-model-printing press.’ [139] Titus also emphasises
the contribution of Genadendal to the Afrikaans language: ‘[it] played a large role
in the establishment of the spoken language to a written language … on the other
hand because it had one of the first printing presses in the Cape where this
language could be promoted and published in letter and book form’.> [140]

Genadendal Mission Station (c. 1849) Image source

The first Genadendal text is De Bode van Genadendal, a monthly journal
established in 1859 (since 1914, published as Die Huisvriend). [141] Taking the
date of the Bode’s publication into account, it is argued that Die Afrikaanse
Patriot (1876) is not the first Afrikaans newspaper: the latter view is perpetuated
in ‘Afrikaner-centric … traditional language history textbooks’. [142] It is thereby
significant to note that the White Afrikaans speakers of the Fellowship for True
Afrikaners were not amongst the first Afrikaans speakers to help to establish
Afrikaans in written form.
White people initiated and were the first editors and writers for De Bode;
however, it ‘quickly became the mouthpiece of [C]oloured Afrikaans
talent’. [143] The White (and subsequently Coloured) editors requested
members of the congregation to submit contributions such as articles, stories and
poems. [144] Other contributions also included letters. [145] These
contributions, comprising hundreds of pages, are considered very significant
Afrikaans literary pieces. [146]
This printing press also published a novella about a Coloured woman, Benigna
van Groenekloof of Mamre [147] (published anonymously in 1873) [148] The
book by C.P. Hoogenhout is therefore not, as perceived, the first Afrikaans novel,
published in the same year). [149] [Kannemeyer cites this book, titled Die
geskiedenis van Josef, as the first ‘extensive [Afrikaans] work of prose’. [150]]

The novella Benigna aimed to address the needs of Christian Coloureds and to
permit the people to tell their own real-life stories and stories from their history
in their own language (oral sources provided much of the material). [151] The
novella is informed by political ideology: it comments on problematic human
relationships in terms of racial discrimination (Benigna, a Coloured girl, is
forbidden to attend school with her White friend; their friendship is thereby
threatened). [152]
Letters published in De Bode are also regarded as significant anti-colonial
Afrikaans texts. Between 1899 and 1914, former students corresponded in the
form of letters. [153] These letters were deliberately written in this era’s
common spoken language: the writers expressed that if something is written in
the way one speaks, one can understand better. [154] As previously stated,
Afrikaans ? in contrast to standard Dutch ? was perceived as ‘plattaal’ [literal
translation: flat language] at the time. [155]
However, in these letters, it was encouraged that readers would want to read
something ‘in their language’: ‘[i]t is indeed true, that a lot of people say that
what the people speak here at the Cape is not a language. [156] I do not agree
with this. Even though the language does not have grammar, the people indeed
express their thoughts with the language and indeed in words’ (De Bode
1904:68). [157] Another letter deliberates: how would school inspectors ? being
amongst those who ‘fight so hard for the Dutch language’ ? react if learners do
not write in standard Dutch (De Bode 1899:76). [158] Taking the above
discussion into account, resistance against the colonists’ language (standard
Dutch) is expressed.
In the next section, texts that oppose Afrikaner nationalism are emphasised. As
noted, Afrikaner nationalism arose during the 1870s. In the early twentieth
century (from 1900 to 1930), Afrikaner nationalism became a more serious and
purposeful national movement; it became much bigger than the endeavours of
the Fellowship of True Afrikaners. [159] Furthermore, the South African
War ‘was the spark needed to fight for Afrikaans’. [160]
Within the first three decades of the twentieth century, various Afrikaner
language organisations, publications (such as newspapers) and publishing
houses were established. [161] In 1918, Afrikaans was introduced as a university
subject. [162] In the same year, the Afrikaner-Broederbond was established ‘with
the aim of helping to build the Afrikaner in cultural and economic terms’. [163]
By 1925, Afrikaans was established as a medium of instruction (for Afrikaans
speaking learners) in schools. [164] In 1925, Afrikaans was ? alongside English ?
‘fully recognised as a language of South Africa’. [165] The following year, a
comprehensive Afrikaans dictionary was established. [166] In 1933, the Bible
was translated into Afrikaans. [167] In the next section, texts that oppose
Afrikaner nationalist hegemony – including firstly, the satirical column
Straatpraatjes, and secondly, poetry – are discussed.

