Het afschalen van het Afrikaans: Een politieke stommiteit

Abstract

The downgrading of Afrikaans: A political stupidity. Afrikaans is a partly creolised language, based on Dutch (dialects). It originated as the lingua franca of the dominated population of servants and slaves (the bruinmense), and was taken over by the dominant white population, which standardised it and developed it into a fully-fledged cultural language, comparable with other small Germanic languages such as Danish or Norwegian. It is the only example of a ‘creoloid’ that reached that level. Politically, it is a very bad idea to downgrade Afrikaans as a language of instruction at universities. This will lead to frustration and a renewed rise of Afrikaner nationalism. One should avoid unnecessary political tensions in a country that has to face matters that are far more urgent, such as the racially based inequality in wealth.