Your comments are welcome and if you have any criticisms of the video that's fine. We covered a lot of ground and if there are any factual errors feel free to point them out. However, there have been comments complaining that the guest was "too white" or had the "wrong kind of South African accent". The kind of disrespect of the guest will not be tolerated and these comments will be deleted.
Something to note is that the slang used by English speakers varies WILDY from region to region. Cape Town vs Port Elizabeth vs Durban vs Johannesburg. Also the accent is noticeably different (at least to us).
yes, so was I. But I think we have dropped that now. When I say Thee, it is placing emphasis in the subject such as "thee (sic) English apple " is the only english apple in the bowl, room, world or whatever. It is Thee motor car to buy-ie the best or only one to consider. And yes, I know that Car starts with a consonant.
Me too & my mother was quite pedantic- her mother was an E Cape Afrikaner whose father spoke only English & she only learned High Dutch at school: she didn't know Afrikaans, my mother did.
Afrikaans is NOT an old version of Dutch. It's a brand new Germanic language that developed from Dutch but is a language, fully developed with a grammar absolutely different from Dutch and other Germanic languages. Germanic and other language scholars actually refer to Afrikaans affectionately as "the new Germanic baby," because it is such a recent and only fully developed new language only written down as a written language during the 1920s and 1930s in the previous century. Thus, Afrikaans is studied by scholars studying how a language actually develops, because it happened so recently.
@@LB_die_Kaapiewho cares who 'invented' it. The language is a daughter language of Dutch I've heard, but still its own language obviously seeing Dutch blokes say it say like the same but still quite like gibberish.
I think the point is that it branched off from an older possibly regional dialect of Dutch. But yes it’s a modern language in every sense since it has evolved possibly as much or maybe even more than Dutch.
Afrikaans actually was how the African and Asians workers in the cape colony communicated, patois if you will. They were mocked by the Dutch Colonisers saying they cannot speak Dutch properly. The Africans, responded by saying no this is not Dutch, it is Afrikans. Derived from dutch originally spoken by the black. White folk adopted it later.
Why germanic becausevi would say we that are afrikaans speaking had to do Nederlands setwork book in std 9 and 10 which was matric... so afrikaans is near to Nederlands thsn dutch and german. Also we used it in the Lutheran church.
The stress and bravery to speak about a whole multicultural country 😂 he did a pretty good job unlike these other videos I’ve seen that choose to ignore every other ethnicity that exists in our beautiful country and blanket our whole country under their experience. Good job
@@falaafrica3114disgusting, you dont speak Tsonga anymore. It's sad to see my fellow Tsonga people not even speak the language anymore, drop that colonisers language and speak your roots n'wana mhani .
@@tsaki_titan bruh... If you think all mozambicans speaks Tsonga you are sorely mistaken 😂. There are many dialects and Portuguese is simply a common language everyone understands. You are a hypocrite, considering you are speaking in the "colonisers" language lol. Get a grip and live for the future. Peace!
Ja, the pronunciation of the R is a very new addition to the Anglo-South African accent. Generally (or perhaps historically😢) South African English is non-rhotic, and we would/do pronounce an R like Ah (with a rounded A, like in Ba(h)r, and not Cat), no thanks to American TV shows. Without any disrespect to my countryman, his accent, to a South African ear, has been highly influenced by living abroad. You can definitely say that it is a South African accent, but an evolved one. Thanks for the video
Definitely has a french accent attached to the South African English. And yes, as others have mentioned, his Anglo-South African is definitely from Gauteng. English South Africans from Cape Town, Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal tend to have more British English "rules" that we had to adhere to at school. "Thee" antelope. The card. Just like England there are many accents. Some 1st Language Afrikaans speakers sound like 1st Language English speakers esp. businesswomen and men.
This man actually sounds quite American. My accent is very different from his…I’m from Cape Town. My grandparents were mainly British, with some French thrown in. I also speak Afrikaans but when I was at school in the 1950s and 60s, I didn’t have a choice. It does make it easier to understand Dutch. When I was in Belgium, I actually found Flemish more difficult to understand.
You're correct. Also a thing to note is even in Afrikaans (Much like any language) you get different dialects and accents. The most common difference for whites is high and low Afrikaans.
After watching Dutch and Flemish series and movies on Netflix I agree completely. As an english speaking Saffer, I can follow the Flemish quite well, but the Dutch not so much.
There are all sorts of influences on our language because of our diversity, French, Portuguese, Italian as well as Arabic have also contributed to our version of English.
South African slang is fantastic. It's influenced by so many things, such as the region you live in, the different languages, the type of school you went to, the type of people you get to meet as you move through life, the level of education you have, etc. I'm a Sotho man, who speaks English and Afrikaans and lives in a, predominently, coloured area. My friendship groups are made up of English and Afrikaans white people, English and Afrikaans coloured people, English speaking Indians and multilingual black people. I'm exposed to a lot of Xhosa and Zulu media. That's just a few of the things that influence the way I talk. Even my accent is 'unusual' or so I've been told.
In Coloured Households, it's quite different. For example: Your mom ask you to do the dishes You: Just now Mom: What did you just say? Your mind: I'm about to die 😅😅😅
As a South African, I find this quite informative. The accent depends NOT on the race, but on the location. So a native Zulu who grows up in Cape Town will sound like a Capetonian. Saying that, there 20+ accents in Cape Town alone, which defer depending on the suburb of the city. And I would say that the majority of Capetonians speak Afrikaans, then English.
Eish! Talking about Zulu, and the base of your comment… I can only assume you grew up in kwazulu natal…. You have identified some close facts, but very generalised…
You wouldn't even be able to tell who is afrikaans home language in the newer generation, I'm the only English home language amongst my friends (we're all coloured) and I genuinely didn't realise for probably a year that they were all afrikaans. It's almost more natural to just speak in English in cpt, even if you are afrikaans, because like they said in the video it's like a common tongue for everyone
Just an important thing to note. There is no one definitive English accent in SA. There are thousands (Just like any language in any country). And it's not even City to City related. It's from suburb to suburb as well. The guy in this video isn't like any English South African I've heard, but obviously he's lived over seas for a while so you cant compare. I grew up in a suburb known as The Bluff (Fucking legends). Spent most of my spare time as a lightie either playing sports or going to the beach as most Bluff okes did. I can promise you that the dialect and accent of a typical Bluff surfer or a Bluff Heavy is unlike any other accent in English that you'll ever hear. In fact, unless you actually grew up around guys like that, you would struggle to understand everything they're saying. Just as an example: The first line about no beers at the bar. A Bluff oke would say something along the lines of - "Ey cuzzie (mate) that oke (guy) is being jaks (stingy), ekse (Only South Africans understand the proper use of ekse, but it's a word that drives home a point or makes a statement. It's the word equivalent of a picture means a thousand words haha). He's not selling anymore wetties (drinks)". Depending on the bluff oke, there would probably be a few swear words or added phrases tossed in there, but that's the basic concept. Then you'll go to another suburb like Montclair or Yellowood park and it's different. All English suburbs, all have their own twists in the language and all within 15kms of each other.
Shot for the answer, with you all the way China, we lived at 40 Worthing Ave, Bluff, for 2 years (1974-76), the days of the Gunston 500 surfing champs (Shaun Thomson, World Champ) ,we trapped to Fynnlands pool or mozied to the harbour to chat to the charo's gaffing the fish, any size was pan-size ...;) also to Brighton Beach or Cave Rock as a 9 - 10 year old...the Drive-inn in that spot was lanck (the kiffest)...naught ekse brah I agree this china does not have the quintessential SA accent...
@@gysgijsbers4202 ey shot Bru. Ja the drive in and all that was before my time, I moved to the bluff in 96 when i was still a youngster but my old man always likes to tell me stories from the good old days. Unfortunately these days all that is gone. Bluff is still a lekker spot for the most part, but it's headed more and more into the kak each year. Still a staunch community though. The looters and rioters saw their asses when they tried to raid Bluff, haha.
@@daaichommie708 Radical man!!! Probably the story of most of SA...hang in there, we might actually have turned the corner & enjoy that spot!!! I believe Margate & the rest of the South Coast are cleaning up their beaches & environs for tourism ;)
Just found this video randomly while scrolling on Yt. And as a South African I honestly have to say, I'm really impressed. A lot of the video that get posted on yt about SA, doesn't cover half the things, you guys spoke about. I love that!😂
The Garden Route is not from Durban to Cape Town! It is a 300-kilometre / 190-mile stretch of coastline from the small town of Mossel Bay to the mouth of the Storms River and takes in places of outstanding natural beauty along the way, like George, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.
I think originally it was from Dbn to CT, that’s what I was taught in my earlier school years that has changed over the years and I have no clue what brought about the change.
Fun video to watch... however, I live in Pretoria and am a native Afrikaans speaker myself. I have never heard it pronouncec "a felfety fision..." where the V sounds like an F is in Afrikaans, and where some Afrikaans words were adopted into our vernacular, such as "veld" which is pronounced "felt", or my surname "Venter" which is pronounced "Fenter". Afrikaans is a bit of a mix of Dutch, French, a bit of German, and funny enough some Indonesian. In the 17th and 18th century, the Dutch traded with the East, and they had colonised Indonesia, Many slaves were brought to the Cape of Good Hope, and that's where the Afrikaans for Banana (Piesang) has its origin. There is also a strong Malaysian influence in our food for the same region, and interestingly some of the first written Afrikaans was written in Arabic script, rather than the Roman alphabet. I love how Bryan is proud of being a South African and how he is sharing about his country.
100% agree! English is my second language, although I could read it at age 5, thanks to my mother's levels of frustration with an inquisitive little girl and Glen Doman! A 'V' in English is hardly ever mistaken or pronounced as an 'F'. More likely someone with English as a first language would struggle with the 'V' in Afrikaans as it is pronounced mostly as an 'F'.