Resisting Afrikaner nationalism: Straatpraatjes and the first Black
Afrikaans poet
The satirical column Straatpraatjies was published between 1909 and 1922 in
the newspaper of the APO [168] [the African Political Organisation]. The APO ?
established in 1902 in Cape Town ? is cited as ‘the first substantive Coloured
political pressure group in the Cape Colony’. [169] The first issue of the APO’s
newspaper, titled APO, was published on 24 May 1909. [170] The APO criticised
‘the [W]hite commercial press’ of, amongst others, assuming ‘that South Africa
belongs to the [W]hites … by right of conquest’. [171] The leader of the
APO, Abdullah Abdurahman, is suspected to be the writer of Straatpraatjes
(which was written under the pseudonym Piet Uithalder) [172].

                           Abdullah Abdurahman Image source

Straatpraatjes is based on the (White middle-class) Afrikaans column
Parlementse Praatjes (published in the newspaper De Zuid-Afrikaan, ‘the leading
Dutch newspaper in the Cape’). [173] For the APO, this column represented
Afrikaner – therefore not Coloured – interests. [174] The Straatpraatjes column
thereby endeavoured ‘to express [C]oloured interests in the language of the
[C]oloured community’. [175] It is cited as ‘the earliest example that we know of
where Afrikaans is used to articulate [B]lack resistance to [W]hite
domination’. [176] Satire was utilised as a ‘weapon … against [Abdullah
Abdurahman’s] Afrikaner nationalist opponents. [177]
The column rejected, for example, segregation, White racism, and ‘mocked the
operations of Parliament’. [178] Furthermore, ‘to address readers in the unique
language of his community’ (namely, ‘the Afrikaans vernacular that is spoken in
the urban [C]oloured community of the Western Cape’), was a
‘novelty’. [179] This conscious utilisation of ‘the vernacular of the [C]oloured
working class of Cape Town’ thereby contrasted with the form of Afrikaans used
by White middle-class speakers in, for example, the Parliament. [180]

Approximately two decades after Straatpraatjes ended, the first Black Afrikaans
poet published his first collection of poems. S.V. Petersen is regarded as the first
Black Afrikaans poet. [181] His debut collection of poems, titled Die enkeling, was
published in 1944. [182] Willemse cites Petersen as ‘the first [C]oloured writer to
debut in Afrikaans’. [183] His poetry overtly confronts the social
environment: [184] his social position did not grant him access to ‘mainstream
Afrikaans cultural life’. [185]
In 1948, the National Party came to power. [186] Between 1948 and 1953, most
Apartheid laws were adopted. [187] During the 1940s, ‘Afrikaans became
perceived as the language of the oppressor and a symbol of
apartheid’. [188] Afrikaans became more powerful: ‘[b]y the time that the
nationalists came to political power in 1948 Afrikaans’ position was further
bolstered and it gained a foothold in all sectors of society, including the civil
service and the economy’. [189]

                                                                     S.V.
Petersen Image source

However, it is during the era of the Apartheid liberation struggle that people
simultaneously resisted against Afrikaans and resisted in Afrikaans. Valley and
Valley state:
[W]hile [B]lack students in Soweto were protesting against the use of Afrikaans
as the language of instruction, Afrikaans-speaking [C]oloured youth joined in the
fight against the government, and used their Afrikaans to mobilise communities
to fight against the injustices of the day. Members of the UDF, Ashley Kriel, Allan
Boesak and Cheryl Carolus come to mind as some of the youth who were at the
forefront of resistance politics in Cape Town in the 1970s and ’80s. [190]

Ashley Kriel Image source

The next section explores Afrikaans utilised as a language of resistance during
the Apartheid liberation struggle by writers, academics, educators and student
activists.
Afrikaans and the liberation struggle, in Afrikaans
The following sections focus on anti-Apartheid poetry collections, conferences,
movements, protests, theatre and hip-hop during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Willemse cites an alternative history of Afrikaans as ‘the history of
resistance’: [191]
It was a decision rooted in the uprisings in which Afrikaans was labelled ‘the
language of the oppressor’. The slogan was rightly an emotive, visceral response
to Afrikaner ethnic, nationalist hegemony and its concomitant coercive state
power, but it also obscured the experiences, lives and histories of [B]lack and
non-nationalist Afrikaans speakers. [192]
A significant component of resistance in Afrikaans against the hegemonic system
included literature such as protest poetry and the activism of writers.
Protest poetry
In 1961, Adam Small published one of his most famous poetry collections, Kitaar
my Kruis. [193] It was protest poetry written in Kaaps/Cape Afrikaans: ‘Small
launched a cutting attack on South African society…’ [194] Jakes Gerwel also cites

