By Sarah-Claire Jordan
Thanks to Nelson Mandela, all of us know at least one word in Afrikaans: “apartheid”. Literally translated to English, it means “apart-hood”, and describes the type of government-endorsed racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Afrikaans is the language that evolved from the dialect of Dutch spoken by the first Dutch settlers in what would become South Africa during the 1700s. As it evolved, it took on bits and pieces of other languages spoken in the area, like Portuguese, Bantu, and some of the Khoisan languages.
When Britain gained control of the colony that would become South Africa, Afrikaans was influenced by the English spoken by the new settlers, and vice versa. These six words and phrases should give you an idea of the influence that Afrikaans has had on the popular slang used by South African English speakers.
“Picking up stompies”
This phrase is a bit interesting, and needs to be broken down a little bit first. “Stompies” comes from the Afrikaans word “stomp”, which means “stump” in English and is used to refer to cigarette butts. When someone is “picking up stompies,” they are getting involved in a conversation when it is just about to end, so they don’t have much of an idea as to what is being talked about, kind of a useless thing to do, like picking up cigarette butts.
“Rooineck”
To those of us from the U.S., this is an important word to use correctly once you find out what it means. It comes from the Afrikaans word for “redneck,”, but “redneck” in South Africa means something completely different from what it does in the U.S. “Rooineck” is used when talking about an English-speaking South African, and was originally used by the Afrikaners to describe English immigrants with pale skin that burned easily in the South African sun.
“Bergie”
A variation on the Afrikaans word for mountain, “berg”, it was used in the past to refer to the homeless people who took shelter in the forests near a mountain outside of Cape Town. Now people use it to refer to any homeless person, regardless of whether they live near a mountain or not.
“Kasie”
This slang word is steeped in South African history. It comes from the Afrikaans word “lokasie”, which means “location” and was used to talk about the areas that Black South Africans were forced to live in during the time of apartheid. These areas were essentially shoddy low-income housing projects in the suburbs of the cities with the specific purpose of keeping White South Africans and Black South Africans from living in the same place. They are also called “townships”, and are equivalent to the “projects” and “ghettos” of U.S. cities.
“Laatlammetjie”
Maybe one of the most specific slang words in South Africa, “laatlammetjie” literally means “late lamb” in Afrikaans. It is the word used when talking about someone who is the youngest child in a family, and whose parents are older. Their siblings are also much older than them, giving the impression that maybe they were conceived by accident.
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