Very oddly, there are numerous words in Spanish that are very similar to Afrikaans. Pantofels (pantuflas), oegies (ojos), biblioteek (biblioteca). These are just a few off the top of my head but there are more. I imagine that somewhere along the line there was some spanish influence as well
Very interesting. When I was at school, we didn't have a choice to learn another language, Afrikaans was compulsory for me as a second language. I am an English speaking South African and when we say "the" before a vowel, it should always be thee....
Yep, during apartheid you had no choice... you HAD to take Afrikaans as a second language at school. FYI, I'm a primary school teacher and in like 2003 we got the parents to vote on what the second language should be (English-medium school). I thought all the black parents would vote for Zulu and the white/Indian/Coloured parents would vote for Afrikaans, but it was the other way round! I was confused, and asked a black parent at Parents' Evening why his family voted for Afrikaans. He said, "Well, because my child can already speak Zulu." But 20 years later the kids are not at ALL interested in learning Afrikaans. They aren't exposed to it, aren't forced to watch TV in it (I was a sci-fi fan and to this day I can recite the Buck Rogers opening monologue in Afrikaans!) and don't care about it at all. So they do really badly in it.
Remember that Afrikaans, like English, is a West Germanic language along with Dutch, German, Frisian, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. Therefore, as an Afrikaans speaker, I find the other languages in the group not too difficult. I can understand 90% of Dutch, 95% of Frisian, 70% of German, 45% of Yiddish etc. I must admit, however, that I had a bit of German in high school.
Even for me as a Swede i can read afrikaans and understand. If A SA speaks slowly I can be part of at least the basic idea of a conversation. I just mix in my knowledge of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, English and limited Dutch. A lot of words in Afrikaans are the same or versions of older swedish words i already know.
Anglo South African is pretty varied, probably because the populations are isolated. I think it also maybe varies based on the school you attended, as they tend to have distinct identities. Edit: the speaker represents Anglo English fairly, but his accent isn’t typical, and seems to have other influences. I don’t have a typical accent either probably as a result of my schooling and people think I’m from elsewhere. I’ve never heard anyone use the word “bint".
I can imagine a French influence but listening to him something feels off when trying I place the accent struggling between deciding if it's infact an accent issue or if it could be a mannerism in how he speaks it. I lived in 3 provinces he doesn't feel local to me
The word bint is a coloquial term originating from lebanese South Africans. (which I am). Other common expressions that have become more widely used are drib (fight), ghey/cuzzy (brother/cousin), zub (dick). I believe most are used ironically or in humor
@@NewMcNewness Bint did certainly not originate in the Lebanon as far as South African English is concerned. In British English it was in use in the UK well before the WW2. It may well have arrived in SA with British immigrants and may still be of Lebanese origin but brought to the UK after WW1.
I'm always interested in languages and especially how diverse English and Afrikaans can be in our country. English is my second language although I could read and speak it fluently at the age of 5! I had an English friend and this helped to secure me an English accent that is even at 61, often mistaken for being that of an Anglo South African. Of this I am very proud and maybe somewhat nitpicky when it comes to educating people from other countries about our use of the English language in SA. To be quite honest, he first time I came across the video a few weeks ago, I could barely make it past the first three minutes or so! Found it frustrating that it was not representative of South Africa in many ways. Now, I took a deep breath and pushed through to the end. Much as I can appreciate the intent, I have to say I feel the same way. There are definite similarities, and I will not argue that Bryan loves South Africa and our diverse peoples and languages, but as diverse as our country is, there are not many who would be able to identify with his accent and use of slang in all aspects (and I include friends who may definitely call themselves, Anglo South Africans). Your attempts to show the use of English in different countries is marvelously informative, but I can imagine a quite difficult feat as especially in a country like South Africa, it is almost impossible to generalise it to one specific person. Thank you for your time and effort, it is commendable!
I've attended an English high school and never heard this type of English accent there or anywhere else in the Eastern Cape. To me, he sounds like an Indian South African who has unlearned the Indian accent. It sounds like linguistics is his forte. (I'm 74 years old.)
@@miavos3610agreed that it does not sound like any typical south African accent, but disagree about the comparison with Indian accent. Even Indians who lose the South African Indian accent. His accent is truly unique.
I am a south african...coloured i speak Afrikaans..and it is my first language..there are various race groups that also speak Afrikaans with different provinces having different accents and.slang words we sometimes mix the the language up...We as nation have different race groups including indian,chinees,and many more races who settle down in south africa thus influenced the wat we are as a nation
I disagree. I am Afrikaans, but have been mistaken for being English-speaking. For me there is nothing more beautiful than to speak any language fluently and with the right pronunciations. But to each his own😂
English SA accents differ from region to region quite dramatically. Correction - I Indians did not arrive in SA as slaves. They either came simply for paid employment or as as indentured workers, that is they had to fulfil a number of years (typically 3) of labour for an employer before being free to do whatever appealed to them.
@@baksteen2007 Learn the history of why the Indians were not slaves and is totally relevant in that it corrects an incorrect statement made by the presenter.
You’re welcome to come visit. Just know the safety do’s and don’ts and you’ll be fine!! We have a beautiful country and the stronger currencies tend to enjoy the value of their money here. (strong currency goes a long way here!)
Lekker lekker man... Ons Afrikaanders is uniek. We are unique... We mix, our Afrikaans with English most of the time... Esp in Cape province night sweet pie.. Lekker doedoes!!!!!!! 😂❤❤❤❤
Because of my neutral South African accent, when I'm teaching English to my foreign students,in order for them to understand the different phonetics I have to give three different versions of some words, especially 'r' words. One in my own accent, one in American and another in British. Sometimes Australian too 😂
As a South African black woman who grew up in the Northern Suburbs in Sandton, apparently, my accent sounds American but also fluctuates to a bit of an Aussie sounding one, then sometimes a bit of my black and coloured accent comes out depending on who I'm speaking too so they can understand me a bit more as that's the accent they are used too and I can enunciate a bit more.
Your distinguished guests are always welcome, the exchange of information is tremendous, I am a mixed bag of nations, black people, European in my blood, Brazil was the last country to free slaves, the golden law signed by Princess Isabel, African dialects are interesting, the African people find it easy to learn a new language, Africa in Brazil has a great influence on culture, words, food and music. Congratulations Gideon on the work!👏👏
Gideon, your video would certainly be very successful, since the discovery of Brazil with the Portuguese and then the African slaves, there was an agreement between Brazil and Italy in 1870 to receive Italian immigrants to mix with Italians to lighten the skin of Brazilian citizens, and the hand of work on the farms, also influences from other people who arrived here, Spanish, Italians, Lebanese, Japanese@@LetThemTalkTV
@@isabelatence7035 You are really right when it comes to the African influances on the Portugese spoken in Brazil. The various dialects from Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Benin. I think that has influanced the Portugese in Brazil extremly in the way its accent was shaped. Brazilian Portugese has more energy, swing, vibration when spoken compared to Portugese in Portugal.
@@onlineonlineaccount2368 I believe, I'm sure that Brazilians enjoy the African influence much more, the warmth of dance, music, food, Brazilian joy is contagious, you are very kind
Afrikaans is a new modern language (as in creole) and not a version of Dutch. It formed from a combination of mostly Dutch, German and French without certain complication characteristics of those langauges. For instance a lack of the gender distinctions in words. Dutch is round sounding, where Afrikaans is more guttural. Afrikaans varies in different regions and people whose home language is not Afrikaans also have differing accents according to their location when speaking Afrikaans. Scolding in English sounds really feeble compared to scolding in Afrikaans. If you tell your dog to go outside in Afrikaans he goes quickly. The same with drill commands in Afrikaans, fantasticly forceful sounding.
Here's the translation of the examples into my South African English Dialect 20:06 "Hell man, you can't get no more dop from the o' by the bar." 21:05 "Lets braai some wors 'n park off and watch the rugby" 21:18 "Top jol last night, but I dopped too much, have a winding baabie now" 21:42 "We were stuck at the robots for 40 minutes bru, I've had it" 22:50 "Ya went camping by Kruger with the brahs, checked out some lions, elephants and bucks, over tops" 23:20: "Yaas went surfing with the Cherry by Elands Bay, over lukka" 23:50 "Brah, who's this stekkie I checked you tuning with, people gonna make tunes" 24:20 "Guz, don't stress , load shedding will be over now now"
We also say "Howzit China" from Cockney "Natal province/KZN" English "Howzit China/Mate" rhymes with plate = mate 😉💚🇿🇦 also btw "Wit kant" = White side, apologies to Tom Curry, Bongi spoke Afrikaans "kant" = side 🏉🏆
The standard tourist package: arrive and stay 1 day in JHB, fly to Cape Town, 1 day in the city and the Mountain, 1 day in the Winelands, fly back to JHB, and then spend 2 days in the Kruger, then back to JHB and fly out.
Correction with regards to the Indians in South Africa: They were not brought to South Africa as 'slaves', but as 'indentured labourers', so there is a formal difference (although some may say it is the same thing). With indentured labour, a person is contracted to work "voluntarily" without salary for a specific number of years in return for eventual compensation, or for debt repayment, or it may be imposed "involuntarily" as a judicial punishment.
This was a wonderful podcast. Thank you. I'm an English/Dutch speaking linguist living in the Netherlands with SA friends and very interested in their language, dialect and colloquialisms. I didn't know about 'shebeen' ... hahaha ... that's great.