Hein Willemse, for example, as political struggle poet. [195] His debut poetry
collection, Angsland (1981), is ‘the only South African-published [work] that was
not published at any of the establishment Afrikaans publishers’ [196] (Gerwel
cites this choice as a political statement). [197]

                                   Adam Small Image source

During the 1980s, writers and scholars also expressed anti-Apartheid sentiments
at conferences.
1980s writers’ conferences
The Victoria Falls conference in Zimbabwe took place in July 1989, attended by
predominantly [White and Coloured] Afrikaans writers [198] such as Breyten
Breytenbach, André P. Brink, Antjie Krog, Vernie February, Hein Willemse, Julian
Smith, and Patrick Petersen. [199] According to Coetzee, Afrikaans writers began
to resist ‘the cultural hegemony on which the ruling class built its political regime
… [A]partheid and National Party authoritarianism’ in the 1960s. [200] However:
…as the ANC had been banned and demonised by the ideological state apparatus
since the sixties these progressive voices were left without a means of discourse.
For the writers of that decade and their literary descendants to meet writers in
exile and ANC political workers became an opportunity for them to be more
actively involved in a solution for South Africa – to realise that this country can
have a future away from [A]partheid and violence. [201]
At this conference, Patrick Petersen contributed in Afrikaans, speaking about the
politicisation of Black Afrikaans poetry. He asserted that his ‘political
involvement … as word artist [is] unavoidable’. [202] Petersen emphasises the
importance of poetry in the struggle: [203] ‘[p]oetry … has to break the silence …

break through barriers … go to the podium and give the [B]lack power
sign. [204] Poetry resisting the struggle ‘offsets the policy of disguise and
distortion of reality that is followed in the official culture … The [B]lack writer is
therefore called to evoke the liberation struggle with his own people’. [205]
Petersen highlights another role of Black Afrikaans poetry: it ‘challenges the
traditional notions about what literature is and what should be made part of the
canon’. [206] Furthermore, he highlights structural problems within society, such
as poverty, censorship, ‘colonialism, violence, humiliation and oppression and
also the struggle against it’ as impediments to the development of Black
Afrikaans literature. [207]
In April 1985, a symposium for Black Afrikaans writers was held at the
University of the Western Cape. According to the editors of the conference report,
one of the conference’s objectives was to focus on literary activity other than
literature canonised by the Afrikaans establishment. [208] Academics such as
Jakes Gerwel, Julian Smith, Patrick Petersen, Peter Snyders, and Hein Willemse
were participants. [209] Willemse emphasises that, at the time, ‘young Black
Consciousness inspired academics’ such as himself, ‘understood that a different
story needed to be told. [210] At the very least, one that tells of a more
encompassing history, a history that explored the life and culture of those
marginalised, i.e. the neglected histories, language, literature and culture of Black
Afrikaans speakers’. [211]
A historical movement that focused on marginalised Afrikaans speakers in the
sphere of education, is the Alternative Afrikaans Movement.
The Alternative Afrikaans Movement
During the 1980s, Cape Afrikaans teachers protested against the exclusive focus
on and favouring of standard Afrikaans/‘White’ Afrikaans in
education. [212] They underscored, for example, the struggles of Cape Afrikaans
speaking learners regarding standard Afrikaans as a medium of
instruction. [213] Educators aired their grievances via their education union, the
Kaaplandse Professionele Onderwysersunie (KPO). [214] During a February
1988 congress of the KPO, the idea of so-called alternative Afrikaans regarding
the subject Afrikaans, was discussed. [215] The predominant definition of
alternative Afrikaans includes the idea that ‘the school subject Afrikaans has to
be purified from racial judgements and … prejudices, and from its [W]hite
favouring. The conversations … emphasise that Afrikaans belongs to all its
speakers. It is not so that one subgroup can claim the language’. [216]
Van den Heever underscores the importance of the notion of alternative
Afrikaans: it ‘is of utmost importance in the democratic movement because the
conflict between his Afrikaans mother-tongue and his vision of liberation from
Afrikaner-dominance unleashed an intense ambivalence in the mind of the
oppressed Afrikaans-speaker’. [217]

