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In order for a language to be used for science, it has to be made that way. For instance, 150 years ago Afrikaans was considered nothing more than corrupted Dut
by jmopp 3y ago
In order for a language to be used for science, it has to be made that way. For instance, 150 years ago Afrikaans was considered nothing more than corrupted Dutch. But the Afrikaner nationalists - for all their faults - did put a lot of effort into bringing the language to a similar standard as English: establishing universities, ensuring there was scientific and industrial vocabulary, and so on. They often took the route of coining new words, rather than borrowing from English or Dutch. For instance, a computer in Afrikaans is a rekenaar - which originally meant someone who does calculations (similar to the original meaning of 'computer')
- carlmr 3y ago>For instance, a computer in Afrikaans is a rekenaar In German it's Rechner, meaning the same.
- dontlaugh 3y agoWhich in English is reckoner, with related meaning.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoNowadays the momentum for the evolution of Afrikaans has passed from South Africa’s white Afrikaners (who have been shifting to English outside the farming community) to the Coloureds (for whom it serves as an important cornerstone of ethnic identity). Already there has been a lot of complaint that standardized descriptions of Afrikaans fail to account for how the Coloureds use the language, and moreover I’m not sure the Coloureds care so much about Afrikaans as a language of technical description and science, they may be content with an English–Afrikaans diglossia in that regard.
- jmopp 3y agoWhat is very interesting is that prior to the separation of the races around 1950, whites and coloureds spoke the same Afrikaans. I read a paper from 1948 which only looked at the white Afrikaans context, but which mentioned that most white Afrikaners were educated in English and spoke Afrikaans with forms which today would be considered typically coloured - i.e pronouncing the word for hands as 'hanne' instead the way it was spelled 'hande'.
- konschubert 3y agoRekenaar is a German word (Rechner) and simply means computer.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]