That was really interesting and educational. ❤ Even though I have some friends in SA, I only noticed them using the words like 'robots, braii, yebo', and they always say 'just now', and I didn't know actually that in English standard it's about the past 😅and load sheddings are such a common thing there😢
Well just now can refer to the past, as in I saw it just now, but usually relates to the indeterminate future so if you say I'm leaving just now it means in a while, crocodile. 😀
Where I come from many Indians arrived with the British Army during the Boer War, and stayed. Ghandi lived with Mr "D" Lazarus in Murchison Street Newcastle, Natal. He sent out nauch girls and a sweet meat seller called Fish to encourage indentured Indians to march in protest to the Transvaal. Mr Makergee, the watch maker, attended the march, and told me all about it.
There are different dialects among the English and Afrikaans people. The Afrikaans dialects can be very different depending on the area. A lot of the words this guy used aren't used often where I come from. We just speak straightforward English more like the host's English with a few exceptions. I also want to mention that now now means soon but don't hold your breath. African time. They'll eventually get there. Just now can mean in the recent past or an indeterminate time in the future. It could be in ten minutes, five hours or never. It's an easy way not to have to commit but keeping your options open. You have to say come now or come quickly to have them come.
I am Sham from Bangalore, No load shedding will effect me here frm watching Gideon sir's video boet! Nice to see Bryan 🙏. I nt nly struggled to catch Bryan's words bt Gideons too on zeitgeist banana where our sir goes full colloquial with Jon. Long time no vlog outside Gideon sir. Bring back that Barista, Cockney bob..I love him on Cockney-O-meter.
I’m definitely a fan of the series about the different varieties of English ❤ (not that there is any video I haven’t loved on your channel!). I’m made up with your newsletters btw! I wanted to email your back but didn’t want to spam you haha
Thank you, I am a South African of Indian ancestry and I thoroughly enjoyed the episode. I also enjoy everything ENGLAND has offered to the world from literature, comedy art and music, especially the rock music
I come from Newcastle in Natal - last outpost of the British Empire. As a youth in the 1940s, I often spoke to people of Indian origin who had arrived in our town with the British Army during the Boer War. My accent is different to that of Brian's . All my grandparent's were English leftovers from the Boer War, and came from Essex, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Norfolk. What a mixture!
@@daaichommie708 Forget about the hype and just go. Definitely worth it. Garden Route is really Mossel Bay to Storms River Mouth. Best places are Nature's Valley, Plettenberg Bay, Sedgefield and Wilderness.
Indians were not imported as slaves. They came on 5 year contracts but they were only paid at the end of their 5 years contracts. No one forced them to come to SA and could return after 5 years. They worked mostly in the British sugar cane farms. They came after the British abolished slavery. Today most have their own businesses.
Stop lying about well known history that is in public records. There was slavery in the sugar plantations and the Indian population was taken as slaves
The coolest word in South Africa is 'Lekker' (from Afrikaans). Its become a staple in SA English because there really is no equivalent in English that quite captures the feeling or expression being conveyed. Roughly translated it means 'good' or 'great' but is used in a very broad context.... so 'that movie was Lekker(good)' or 'Im Lekker(super/very in a nice way) hungry after that workout'; 'you passed - Lekker !(congrats)'...
Ja ... and when I arrived here in 1990 ...I heard a term and asked what it translated to ... he looked at me for a while and said ... wind ass ... I was confused while everyone else burst out laughing.
We have two kinds of South African Indians . First we had indentured labourers brought to SA from 1860. Most of these Indians left willingly to work on the Sugar Cane plantations in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The second type of Indians are refered to as passenger Indians they were artisans, merchants etc and they paid their own passage to come to South Africa around 1989.
Afrikaans is South Africa’s third largest language. There are only 5 languages in the world that were able to develop to a high level academic language in the 20th century, and Afrikaans is one of them. It is a West Germanic language.
My nephew's friends who all went to a Model C school don't have any ethnic accent when speaking English. And my Norwegian husband took a while but he now understands the various permutations of now!
24:37 I've heard that 'china' might come from 'mtshana' (meaning nephew/niece in various Bantu languages) Really good video, made me learn that I actually don't know SAEng all that well as a South African 🇿🇦
The beauty of language in ZA is we borrow crazily. I have learned some Xhosa as a KP and years ago when I learned what a hospital was in Xhosa I died laughing. It’s Isibedlele. “Isi” prefix indicating a loan word, “bed” as in bed in English and “lê” as in Afrikaans to lie down. 😂 A day clinic is “Isibedlele mini sassa”, literally “Hospital mini day”. Xhosa is a very interesting language and exists in many forms (rural and township) and many dialects (depending on tribal affiliation).
We took the word China from Cockney Rhyming Slang, as in China Plate = Mate. This is the same reason some people refer to their car as their 'Jammy/jammie', because Jam Jar = Car.
@@LB_die_Kaapie Think so too and from long experience I know that bantu speakers are not above borrowing words that sound similar to their own language, words for things they have no equivalen, or even words that are easier to say. In Xhosa a for instance "molo" is just borrowed Afrikaans "more". A tradional Xhosa "good morning" is a lot more involved. Most Xhosa speakers I know tell me using English counting words is just easier than Xhosa equivalents. I think thats the beauty of language. Would not be surprised if "china" was so easily adopted into Xhosa (and other) BECAUSE it sounds similar to a known word. Also interesting how common "china" still is. My brother is in Australia and almost every sentence has "mate" in it :P
I have visited Cape Town and the western part of the garden route and Durban. Of the white SA population I detected three accents, the harsh-sounding Afrikaans, the familiar SA accent I expected to hear but also an British English accent that seemed to have no regional element. Particularly in Cape Town, I heard TV and radio presenters with perfect British accents, not American nor South African. I don't think these people had recently moved to SA, so what is the explanation for the neutral English accents I often heard. I am a native of Yorkshire, England.
Glen Hicks and John Robbie are former British UK accents on SA radio etc, it depends who they were, but you right there have been many others in the past.
Well if you Afrikaans and only speak English for self defence then you would have a harsh Afrikaans accent (or whatever your mother tongue is), if you Afrikaans but you were educated in English and now work play and stay in English you generally have a neutral accent. If your mother tongue is English, went to an English school, stay in an English neighbourhood and work language is English then you will have a strong English accent.
Cape Town English speakers of English descent (myself included) tend to speak with a neutral accent that is usually mistaken by English speakers across the world as “someone else” 😂 What I mean is that Americans often think we are Brits, Brits think we are Australians, Australians sometimes think we are Brits but they tend to place us as South Africans better than most. Canadians often think we are second language English speakers as do Germans. This just a single traveling South Africans experience.
The majority of SA Indians came voluntarily. As much as it is possible, for an impoverished indentured labourer, to voluntarily enter into a contract. As a part of the British empire, Indian merchants migrated to the South African colonies and the South African Republic (the Transvaal). Indians were legally excluded from the Republic of the Orange Free State. These form a minority of SA Indians.
This guy's accent is what I'd maybe characterise as "online gamer South African English" (just because he speaks like younger relatives of mine who began speaking that way in their gaming world). There are a few American features, like the rhotic r's. (I don't hear any rolling). It might be the "young" South African middle class accent. There are South African native English speakers who roll their r's, and have quite "Afrikaans" vowels. (There are quite a few accents.)
English South Africans do not roll thier rs(none of my friends did and i griew up in Jozi)..... im willing to bet he is from a rich background plus everyone knows how much is in a quart.... 750ml. rhotic r's have nothing to do with American influence.
@@johanmyburgh2768 The occasional "American R" is a new phenomenon. If it didn't come from America, where did it come from? (The only people I know who speak that way are gamers whose games often have American team mates they speak to over VOIP or whatever, as the game goes on - or Germans who speak American, and so on - hence my guess that the "new" trend comes from online games. "New" is an approximately fifteen year long stretch of time. It's been going long enough to have become widespread, but not long enough to be a characteristic feature of SA English.) As far as the rolling R's go, if you one day travel from Jozi to the Eastern Cape, you might still find some English first language "R-rollers". I have family who roll their R's, or who used to at one stage, and stopped. There used to be a bit of a class divide between Jozi R-rollers (English first language, I mean) and those who spoke something more like "Natal English", so I'm guessing that the "Rollers" might have been class-shamed into being rare up there. There's nothing like that in the Eastern Cape (or there wasn't). So what I'm saying is that in parts of South Africa, there are still some English first language speakers who roll their R's, even if they're in the process of going out of fashion in Jo'burg. Hell, I've got Afrikaans relatives from Jo'burg who don't roll their English R's any more, so it's not just an English thing. The American sounds are just interesting. It's not like the one way of speaking is better than the next, objectively speaking - just so long as people can more or less understand you. It's interesting the way language use changes. And it'll change again. Give it twenty years, and you'll see.
That "English"-speaking SA guy sounded like an East Coast American. Totally unlike any native English-speaking South African I've ever encountered. Where and why did you choose him for your example??? A totally false picture of the varied accents of a multi-cultural country. Disappointing at best.
I grew up in South Africa speaking English exclusively. I immigrated to the US as a kid in 1979 and my accent was very different from American English -- and to some extent it still is. However, I've noticed the younger South African's have picked up far more Americanisms than I have even though I live in the U.S. and they don't. I attribute that to their exposure to American TV. When I lived in South Africa, we had much less exposure to American TV shows as TV was only introduced a couple years before I left.
@@grantvergottini3974 TV is probably a factor, although Aussies have quite a lot of American TV, American movies, etc, and don't seem to have picked up elements of an American accent, so I think it might be necessary to add online games into the mix. (Says someone who once woke up at 3AM, hearing someone say something like, "Go round to the window. You'll be able to shoot him from there", with "there" having an "r" in it. In South Africa, so momentarily inducing a cold chill/ fear of death. It was just a young nephew giving instructions to the Germans in his warrior band, all fighting an international war against other kids somewhere in the multiverse. Their computers were in my quarters. The ones who sound slightly American to me.)