In addition to teachers, community leaders, students and learners also resisted
White Afrikaner hegemony in Afrikaans.
Student political mobilisation and activism
Coloured people fought Apartheid oppression also in Afrikaans. [218] Van den
Heever notes prominent Afrikaans community leaders, for example, Allan
Boesak, Jakes Gerwel and Franklin Sonn. [219] They fought oppression in the
liberation struggle in various spheres: the church, the university and education
respectively. [220] Coloured learners in the Cape and students at the University
of Western Cape [UWC] also fought Apartheid in Afrikaans. [221]
Willemse relates how the University of the Western Cape [UWC] of 1976 was
central to student activism:
[UWC] became the hub of the student uprising in the Western Cape and we as
students sang revolutionary songs in isiXhosa, English and in Afrikaans … We
performed plays and poetry in Afrikaans and a young, eloquent firebrand named
Allan Boesak whipped us all into rousing Black Consciousness fervour - in
Afrikaans … This is an example of Afrikaans in resistance; it is also an example of
a counternarrative unknown to those outside the sphere of Afrikaans
speakers. [222]
MacMaster cites the leading role of UWC in the 1976 Cape Peninsula revolt:
colleges, schools and communities were inspired by the student
protest. [223] They ‘began revolting in solidarity with Soweto, in the fight against
[A]partheid and in support of the liberation struggle’. [224] MacMaster
reminisces about a song from the Cape Flats: ‘Oubaas Vorster, Oubaas Vorster/
Slaap jy nog, slaap jy nog?/ Hoor hoe skreeu die kinders/ Hoor hoe skreeu die
kinders:/ Equal rights, equal rights!’ [Old man Vorster, Old man Vorster/ Are you
still sleeping, are you still sleeping?/ Hear how the children shout/ Hear how the
children shout:/ Equal rights, equal rights!’] [225]
Basil Kivedo, a former MK-soldier, asserts: ‘…I was arrested by the security police
in Afrikaans, I was detained in Afrikaans, I was tortured in Afrikaans, but I fought
back in Afrikaans’. [226] Kivedo also emphasises his involvement in student
leader politics. [227] He ‘targeted certain students as possible recruits for the
liberation struggle’ in, for example, Bonteheuwel, Hanover Park, Lavender Hill
and Manenberg. [228] He underscores his ‘close ties with radical members of the
Bonteheuwel Military Wing (BMW)’ [229], including Ashley Kriel, Anton Fransch
and Colleen Williams (Kivedo and the commander of the BMW initiated political
education sessions with members). [230] According to Kivedo: ‘[t]he medium of
instruction in all cases Afrikaans’ (given that it was in Bonteheuwel). [231]
Kivedo also underscores his acquaintance with student leaders such as Cheryl
Carolus, stating that numerous student leaders fought in Afrikaans. [232] At the
33rd anniversary of the UDF, Cheryl Carolus asserted: ‘[w]e spoke everyone’s
language at public meetings’ (including Afrikaans, English and Xhosa when
meeting in Bonteheuwel). [233]

Community activism also included Black community theatre and the hip-hop
movement on the Cape Peninsula.
Theatre and hip-hop
During Apartheid, Black community theatre thrived in the predominantly
Afrikaans-speaking northern suburbs of the Cape Peninsula (including, for
example, Belhar, Elsiesrivier, Ravensmead, Bellville, Kuilsrivier and
Kraaifontein). [234] Categories such as social-political dramas were performed
predominantly in Kaaps/Cape Afrikaans (‘the language of the [Cape]
Flats’). [235] These dramas include, for example, Melvin Whitebooi’s Dit sallie
blerrie dag wies. [236] Fransman emphasises the significance of the socio-
political dramas of the drama-group, the Cape Flats Players [established in 1973
by Adam Small [237]]. [238] They performed dramas such as Kanna hy kó hystoe
(Adam Small, 1965) and Joanie Galant-hulle (also by Adam Small,
1978). [239] These dramas ‘tackled the issues of their own
communities’ [240] (such as racism and the Group Areas Act). [241]
Hip-hop in Cape Town emerged during the 1980s, including the group Prophets
of da City. [242] They were part of the ‘Old Skool [School]’, ‘a group of young MCs
with a political conscience, coming mostly from [C]oloured townships, and
addressing current issues in the language of the street’. [243] During this era,
hip-hop was banned on radio, thereby remaining underground. [244] The
establishment regarded hip-hop as ‘subversive’ and repressed it. [245] Watkins
asserts that ‘Hip-hop in Cape Town emerged mainly as a platform for articulating
resistance to the [A]partheid regime’. [246] Haupt terms ‘indigenised’/localised
hip-hop as the ‘use of local dialects and idiomatic expressions’ that focuses on
‘very local concerns’. [247] Battersby also notes the use of the vernacular in hip-
hop:
The standardisation of Afrikaans by [W]hites played a decisive role in the
discourse of power during [A]partheid, through its exclusion of the variants of
Afrikaans spoken by [B]lack/Coloured speakers. The use of the vernacular
subverts the impacts of colonialism [and] creates a unifying force among the
colonised and a site of intercultural conflict. Invariably in South African hip-hop
the vernacular is used in such a manner as to challenge the logic presented by
power structures’. [248]

