Re: History of French

From: Ruud Harmsen (realemailseesite01_at_rudhar.com)
Date: 09/20/04 

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 12:43:17 +0200

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:06:45 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<neeraj.mathur@chch.ox.ac.uk>: in sci.lang:

>I was told by a friend (whose parents are from South Africa Afrikaaner
>descent) that the intelligibility is one-way only (I think he thought that
>the Dutch would have more difficulty understanding Afrikaans than vice
>versa, but I'm not sure). Any support for this, or the opposite?

In written form (email) most of Afrikaans is clear at first glance. It
helps that in some respects Afrikaans is in fact closer to my ideolect
than to Standard Dutch: many things we also say, but don't normally
write.
In the other direction it may be more difficult, e.g. because we have
irregular declensions, like strong verbs, that they lack. I think most
Afrikaans-speakers I had bilingual e-mail 'conversations' with were
also familiar with written Dutch to some extent. This is usually not
the case in the other direction: I never read an Afrikaans book or
newspaper or anything of the sort.

In spoken form it may be a different kettle of fish. Depending on
dialect, the pronunciation can be difficult to recognize for us.
(Judging from what I heard on television). Perhaps in the other
direction too.

I think reading Afrikaans for me is very similar to reading
Interlingua: I don't know the language, never studied it, everything
is different, but it so strongly reminds me of things I do know, that
the message gets through without too much effort. 

-- 
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

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