As a UK born, Southern African raised individual, this was a very interesting video. Now a new subscriber, enjoying the Cockney videos. My Mum was a proud Cockney. 😁
"Ag" to me is more like the Scottish 'Och'. We have an app for the Loadshedding schedule. Lekker is great. In the plural 'lekkers' mean sweets. Fundi is an expert. There is such a borrowing of words. Yes is almost always Ja.
Just what I was thinking, I am an English speaking South African (still living in SA) and definitely don’t sound like that, nor does anyone I know sound like that!
13:22 A full trilled R is in Spanish spelled RR (except at word beginnings, when R automatically is pronounced as RR) -- this is more like Spanish R (outside word beginnings in Spanish, but obviously in word beginnings in Afrikaans and South African English).
He should definitely get a Cape Town Coloured on the show.. That will be a Cultural experience. As a South African Coloured myself i know we a special bunch of people 🙃
Thanks for posting the wealth inequality numbers because I had never checked them, but whenever I go to SA, the phrase "filthy rich" pops into my mind, and I'm no communist. At least, the stunningly beautiful nature is there for everyone to enjoy. And now I'm very intrigued about Suriname - how random! (apart from the fact they speak Dutch there). Thanks also because I've learned that sign language was an official language. That reminded me of the scandal at Mandela's funeral with a sign language interpreter who was accused of sign-talking gibberish... In Africa, in general, you'll rarely find someone who doesn't speak at least 2 or 3 languages (the parents' language, the linga franca and a European language). In Western Europe, people (the ones I've met) tend to think that speaking another language is a sign of intelligence whereas it's a normal thing in many cultures.
I'm wondering how accurate it is. For the US they showed the federal minimum wage which hasn't been updated in years because real wages are actually much higher. The median wage is over $33/hr. Also, the cost of living is wildly different from city to city so $17 in Atlanta is much different from $17 in San Francisco.
@@ridesharegold6659 It's also extremely misguided when they compare minimum wage to 1st world countries (Which people love to do). I remember a short documentary on South African inequality comparing us to the Scandanavian countries... Really?!. When you start to look at minimum wage on the African Continent alone, South Africa is relatively well off (Although still not great). We're also one of the highest welfare states in the world.
I certainly did not have the choice to learn Zulu at school, that only happened later on closer to 1994. We had to do German and English. Accents vary widely. Black speakers speak differently depending on region and so do whites, Indians and coloured people. Regional European English accents differ from Natal, Johannesburg and Cape town. Add to that the different racial groups and you're looking at a varied mix. Why all the chit-chat and politics. Get into the language, it took 11 minutes!
Hi, great video! At the end I was a bit surprised though because I expected Kif to be from Afrikaans even though I actually don't know whether it's an afrikaans word or not. The reason for my thinking : in Dutch we have the word GAAF with the same meaning (although nowadays it's a bit old fashioned...). I see a few options: *the Dutch word comes from Arabic *the English word indeed comes from afrikaans and not Arabic *the words don't share a common origin and it is a coincidence.
@@LetThemTalkTV These things keep changing. I can remember a time when the current "kiff" was "gif" (with a "gatvol -g") - which means "poison" in Afrikaans. I'd guess that might've come from "kiff", so you have some kind of "kiff" - "gif" - "kiff" arc. (And then a lot of people would use the word "poison" instead, and for a while this was the most common form of this.) It might be interesting (and difficult, I'd guess) to track how these things travel round the English speaking world, and transform over time. Looks like bits of slang can have a long life, since "kiff" has been around for ages if you include its hidden forms, such as "poison". "Ay bru, that was _poison_ ek sê." Meaning it was fantastic. ("Ek sê" means, literally, "I say", like the upper class characters in the old movies would say. "I say, old chap ... " So I suppose some guy coming home with his friends from the bughouse (you know, the bioscope) with his connections long ago might have started parodying something in the dialogue of the movie they'd all just watched, and next thing you know, everyone's slanging "ek sê" around. Until they suddenly don't any more.)
@@gysgijsbers4202 And then for a _woes_ small woman, there's a saying you might _smaak_ : "Klein botteltjie, sterk gif." ("Small bottle; strong poison", for "passers by". Don't get on the wrong side of her. :D ) Someone said that about my sister-in-law, once. He was right.
I also speak some French and a little German (Namibian background). Thinking it will be easy, I have casually tried to learn "proper" Dutch. Not easy at all, I found the grammar especially a nightmare. Afrikaans sentence construction is often very similar to French. I think the French influence is often underrated, a good bit of the vocabulary is also similar. In fact, I would say I found French easier to learn than German.
As a South African, I can say never have I used the word "shebeen" when I'm at a bar, as there are 2 major differences between the two. "Aikona" is also a phrase barely used by English South Africans.
How about a follow-up video comparing different South African Englishes? A lot of those examples sentences at the end feel a bit.. not natural & mish-mashed (probably a bit dated too). Sticking to a specific region/city/community would be more illuminating.
There are different accents depending on culture. The mocked SA accent is usually Afrikaans. We can tell on the phone who the speaker on the other end: Indian, Afrikaans, English or African (there are several of them.) Almost everyone speaks English, but as a South African of English descent I deem this as not necessarily a good thing as I have to hear my language being murdered daily - bad grammar, wrong spelling, incorrect usage etc. Good English is no longer taught in our schools so even young English speakers here csn't spell or even speak their own mother tongue properly anymore
Indians came across to Kwa Zulu Natal as indentured labourers to work on the sugar farms. Most of them did not go back because they loved the country so much.
Most of the South African's voice are almost inaudible, even with my volume turned up to maximum. It has been interesting to me as a South African to watch this video. As another viewer has commented, yes, Afrikaans is closer to Flemish than Dutch and it also has some Latin and German in it.
I'd imagine the KZN Midlands (Maritzburg) to be one of the biggest English enclaves. Pure English is still spoken there as the area was settled mostly by Brits. For example, I'm easily confused for a Brit. South East usually
Yes, I am from Hilton near Howick and we definitely don't sound at all like Jo'burgers or Capetonians. I was once in Pretoria and the Afrikaans lady serving me at the shop asked where I was from- when I told her, she said, " Ja, I thought you sounded coastal".
I’m afraid the South African guy did have a rhotic R, except in “mother’s”. There are differing degrees of strength of the pronunciation of R in American English, but he did say all the Rs but one.
Yes, as a South African myself I am very surprised by his accent. It has an American twang to it - not only the Rs but also some of his 'ah' sounds are more American - 'acrahs' rather than 'across', for instance. Also some of his t-sounds are pronounced like an American 'd' - 'ethnicidies' for instance. It's subtle but enough for me at first to immediately pick it up
Your comments are welcome and if you have any criticisms of the video that's fine. We covered a lot of ground and if there are any factual errors feel free to point them out. However, there have been comments complaining that the guest was "too white" or had the "wrong kind of South African accent". The kind of disrespect of the guest will not be tolerated and these comments will be deleted.
Why not tell us more about Bryan and his qualifications?
Usually yes. Always no.
He sounds like a proper Jo'burger and not so much an average English South African.
@@friendlypiranha774 Yes, because you are representative of 100% of South Africans /s
Thankyou 💚 🙏
We South Africans can usually tell which province a person comes from by the inflections in their tone of voice.
True
Inflections not Inflections 😂
Sorry, this damn autocorrect drives me crazy.. I actually typed "inflections not inflictions".!!!
@@normanboxshall-smith9157 thanks
Yip we KP’s can spot you Vaalies in a hot second. Changing your number plates does not fool us. 😂
Something to note is that the slang used by English speakers varies WILDY from region to region. Cape Town vs Port Elizabeth vs Durban vs Johannesburg. Also the accent is noticeably different (at least to us).
even Pretoria, most of the times when we meet people from other cities they don't really know where our slang or accents come from
Try Afrikaans. "Ek wil net donkie sé aan my maw en my paw."
@@rolandoscar1696 êk staan voor die hêk voor die lelike plêk
@@okuhtttf Corniest SA joke by far.
What do you call a tick on a gate?
Hek- tick.
@@rolandoscar1696 That is Pretoria accent while speaking Afrikaans. The Cape has a much different Afrikaans accent.
I speak South African English and was taught to say "thee" before a vowel in primary school in South Africa.
yes, so was I. But I think we have dropped that now. When I say Thee, it is placing emphasis in the subject such as "thee (sic) English apple " is the only english apple in the bowl, room, world or whatever. It is Thee motor car to buy-ie the best or only one to consider. And yes, I know that Car starts with a consonant.
...& whom? Thee, thow & thus...
He shall, she shall - the rest of us will....😂 Also, I got taught "thee egg..." Though English has always been my 2nd language.
Me too
Me too & my mother was quite pedantic- her mother was an E Cape Afrikaner whose father spoke only English & she only learned High Dutch at school: she didn't know Afrikaans, my mother did.
As a English speaking Saffa i must say his accent is quite all over the place... little sprinkles of different inflections
I agree
Afrikaans is NOT an old version of Dutch. It's a brand new Germanic language that developed from Dutch but is a language, fully developed with a grammar absolutely different from Dutch and other Germanic languages. Germanic and other language scholars actually refer to Afrikaans affectionately as "the new Germanic baby," because it is such a recent and only fully developed new language only written down as a written language during the 1920s and 1930s in the previous century. Thus, Afrikaans is studied by scholars studying how a language actually develops, because it happened so recently.
You're forgetting that Afrikaans was first written in Arabic by Cape Malay? Coloureds invented the language.
@@LB_die_Kaapiewho cares who 'invented' it. The language is a daughter language of Dutch I've heard, but still its own language obviously seeing Dutch blokes say it say like the same but still quite like gibberish.
I think the point is that it branched off from an older possibly regional dialect of Dutch. But yes it’s a modern language in every sense since it has evolved possibly as much or maybe even more than Dutch.