Two decades before
Die Antwoord, Prophets of Da City released South Africa’s first hip-hop album (including one of the
first Afrikaans rap tracks, titled Dallah Flét) Image source

Resistance against colonialism and Afrikaner nationalist hegemony did not end
with Apartheid. In the next section, a local and international protest theatre
production, titled Afrikaaps, is discussed.
Post-apartheid resistance: Afrikaaps
A contemporary theatre production that combines hip-hop with Cape Afrikaans,
is titled Afrikaaps. Afrikaaps is a protest theatre production that has performed
mainly in Cape Town and the Netherlands between 2010 and 2015. [249] The
2010 documentary film with the same title, directed by Dylan Valley, chronicles
the 2010 performances of the production. Afrikaaps ? directed by Catherine
Henegan with Aryan Kaganof offering creative input ? comprise eight mainly
Coloured hip-hop artists and social activists from the Cape Flats: Emile Jansen
(Emile YX? Jansen); Jethro Louw; Janine van Rooy-Overmeyer (Blaq Pearl);
Quintin Goliath (Jitsvinger); Moenier Adams (Monox); Charl van der Westhuizen
(Bliksemstraal); Shane Cooper and Kyle Shepherd. [250] In addition to clips from
the Afrikaaps documentary and dialogues, the production uses hip-hop, soul,
jazz, r&b, reggae, and performance poetry/spoken word. [251]

Poster advertising the 2011 Afrikaaps Dutch tour Image source

The production advocates Afrikaans as an indigenous, creole language. Afrikaaps
thereby affirms that the language was formed at the early, cosmopolitan Cape
(also) by the ancestors of Coloured people (namely the indigenous Khoikhoi and
Malay slaves). [252] Afrikaaps thereby aims to refute the claim that Afrikaans is a

colonial language of the White Afrikaner oppressor. [253] The White
appropriation of Afrikaans during Afrikaner nationalism and Apartheid is
especially highlighted.< [254] Furthermore, the production highlights issues
surrounding marginalised and stigmatised Cape Afrikaans as a response and
resistance to the racialised hegemony of standard/‘pure’ Afrikaans of the White
Afrikaner oppressor. [255] Indigenous (Khoikhoi and San) and slave (‘Malay’)
cultural heritage, and Cape Afrikaans as a mother-tongue, is celebrated. [256]
*[Insert (video 16)]
Conclusion
This essay aimed to demonstrate the various ways in which Black/Coloured
Afrikaans-speakers have resisted oppression in numerous forms throughout
various eras in South African history: colonialism, Afrikaner nationalism, and
Apartheid. Since the era of colonialism, songs, newspapers, writers, academics,
educators, students, theatre practitioners and hip-hop artists have all challenged
repression, in Afrikaans.
Endnotes
[1] Ena Jansen, "Afrikaans: A Language on the Move," in Good Hope: South Africa
and the Netherlands from 1600, ed. Martine Gosselink, Maria Holtrop and Robert
Ross (Rijksmuseum, Vantilt Publishers, 2017), 337. ↵
[2] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[3] “#FeesMustFall protest reminiscent of 1976 uprising,” enca.com, date posted
October 24, 2015, http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations. ↵
[4] Menán van Heerden, "Afrikaaps: A Celebratory Protest Against the Racialised
Hegemony of ‘Pure’ Afrikaans" (Master’s thesis, Stellenbosch University,
2016). http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/100364. ↵
[5] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[6] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[7] Danny Titus, "Afrikaanse boek van bruin kant ? Taal en identiteit op die
Afrikaanse werf," in Ons kom van vêr: Bydraes oor bruin Afrikaanssprekendes se
rol in die ontwikkeling van Afrikaans, red. W.A.M. Carstens en Michael le Cordeur
(Tygervallei: Naledi, 2016), 188. ↵
[8] Menán van Heerden, "Afrikaaps: A Celebratory Protest Against the Racialised
Hegemony of ‘Pure’ Afrikaans" (Master’s thesis, Stellenbosch University,
2016). http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/100364. ↵
[9] “Postcolonialism and Afrikaans literature,” postcolonialweb.org, accessed
March 6, 2017, http://www.postcolonialweb.org/sa/viljoen/1.html. ↵