Afrikaans actually was how the African and Asians workers in the cape colony communicated, patois if you will. They were mocked by the Dutch Colonisers saying they cannot speak Dutch properly. The Africans, responded by saying no this is not Dutch, it is Afrikans. Derived from dutch originally spoken by the black. White folk adopted it later.
Why germanic becausevi would say we that are afrikaans speaking had to do Nederlands setwork book in std 9 and 10 which was matric... so afrikaans is near to Nederlands thsn dutch and german. Also we used it in the Lutheran church.
The stress and bravery to speak about a whole multicultural country 😂 he did a pretty good job unlike these other videos I’ve seen that choose to ignore every other ethnicity that exists in our beautiful country and blanket our whole country under their experience. Good job
Hi. How are you? Greetings from the neighbouring country, Mozambique 🇲🇿. Portuguese speaking country.
@@falaafrica3114Boa noite meu amigo! Love Mozambique! Amazing country with beautiful people!
@@kobusdowney5291 boa noite. Espero que estejas bem de saúde? I am happy that you love Mozambique
@@falaafrica3114disgusting, you dont speak Tsonga anymore. It's sad to see my fellow Tsonga people not even speak the language anymore, drop that colonisers language and speak your roots n'wana mhani .
@@tsaki_titan bruh...
If you think all mozambicans speaks Tsonga you are sorely mistaken 😂. There are many dialects and Portuguese is simply a common language everyone understands. You are a hypocrite, considering you are speaking in the "colonisers" language lol. Get a grip and live for the future.
Peace!
Ja, the pronunciation of the R is a very new addition to the Anglo-South African accent. Generally (or perhaps historically😢) South African English is non-rhotic, and we would/do pronounce an R like Ah (with a rounded A, like in Ba(h)r, and not Cat), no thanks to American TV shows. Without any disrespect to my countryman, his accent, to a South African ear, has been highly influenced by living abroad. You can definitely say that it is a South African accent, but an evolved one. Thanks for the video
Definitely has a french accent attached to the South African English. And yes, as others have mentioned, his Anglo-South African is definitely from Gauteng. English South Africans from Cape Town, Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal tend to have more British English "rules" that we had to adhere to at school.
"Thee" antelope. The card.
Just like England there are many accents. Some 1st Language Afrikaans speakers sound like 1st Language English speakers esp. businesswomen and men.
This man actually sounds quite American. My accent is very different from his…I’m from Cape Town. My grandparents were mainly British, with some French thrown in. I also speak Afrikaans but when I was at school in the 1950s and 60s, I didn’t have a choice. It does make it easier to understand Dutch. When I was in Belgium, I actually found Flemish more difficult to understand.
That’s because Johannesburg English and Cape Town English accents are actually quite different.
I agree. He does have traces of an American accent.
@@jilldinneen4271no he is speakes Joburg South African English. Cape town does not represent the whole of South Africa
He sound South African to me, I’m from Pretoria
He is definitely not representative of a true South African accent. Traces of American Intonation in many of the words.
I've been to Luxembourg and I find Afrikaans to be closer to flemish than to dutch. There's also a lot of french in Afrikaans.
You're correct. Also a thing to note is even in Afrikaans (Much like any language) you get different dialects and accents. The most common difference for whites is high and low Afrikaans.
After watching Dutch and Flemish series and movies on Netflix I agree completely. As an english speaking Saffer, I can follow the Flemish quite well, but the Dutch not so much.
Correct, I had a mutually understandable conversation with a Belgian once (him speaking Flemish and me speaking Afrikaans).
Afrikaans originated from Dutch language because South Africa was colonised by the Dutch
There are all sorts of influences on our language because of our diversity, French, Portuguese, Italian as well as Arabic have also contributed to our version of English.
South African slang is fantastic. It's influenced by so many things, such as the region you live in, the different languages, the type of school you went to, the type of people you get to meet as you move through life, the level of education you have, etc.
I'm a Sotho man, who speaks English and Afrikaans and lives in a, predominently, coloured area. My friendship groups are made up of English and Afrikaans white people, English and Afrikaans coloured people, English speaking Indians and multilingual black people. I'm exposed to a lot of Xhosa and Zulu media. That's just a few of the things that influence the way I talk. Even my accent is 'unusual' or so I've been told.
Love to hear this boet!
I think the easiest way to explain the term "Just now" as used by Saffers is that it can mean any time except what it actually says, right now! 🤣
Pretty much. Anytime from now until possibly eternity
In Coloured Households, it's quite different. For example:
Your mom ask you to do the dishes
You: Just now
Mom: What did you just say?
Your mind: I'm about to die
😅😅😅
I was looking for this comment 😅.
If you're not South African, then that phrase will abuse you.
Now now is later than just now 😂
@@ImadeUlookI always get met with "so you mean next week" when I say now now
This South African has more than a slight American influence on his accent.
I’ve subscribed to this channel for over 5 years now, I am grateful to see you covering South African accent.
As a South African, I find this quite informative. The accent depends NOT on the race, but on the location. So a native Zulu who grows up in Cape Town will sound like a Capetonian. Saying that, there 20+ accents in Cape Town alone, which defer depending on the suburb of the city. And I would say that the majority of Capetonians speak Afrikaans, then English.
Eish! Talking about Zulu, and the base of your comment… I can only assume you grew up in kwazulu natal…. You have identified some close facts, but very generalised…
The Cape Coloureds are a breed on their own with a language of their own. Highly amusing and pretty graffic. Love them
The blacks has a language which bind there's all together called FUNYGALAW which mostly spoken between mining workers and also outside the ethnicity
You wouldn't even be able to tell who is afrikaans home language in the newer generation, I'm the only English home language amongst my friends (we're all coloured) and I genuinely didn't realise for probably a year that they were all afrikaans. It's almost more natural to just speak in English in cpt, even if you are afrikaans, because like they said in the video it's like a common tongue for everyone
@@slashbat2375 absolutely not. Cape Town natives speak Afrikaans more naturally than Durban
Just an important thing to note. There is no one definitive English accent in SA. There are thousands (Just like any language in any country). And it's not even City to City related. It's from suburb to suburb as well. The guy in this video isn't like any English South African I've heard, but obviously he's lived over seas for a while so you cant compare.
I grew up in a suburb known as The Bluff (Fucking legends).
Spent most of my spare time as a lightie either playing sports or going to the beach as most Bluff okes did. I can promise you that the dialect and accent of a typical Bluff surfer or a Bluff Heavy is unlike any other accent in English that you'll ever hear. In fact, unless you actually grew up around guys like that, you would struggle to understand everything they're saying.
Just as an example: The first line about no beers at the bar. A Bluff oke would say something along the lines of - "Ey cuzzie (mate) that oke (guy) is being jaks (stingy), ekse (Only South Africans understand the proper use of ekse, but it's a word that drives home a point or makes a statement. It's the word equivalent of a picture means a thousand words haha). He's not selling anymore wetties (drinks)". Depending on the bluff oke, there would probably be a few swear words or added phrases tossed in there, but that's the basic concept.
Then you'll go to another suburb like Montclair or Yellowood park and it's different. All English suburbs, all have their own twists in the language and all within 15kms of each other.
Shot for the answer, with you all the way China, we lived at 40 Worthing Ave, Bluff, for 2 years (1974-76), the days of the Gunston 500 surfing champs (Shaun Thomson, World Champ) ,we trapped to Fynnlands pool or mozied to the harbour to chat to the charo's gaffing the fish, any size was pan-size ...;) also to Brighton Beach or Cave Rock as a 9 - 10 year old...the Drive-inn in that spot was lanck (the kiffest)...naught ekse brah I agree this china does not have the quintessential
SA accent...
@@gysgijsbers4202 ey shot Bru. Ja the drive in and all that was before my time, I moved to the bluff in 96 when i was still a youngster but my old man always likes to tell me stories from the good old days.
Unfortunately these days all that is gone. Bluff is still a lekker spot for the most part, but it's headed more and more into the kak each year. Still a staunch community though. The looters and rioters saw their asses when they tried to raid Bluff, haha.
@@daaichommie708 Radical man!!! Probably the story of most of SA...hang in there, we might actually have turned the corner & enjoy that spot!!! I believe Margate & the rest of the South Coast are cleaning up their beaches & environs for tourism ;)
Rough and tough from the Bluff 😅
@@tracyschmitt4625 Rough and Tough we smoke that stuff!
Just found this video randomly while scrolling on Yt. And as a South African I honestly have to say, I'm really impressed. A lot of the video that get posted on yt about SA, doesn't cover half the things, you guys spoke about. I love that!😂
The Garden Route is not from Durban to Cape Town! It is a 300-kilometre / 190-mile stretch of coastline from the small town of Mossel Bay to the mouth of the Storms River and takes in places of outstanding natural beauty along the way, like George, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.
I think originally it was from Dbn to CT, that’s what I was taught in my earlier school years that has changed over the years and I have no clue what brought about the change.
Fun video to watch... however, I live in Pretoria and am a native Afrikaans speaker myself. I have never heard it pronouncec "a felfety fision..." where the V sounds like an F is in Afrikaans, and where some Afrikaans words were adopted into our vernacular, such as "veld" which is pronounced "felt", or my surname "Venter" which is pronounced "Fenter".
Afrikaans is a bit of a mix of Dutch, French, a bit of German, and funny enough some Indonesian. In the 17th and 18th century, the Dutch traded with the East, and they had colonised Indonesia, Many slaves were brought to the Cape of Good Hope, and that's where the Afrikaans for Banana (Piesang) has its origin. There is also a strong Malaysian influence in our food for the same region, and interestingly some of the first written Afrikaans was written in Arabic script, rather than the Roman alphabet.
I love how Bryan is proud of being a South African and how he is sharing about his country.
I again thought it was spot on. (I'm Cape Town)
100% agree! English is my second language, although I could read it at age 5, thanks to my mother's levels of frustration with an inquisitive little girl and Glen Doman! A 'V' in English is hardly ever mistaken or pronounced as an 'F'. More likely someone with English as a first language would struggle with the 'V' in Afrikaans as it is pronounced mostly as an 'F'.
Very oddly, there are numerous words in Spanish that are very similar to Afrikaans. Pantofels (pantuflas), oegies (ojos), biblioteek (biblioteca). These are just a few off the top of my head but there are more. I imagine that somewhere along the line there was some spanish influence as well
I am South African!
At school I was taught to say THEE before a vowel.
Not sure where this guest is from!
i before e except after c...lol
Very interesting. When I was at school, we didn't have a choice to learn another language, Afrikaans was compulsory for me as a second language. I am an English speaking South African and when we say "the" before a vowel, it should always be thee....
Ja, what he said is not accurate
@@mirandahamilton9680it’s accurate a lot has changed in the recent years and they allow you to pick. My matric was in 2019 and I had a choice
Mine was 2012 and Afrikaans was compulsory and Xhosa was until a certain grade
Yep, during apartheid you had no choice... you HAD to take Afrikaans as a second language at school. FYI, I'm a primary school teacher and in like 2003 we got the parents to vote on what the second language should be (English-medium school). I thought all the black parents would vote for Zulu and the white/Indian/Coloured parents would vote for Afrikaans, but it was the other way round! I was confused, and asked a black parent at Parents' Evening why his family voted for Afrikaans. He said, "Well, because my child can already speak Zulu." But 20 years later the kids are not at ALL interested in learning Afrikaans. They aren't exposed to it, aren't forced to watch TV in it (I was a sci-fi fan and to this day I can recite the Buck Rogers opening monologue in Afrikaans!) and don't care about it at all. So they do really badly in it.
Remember that Afrikaans, like English, is a West Germanic language along with Dutch, German, Frisian, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. Therefore, as an Afrikaans speaker, I find the other languages in the group not too difficult. I can understand 90% of Dutch, 95% of Frisian, 70% of German, 45% of Yiddish etc. I must admit, however, that I had a bit of German in high school.
Even for me as a Swede i can read afrikaans and understand. If A SA speaks slowly I can be part of at least the basic idea of a conversation. I just mix in my knowledge of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, English and limited Dutch. A lot of words in Afrikaans are the same or versions of older swedish words i already know.
@@perlarsson9350 korrek.
Anglo South African is pretty varied, probably because the populations are isolated. I think it also maybe varies based on the school you attended, as they tend to have distinct identities. Edit: the speaker represents Anglo English fairly, but his accent isn’t typical, and seems to have other influences. I don’t have a typical accent either probably as a result of my schooling and people think I’m from elsewhere. I’ve never heard anyone use the word “bint".
I can imagine a French influence but listening to him something feels off when trying I place the accent struggling between deciding if it's infact an accent issue or if it could be a mannerism in how he speaks it. I lived in 3 provinces he doesn't feel local to me
The word bint is a coloquial term originating from lebanese South Africans. (which I am). Other common expressions that have become more widely used are drib (fight), ghey/cuzzy (brother/cousin), zub (dick). I believe most are used ironically or in humor
@@NewMcNewness Bint did certainly not originate in the Lebanon as far as South African English is concerned. In British English it was in use in the UK well before the WW2. It may well have arrived in SA with British immigrants and may still be of Lebanese origin but brought to the UK after WW1.
Bint is quite common up in Jobreezy
I'm always interested in languages and especially how diverse English and Afrikaans can be in our country. English is my second language although I could read and speak it fluently at the age of 5! I had an English friend and this helped to secure me an English accent that is even at 61, often mistaken for being that of an Anglo South African. Of this I am very proud and maybe somewhat nitpicky when it comes to educating people from other countries about our use of the English language in SA. To be quite honest, he first time I came across the video a few weeks ago, I could barely make it past the first three minutes or so! Found it frustrating that it was not representative of South Africa in many ways. Now, I took a deep breath and pushed through to the end. Much as I can appreciate the intent, I have to say I feel the same way. There are definite similarities, and I will not argue that Bryan loves South Africa and our diverse peoples and languages, but as diverse as our country is, there are not many who would be able to identify with his accent and use of slang in all aspects (and I include friends who may definitely call themselves, Anglo South Africans). Your attempts to show the use of English in different countries is marvelously informative, but I can imagine a quite difficult feat as especially in a country like South Africa, it is almost impossible to generalise it to one specific person. Thank you for your time and effort, it is commendable!
Brian's rendition of South African English is interesting.
To say the least. His accent is atypical. I've lived in SA (in 4 provinces) for 63 years and have not come across his particular accent.
I've attended an English high school and never heard this type of English accent there or anywhere else in the Eastern Cape. To me, he sounds like an Indian South African who has unlearned the Indian accent. It sounds like linguistics is his forte. (I'm 74 years old.)
@@miavos3610agreed that it does not sound like any typical south African accent, but disagree about the comparison with Indian accent. Even Indians who lose the South African Indian accent. His accent is truly unique.
It's wrong.
I am a south african...coloured i speak Afrikaans..and it is my first language..there are various race groups that also speak Afrikaans with different provinces having different accents and.slang words we sometimes mix the the language up...We as nation have different race groups including indian,chinees,and many more races who settle down in south africa thus influenced the wat we are as a nation
What does coloured mean? Mix race?
As an Afrikaans South African, there is nothing as beautiful as an Afrikaans person speaking the English language badly. So beautiful!!
😂😂 You can say that again
I disagree. I am Afrikaans, but have been mistaken for being English-speaking. For me there is nothing more beautiful than to speak any language fluently and with the right pronunciations. But to each his own😂
I is not not understanding you not.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
your guest is absolutely lovely! Thank you so much))
This guy is very level headed, excellent knowledge and a great ambassador! Thank you for sharing!
English SA accents differ from region to region quite dramatically.
Correction - I Indians did not arrive in SA as slaves. They either came simply for paid employment or as as indentured workers, that is they had to fulfil a number of years (typically 3) of labour for an employer before being free to do whatever appealed to them.
The Dutch brought enslaved Indians from the eastern parts of India to the Cape.
Correct about the Indians. They most certainly were NOT slaves, and came here out of choice; mostly for employment, I believe.
Mmmm not so sure, neither how relevant this is here
@@baksteen2007 Learn the history of why the Indians were not slaves and is totally relevant in that it corrects an incorrect statement made by the presenter.
We do pronounce the as "Thee" in front of a vowel. We got taught that at school as first language english
Even second language, that just an English rule
Very interesting! I'm planning to go to South Africa soon! Very useful 😊👌 Thank you! 🎉
You’re welcome to come visit. Just know the safety do’s and don’ts and you’ll be fine!!
We have a beautiful country and the stronger currencies tend to enjoy the value of their money here. (strong currency goes a long way here!)
Just remember to uber arround and never ever take taxis.
Lekker lekker man... Ons Afrikaanders is uniek. We are unique... We mix, our Afrikaans with English most of the time... Esp in Cape province night sweet pie.. Lekker doedoes!!!!!!! 😂❤❤❤❤
Literally every other tribe does that as well too. You should go out more.
Because of my neutral South African accent, when I'm teaching English to my foreign students,in order for them to understand the different phonetics I have to give three different versions of some words, especially 'r' words. One in my own accent, one in American and another in British. Sometimes Australian too 😂
South African English is very diverse.
As a South African black woman who grew up in the Northern Suburbs in Sandton, apparently, my accent sounds American but also fluctuates to a bit of an Aussie sounding one, then sometimes a bit of my black and coloured accent comes out depending on who I'm speaking too so they can understand me a bit more as that's the accent they are used too and I can enunciate a bit more.
The Garden route extends from.Port Elizabeth to Cape Town.
Not from Durban!!!
Your distinguished guests are always welcome, the exchange of information is tremendous, I am a mixed bag of nations, black people, European in my blood, Brazil was the last country to free slaves, the golden law signed by Princess Isabel, African dialects are interesting, the African people find it easy to learn a new language, Africa in Brazil has a great influence on culture, words, food and music. Congratulations Gideon on the work!👏👏
That's very interesting. Brazil has an extraordinary tale to tell. It would make the subject of a good video.
Gideon, your video would certainly be very successful, since the discovery of Brazil with the Portuguese and then the African slaves, there was an agreement between Brazil and Italy in 1870 to receive Italian immigrants to mix with Italians to lighten the skin of Brazilian citizens, and the hand of work on the farms, also influences from other people who arrived here, Spanish, Italians, Lebanese, Japanese@@LetThemTalkTV
@@isabelatence7035 You are really right when it comes to the African influances on the Portugese spoken in Brazil. The various dialects from Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Benin. I think that has influanced the Portugese in Brazil extremly in the way its accent was shaped. Brazilian Portugese has more energy, swing, vibration when spoken compared to Portugese in Portugal.
@@onlineonlineaccount2368 I believe, I'm sure that Brazilians enjoy the African influence much more, the warmth of dance, music, food, Brazilian joy is contagious, you are very kind
Afrikaans is a new modern language (as in creole) and not a version of Dutch. It formed from a combination of mostly Dutch, German and French without certain complication characteristics of those langauges. For instance a lack of the gender distinctions in words. Dutch is round sounding, where Afrikaans is more guttural. Afrikaans varies in different regions and people whose home language is not Afrikaans also have differing accents according to their location when speaking Afrikaans. Scolding in English sounds really feeble compared to scolding in Afrikaans. If you tell your dog to go outside in Afrikaans he goes quickly. The same with drill commands in Afrikaans, fantasticly forceful sounding.
its certainly not a creole. we have too little influence from other languages for it to be a creole. Its 95%+ dutch my bru.
Here's the translation of the examples into my South African English Dialect
20:06 "Hell man, you can't get no more dop from the o' by the bar."