[10] Herman Wasserman, and Sean Jacobs, eds. Shifting selves: Post-apartheid
essays on mass media, culture, and identity (Cape Town: Kwela, 2003), 267 ↵
[11] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[12] Ibid. ↵
[13] Ibid. ↵
[14] Ibid., 337-338. ↵
[15] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[16] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[17] André P. Brink, "Afrikaans en oorlewing," in Skrywer en gemeenskap: tien
jaar Afrikaanse skrywersgilde, red. Charles Malan en Bartho Smit (Pretoria:
HAUM, 1985), 167. ↵
[18] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[19] Ibid. ↵
[20] Ibid. ↵
[21] Ibid. ↵
[22] Ibid. ↵
[23] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[24] Ibid. ↵
[25] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[26] Ibid. ↵
[27] Menán van Heerden, "Afrikaaps: A Celebratory Protest Against the
Racialised Hegemony of ‘Pure’ Afrikaans" (Master’s thesis, Stellenbosch
University, 2016). http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/100364. ↵
[28] Menán van Heerden, "Afrikaaps: A Celebratory Protest Against the
Racialised Hegemony of ‘Pure’ Afrikaans" (Master’s thesis, Stellenbosch
University, 2016). http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/100364. ↵
[29] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[30] Ibid. ↵
[31] Paul T. Roberge, "Afrikaans: Considering Origins," in Language in South
Africa, ed. Rajend Mesthrie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 79. ↵

[32] Paul T. Roberge, "Afrikaans and Creolisation," in Afrikaans. Een drieluik, eds.
Frans Hinskens, Jerzy Koch and Hans den Besten (Amsterdam: Stichting
Neerlandistiek VU, 2009), 213. ↵
[33] Christine Winberg, “Satire, slavery and the ghoemaliedjies of the Cape
Muslims,” New Contrast 19 (1992):78. ↵
[34] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[35] Valley, Greer, and Dylan Valley. “Hip Hop Masala.” Kaganof.com. Date posted:
May 22, 2009. http://kaganof.com/kagablog/?s=hip+hop+masala. ↵
[36] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 338. ↵
[37] Ibid., 341. ↵
[38] Ibid., 338. ↵
[39] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[40] Ibid. ↵
[41] Ibid. ↵
[42] Ibid. ↵
[43] J.C. Kannemeyer, Geskiedenis van die Afrikaanse literatuur I (Kaapstad:
Academica, 1978), 9. ↵
[44] Roberge, Afrikaans and Creolisation, 209. ↵
[45] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[46] Ibid. ↵
[47] Ibid. ↵
[48] Ibid. ↵
[49] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 338. ↵
[50] Ibid. ↵
[51] Robert Carl-Heinz Shell, Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave
Society at the Cape of Good Hope (Hanover: University Press of New England,
1994), 64. ↵
[52] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340. ↵
[53] Ibid. ↵
[54] Ibid. ↵
[55] Hermann Giliomee, Die Afrikaners: ’n Biografie (Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2004),
176. ↵