21:05 "Lets braai some wors 'n park off and watch the rugby"
21:18 "Top jol last night, but I dopped too much, have a winding baabie now"
21:42 "We were stuck at the robots for 40 minutes bru, I've had it"
22:50 "Ya went camping by Kruger with the brahs, checked out some lions, elephants and bucks, over tops"
23:20: "Yaas went surfing with the Cherry by Elands Bay, over lukka"
23:50 "Brah, who's this stekkie I checked you tuning with, people gonna make tunes"
24:20 "Guz, don't stress , load shedding will be over now now"
youre definitely from EC or KZN lol. I can sense the charro
I am watching the video from Mozambique 🇲🇿. Portuguese speaking country. I am proud of being English and Shangaan speaker
Wa hemba n'wehe amaha vulavuli xitsonga kwahalo. Ni sure na sweswi awu swi twisisi kuri niri yini unless u tirhisa translator
@@tsaki_titan 🤣
We also say "Howzit China" from Cockney "Natal province/KZN" English "Howzit China/Mate" rhymes with plate = mate 😉💚🇿🇦 also btw "Wit kant" = White side, apologies to Tom Curry, Bongi spoke Afrikaans "kant" = side 🏉🏆
China as whites say it is mshana in isiZulu, and I am sure it is influenced by Zulu speakers this of China.. for mate.
The standard tourist package: arrive and stay 1 day in JHB, fly to Cape Town, 1 day in the city and the Mountain, 1 day in the Winelands, fly back to JHB, and then spend 2 days in the Kruger, then back to JHB and fly out.
Correction with regards to the Indians in South Africa: They were not brought to South Africa as 'slaves', but as 'indentured labourers', so there is a formal difference (although some may say it is the same thing). With indentured labour, a person is contracted to work "voluntarily" without salary for a specific number of years in return for eventual compensation, or for debt repayment, or it may be imposed "involuntarily" as a judicial punishment.
Were you watching as well as listening? That's what I said on the graphic on the screen.
If I may correct you ... With regard to, not regards. Apologies, I'm an English teacher so it's stronger than me (or, more correctly, I) 😊
This was a wonderful podcast. Thank you. I'm an English/Dutch speaking linguist living in the Netherlands with SA friends and very interested in their language, dialect and colloquialisms. I didn't know about 'shebeen' ... hahaha ... that's great.
That was really interesting and educational. ❤ Even though I have some friends in SA, I only noticed them using the words like 'robots, braii, yebo', and they always say 'just now', and I didn't know actually that in English standard it's about the past 😅and load sheddings are such a common thing there😢
Well just now can refer to the past, as in I saw it just now, but usually relates to the indeterminate future so if you say I'm leaving just now it means in a while, crocodile. 😀
Where I come from many Indians arrived with the British Army during the Boer War, and stayed. Ghandi lived with Mr "D" Lazarus in Murchison Street Newcastle, Natal. He sent out nauch girls and a sweet meat seller called Fish to encourage indentured Indians to march in protest to the Transvaal. Mr Makergee, the watch maker, attended the march, and told me all about it.
Cape town is the most beautiful city in africa
Thanks for a brilliant break down. I've just subscribed because I found this to be very interesting.
There are different dialects among the English and Afrikaans people. The Afrikaans dialects can be very different depending on the area. A lot of the words this guy used aren't used often where I come from. We just speak straightforward English more like the host's English with a few exceptions. I also want to mention that now now means soon but don't hold your breath. African time. They'll eventually get there. Just now can mean in the recent past or an indeterminate time in the future. It could be in ten minutes, five hours or never. It's an easy way not to have to commit but keeping your options open. You have to say come now or come quickly to have them come.
Now now is not formal English in RSA
@@jeffryluise1699 Yes. Now now is slang. You also don't hear this very often. Just now is more common where I come from.
I am Sham from Bangalore,
No load shedding will effect me here frm watching Gideon sir's video boet! Nice to see Bryan 🙏. I nt nly struggled to catch Bryan's words bt Gideons too on zeitgeist banana where our sir goes full colloquial with Jon. Long time no vlog outside Gideon sir. Bring back that Barista, Cockney bob..I love him on Cockney-O-meter.
I’m definitely a fan of the series about the different varieties of English ❤ (not that there is any video I haven’t loved on your channel!). I’m made up with your newsletters btw! I wanted to email your back but didn’t want to spam you haha
Glad you liked the video and the newsletter. Your messages are always welcome.
Among the English speaking peoples, Irish people, South Africans and New Zealanders are my absolute faves. I get along with them so well
As a professional South African, i can say that not everyone has that weird accent that Hollywood gives all South African Mercenaries.
Hollywood doesn't have the foggiest idea about Afrikaans
Thank you, I am a South African of Indian ancestry and I thoroughly enjoyed the episode. I also enjoy everything ENGLAND has offered to the world from literature, comedy art and music, especially the rock music
I come from Newcastle in Natal - last outpost of the British Empire. As a youth in the 1940s, I often spoke to people of Indian origin who had arrived in our town with the British Army during the Boer War. My accent is different to that of Brian's . All my grandparent's were English leftovers from the Boer War, and came from Essex, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Norfolk. What a mixture!
I use to live in NN, beautiful Town
The Garden Route lies specifically between Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay, a trip of about 300 km's.
More properly Mossel Bay to Storms River.
Is it worth all the hype it gets? I'm from Durban, been considering going the garden rout to the Cape with my Mrs. Any pointers?
@@daaichommie708 Forget about the hype and just go. Definitely worth it. Garden Route is really Mossel Bay to Storms River Mouth. Best places are Nature's Valley, Plettenberg Bay, Sedgefield and Wilderness.
@@roccov11 Awesome, thanks for the push. We'll definitely do it.
@@roccov11 Knysna too my dude
Indians were not imported as slaves. They came on 5 year contracts but they were only paid at the end of their 5 years contracts. No one forced them to come to SA and could return after 5 years. They worked mostly in the British sugar cane farms. They came after the British abolished slavery. Today most have their own businesses.
Stop lying about well known history that is in public records. There was slavery in the sugar plantations and the Indian population was taken as slaves
No serious person believes that the English actually abolished slavery...
Great for educating people outside of South Africa
The coolest word in South Africa is 'Lekker' (from Afrikaans). Its become a staple in SA English because there really is no equivalent in English that quite captures the feeling or expression being conveyed. Roughly translated it means 'good' or 'great' but is used in a very broad context.... so 'that movie was Lekker(good)' or 'Im Lekker(super/very in a nice way) hungry after that workout'; 'you passed - Lekker !(congrats)'...
Ja ... and when I arrived here in 1990 ...I heard a term and asked what it translated to ... he looked at me for a while and said ... wind ass ... I was confused while everyone else burst out laughing.
Dis 'n lekker word daai - Pip Freedman in the 1970s.
Same word in German by look of it...
@@alistairknox5381 Yep, Dutch and German use the same word but it does not have as many meanings as in South Africa.
We have two kinds of South African Indians . First we had indentured labourers brought to SA from 1860. Most of these Indians left willingly to work on the Sugar Cane plantations in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The second type of Indians are refered to as passenger Indians they were artisans, merchants etc and they paid their own passage to come to South Africa around 1989.
Afrikaans is South Africa’s third largest language. There are only 5 languages in the world that were able to develop to a high level academic language in the 20th century, and Afrikaans is one of them. It is a West Germanic language.
But not an International language!
@@SuzetteGrist it's spoken in various Southern African countries
My nephew's friends who all went to a Model C school don't have any ethnic accent when speaking English. And my Norwegian husband took a while but he now understands the various permutations of now!
24:37 I've heard that 'china' might come from 'mtshana' (meaning nephew/niece in various Bantu languages)
Really good video, made me learn that I actually don't know SAEng all that well as a South African 🇿🇦
The beauty of language in ZA is we borrow crazily. I have learned some Xhosa as a KP and years ago when I learned what a hospital was in Xhosa I died laughing. It’s Isibedlele. “Isi” prefix indicating a loan word, “bed” as in bed in English and “lê” as in Afrikaans to lie down. 😂 A day clinic is “Isibedlele mini sassa”, literally “Hospital mini day”. Xhosa is a very interesting language and exists in many forms (rural and township) and many dialects (depending on tribal affiliation).
We took the word China from Cockney Rhyming Slang, as in China Plate = Mate. This is the same reason some people refer to their car as their 'Jammy/jammie', because Jam Jar = Car.
No, its definitely from the Cockny 'China plate' = mate. We like our slang in Cape Town ;)
@@LB_die_Kaapie Think so too and from long experience I know that bantu speakers are not above borrowing words that sound similar to their own language, words for things they have no equivalen, or even words that are easier to say. In Xhosa a for instance "molo" is just borrowed Afrikaans "more". A tradional Xhosa "good morning" is a lot more involved. Most Xhosa speakers I know tell me using English counting words is just easier than Xhosa equivalents. I think thats the beauty of language. Would not be surprised if "china" was so easily adopted into Xhosa (and other) BECAUSE it sounds similar to a known word. Also interesting how common "china" still is. My brother is in Australia and almost every sentence has "mate" in it :P
China comes from English cockney rhyming slang - China plate = mate. Its adopted in South African slang, not Afrikaans in origin
Excellent and informative video My mother was from Schiedam, Holland and Bryans Afrikaans resembled the Dutch accent before he modified it.
I have visited Cape Town and the western part of the garden route and Durban. Of the white SA population I detected three accents, the harsh-sounding Afrikaans, the familiar SA accent I expected to hear but also an British English accent that seemed to have no regional element. Particularly in Cape Town, I heard TV and radio presenters with perfect British accents, not American nor South African. I don't think these people had recently moved to SA, so what is the explanation for the neutral English accents I often heard. I am a native of Yorkshire, England.