[56] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340. ↵
[57] Ibid. ↵
[58] Ibid. ↵
[59] Ibid. ↵
[60] Ibid. ↵
[61] Shell, Children of Bondage, 64. ↵
[62] Ibid. ↵
[63] Valley, Greer, and Dylan Valley. “Hip Hop Masala.” Kaganof.com. Date posted:
May 22, 2009. http://kaganof.com/kagablog/?s=hip+hop+masala. ↵
[64] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 339. ↵
[65] Ibid., 340. ↵
[66] Ibid. ↵
[67] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[68] Giliomee, Die Afrikaners, 176. ↵
[69] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[70] Ibid. ↵
[71] Ibid. ↵
[72] J.C. Kannemeyer, Die Afrikaanse literatuur: 1652-1987 (Pretoria: Academica,
1988), 27. ↵
[73] Kannemeyer, Die Afrikaanse literatuur, 22. ↵
[74] Ibid., 27. ↵
[75] Ibid., 21. ↵
[76] Ibid. ↵
[77] Kannemeyer, Geskiedenis van die Afrikaanse literatuur, 41. ↵
[78] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340-341. ↵
[79] Kannemeyer, Die Afrikaanse literatuur, 29. ↵
[80] Giliomee, Die Afrikaners, 178. ↵
[81] Ibid. ↵

[82] J.C. Steyn, ‘Ons gaan ’n taal maak’: Afrikaans sedert die Patriot-jare (Pretoria:
Kraal Uitgewers, 2014), 22. ↵
[83] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340. ↵
[84] Giliomee, Die Afrikaners, 178. ↵
[85] Steyn, ‘Ons gaan ’n taal maak’, 22. ↵
[86] Ibid., 21. ↵
[87] Giliomee, Die Afrikaners, 179. ↵
[88] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340. ↵
[89] Valley, Greer, and Dylan Valley. “Hip Hop Masala.” Kaganof.com. Date posted:
May 22, 2009. http://kaganof.com/kagablog/?s=hip+hop+masala. ↵
[90] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[91] Ibid. ↵
[92] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340. ↵
[93] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 341. ↵
[94] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 340-341. ↵
[95] Valley, Greer, and Dylan Valley. “Hip Hop Masala.” Kaganof.com. Date posted:
May 22, 2009. http://kaganof.com/kagablog/?s=hip+hop+masala. ↵
[96] Frank Hendricks, "The Potential Advantage of an Egalitarian View of the
Varieties of Afrikaans," in Mainstreaming Afrikaans Regional Varieties, ed. Kwesi
Kwaa Prah (Cape Town: The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society
(CASAS), 2012), 48. ↵
[97] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[98] Ibid. ↵
[99] Jansen, Afrikaans: A Language on the Move, 337. ↵
[100] Titus, Afrikaanse boek van bruin kant, 189. ↵
[101] “The hidden histories of Afrikaans,” up.ac.za, date posted February 22,
2016, http://www.up.ac.za/en/faculty-of-humanities/news/post_2235567-the-
hidden-histories-of-afrikaans. ↵
[102] Cecyl Esau, "Die impak wat 16 Junie 1976 op my lewe gehad het," in Ons
kom van vêr: Bydraes oor bruin Afrikaanssprekendes se rol in die ontwikkeling

van Afrikaans, reds. W.A.M. Carstens en Michael le Cordeur (Tygervallei: Naledi,
2016), 171. ↵
[103] Van den Heever, Tree na Vryheid, 3. ↵
[104] W.A.M. Carstens, en Michael le Cordeur, reds. Ons kom van vêr: Bydraes
oor bruin Afrikaanssprekendes se rol in die ontwikkeling van Afrikaans
(Tygervallei: Naledi, 2016). ↵
[105] Ibid. ↵
[106] Ibid. ↵
[107] Winberg, “Ghoemaliedjies,” 79. ↵
[108] Winberg, “Ghoemaliedjies,” 79. ↵
[109] Winberg, “Ghoemaliedjies,” 80. ↵
[110] Kay McCormick, Language in Cape Town’s District Six (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002.), 200. ↵
[111] Winberg, “Ghoemaliedjies,” 78. ↵
[112] Ibid. ↵
[113] Ibid., 80. ↵
[114] Ibid., 81. ↵
[115] Ibid., 82. ↵
[116] Ibid., 82-83. ↵
[117] Ibid. ↵
[118] Ibid., 80. ↵
[119] Ibid., 83. ↵
[120] Ibid. ↵
[121] Ibid. ↵
[122] Ibid. ↵
[123] Ibid., 84. ↵
[124] Ibid., 87. ↵
[125] Ibid., 78. ↵
[126] Ibid. ↵
[127] Ibid. ↵
[128] Ibid. ↵
[129] Ibid., 88. ↵