Glen Hicks and John Robbie are former British UK accents on SA radio etc, it depends who they were, but you right there have been many others in the past.
Our English in its pure form spoken amongst totally English people from well educated families is that good English that you are referring to.
Well if you Afrikaans and only speak English for self defence then you would have a harsh Afrikaans accent (or whatever your mother tongue is), if you Afrikaans but you were educated in English and now work play and stay in English you generally have a neutral accent. If your mother tongue is English, went to an English school, stay in an English neighbourhood and work language is English then you will have a strong English accent.
Cape Town English speakers of English descent (myself included) tend to speak with a neutral accent that is usually mistaken by English speakers across the world as “someone else” 😂 What I mean is that Americans often think we are Brits, Brits think we are Australians, Australians sometimes think we are Brits but they tend to place us as South Africans better than most. Canadians often think we are second language English speakers as do Germans. This just a single traveling South Africans experience.
Having spent a lot of time in CT, I can see some people speak in an aaaalmost upper class British accent, but never quite. There's always a giveaway.
As a South African, this was pretty interesting, we have such an interesting diverse variety of cultures and I love it😂
The majority of SA Indians came voluntarily. As much as it is possible, for an impoverished indentured labourer, to voluntarily enter into a contract. As a part of the British empire, Indian merchants migrated to the South African colonies and the South African Republic (the Transvaal). Indians were legally excluded from the Republic of the Orange Free State. These form a minority of SA Indians.
Yes, rugby is beautifull sport and the landscape you show us so beautifull... let's hope for most egality in this beautifull country!
My dad spoke English, Afrikaans, Shona, Ndebele and a little Kalanga.
Surely he not South African
From Zimbabwe then?
@@haseenah2923Obviously.
Not everyone had the option to choose languages in schools. It depends on the places
Maybe it is different in Joburg, but in Cape Town we were taught at school to say thee apple etc.
I think you did a great job in representing us! 🇿🇦
This guy's accent is what I'd maybe characterise as "online gamer South African English" (just because he speaks like younger relatives of mine who began speaking that way in their gaming world). There are a few American features, like the rhotic r's. (I don't hear any rolling). It might be the "young" South African middle class accent.
There are South African native English speakers who roll their r's, and have quite "Afrikaans" vowels. (There are quite a few accents.)
English South Africans do not roll thier rs(none of my friends did and i griew up in Jozi)..... im willing to bet he is from a rich background plus everyone knows how much is in a quart.... 750ml. rhotic r's have nothing to do with American influence.
@@johanmyburgh2768 The occasional "American R" is a new phenomenon. If it didn't come from America, where did it come from?
(The only people I know who speak that way are gamers whose games often have American team mates they speak to over VOIP or whatever, as the game goes on - or Germans who speak American, and so on - hence my guess that the "new" trend comes from online games. "New" is an approximately fifteen year long stretch of time. It's been going long enough to have become widespread, but not long enough to be a characteristic feature of SA English.)
As far as the rolling R's go, if you one day travel from Jozi to the Eastern Cape, you might still find some English first language "R-rollers". I have family who roll their R's, or who used to at one stage, and stopped.
There used to be a bit of a class divide between Jozi R-rollers (English first language, I mean) and those who spoke something more like "Natal English", so I'm guessing that the "Rollers" might have been class-shamed into being rare up there. There's nothing like that in the Eastern Cape (or there wasn't).
So what I'm saying is that in parts of South Africa, there are still some English first language speakers who roll their R's, even if they're in the process of going out of fashion in Jo'burg.
Hell, I've got Afrikaans relatives from Jo'burg who don't roll their English R's any more, so it's not just an English thing.
The American sounds are just interesting. It's not like the one way of speaking is better than the next, objectively speaking - just so long as people can more or less understand you. It's interesting the way language use changes.
And it'll change again. Give it twenty years, and you'll see.
That "English"-speaking SA guy sounded like an East Coast American. Totally unlike any native English-speaking South African I've ever encountered. Where and why did you choose him for your example??? A totally false picture of the varied accents of a multi-cultural country. Disappointing at best.
I grew up in South Africa speaking English exclusively. I immigrated to the US as a kid in 1979 and my accent was very different from American English -- and to some extent it still is. However, I've noticed the younger South African's have picked up far more Americanisms than I have even though I live in the U.S. and they don't. I attribute that to their exposure to American TV. When I lived in South Africa, we had much less exposure to American TV shows as TV was only introduced a couple years before I left.
@@grantvergottini3974 TV is probably a factor, although Aussies have quite a lot of American TV, American movies, etc, and don't seem to have picked up elements of an American accent, so I think it might be necessary to add online games into the mix.
(Says someone who once woke up at 3AM, hearing someone say something like, "Go round to the window. You'll be able to shoot him from there", with "there" having an "r" in it. In South Africa, so momentarily inducing a cold chill/ fear of death. It was just a young nephew giving instructions to the Germans in his warrior band, all fighting an international war against other kids somewhere in the multiverse. Their computers were in my quarters. The ones who sound slightly American to me.)
As a UK born, Southern African raised individual, this was a very interesting video. Now a new subscriber, enjoying the Cockney videos. My Mum was a proud Cockney. 😁
Born within the sounds of Bow bells I hope!!!!
"Ag" to me is more like the Scottish 'Och'. We have an app for the Loadshedding schedule. Lekker is great. In the plural 'lekkers' mean sweets. Fundi is an expert. There is such a borrowing of words. Yes is almost always Ja.
and "Ja/Nee" (yes/no) is also Ja🤫 . So a sentence, " ja nee, Eskom is going to bring us darkeness again.
He actually left out "lekker" and "yoh" or "tjo" out. He should have added those as part of the SA vocab.
This dude certainly has a strange Accent for South African English. Must've been outside South Africa for a while now.
He is not a Joburg joller my china
Just what I was thinking, I am an English speaking South African (still living in SA) and definitely don’t sound like that, nor does anyone I know sound like that!
@CyberRags I kinda sound like him. Mostly cause of UA-cam. Its making me pronounce Rs.
Love this guy , he is so compassionate. South Africa is such a difficult country to represent when you are not empathetic.
13:22 A full trilled R is in Spanish spelled RR (except at word beginnings, when R automatically is pronounced as RR) -- this is more like Spanish R (outside word beginnings in Spanish, but obviously in word beginnings in Afrikaans and South African English).
He should definitely get a Cape Town Coloured on the show.. That will be a Cultural experience. As a South African Coloured myself i know we a special bunch of people 🙃
Remember, too, there are many different English accents depending on where you live
Absolutely. But it's the colloquialisms that stand out, Celtics, northern counties, old southern counties, etc.
I am a southern American and got a really good chuckle out of listening to you guys try to pronounce the R in car and bird 😂
As a South African, Im so proud to see a wonder display of our very diverse number of languages!!! Much love to everyone watching!!!
Im from South Africa too l lived near cape town and l support Palestine
Lekker, guys! Way cool to hear our accent and culture. Gooi!
Thanks for posting the wealth inequality numbers because I had never checked them, but whenever I go to SA, the phrase "filthy rich" pops into my mind, and I'm no communist. At least, the stunningly beautiful nature is there for everyone to enjoy. And now I'm very intrigued about Suriname - how random! (apart from the fact they speak Dutch there). Thanks also because I've learned that sign language was an official language. That reminded me of the scandal at Mandela's funeral with a sign language interpreter who was accused of sign-talking gibberish...
In Africa, in general, you'll rarely find someone who doesn't speak at least 2 or 3 languages (the parents' language, the linga franca and a European language). In Western Europe, people (the ones I've met) tend to think that speaking another language is a sign of intelligence whereas it's a normal thing in many cultures.
I'm wondering how accurate it is. For the US they showed the federal minimum wage which hasn't been updated in years because real wages are actually much higher. The median wage is over $33/hr. Also, the cost of living is wildly different from city to city so $17 in Atlanta is much different from $17 in San Francisco.
@@ridesharegold6659It varies by state. California has a higher minimum wage than Alabama. So it depends where in America you are.
@@ridesharegold6659 It's also extremely misguided when they compare minimum wage to 1st world countries (Which people love to do). I remember a short documentary on South African inequality comparing us to the Scandanavian countries... Really?!. When you start to look at minimum wage on the African Continent alone, South Africa is relatively well off (Although still not great). We're also one of the highest welfare states in the world.
I certainly did not have the choice to learn Zulu at school, that only happened later on closer to 1994. We had to do German and English. Accents vary widely. Black speakers speak differently depending on region and so do whites, Indians and coloured people. Regional European English accents differ from Natal, Johannesburg and Cape town. Add to that the different racial groups and you're looking at a varied mix. Why all the chit-chat and politics. Get into the language, it took 11 minutes!
Hi, great video!
At the end I was a bit surprised though because I expected Kif to be from Afrikaans even though I actually don't know whether it's an afrikaans word or not. The reason for my thinking : in Dutch we have the word GAAF with the same meaning (although nowadays it's a bit old fashioned...).
I see a few options:
*the Dutch word comes from Arabic
*the English word indeed comes from afrikaans and not Arabic
*the words don't share a common origin and it is a coincidence.
From my research, one theory is that the British got the word from Arabic. The British had originally used it as a slang term for marijuana.
@@LetThemTalkTV These things keep changing. I can remember a time when the current "kiff" was "gif" (with a "gatvol -g") - which means "poison" in Afrikaans. I'd guess that might've come from "kiff", so you have some kind of "kiff" - "gif" - "kiff" arc. (And then a lot of people would use the word "poison" instead, and for a while this was the most common form of this.) It might be interesting (and difficult, I'd guess) to track how these things travel round the English speaking world, and transform over time. Looks like bits of slang can have a long life, since "kiff" has been around for ages if you include its hidden forms, such as "poison".
"Ay bru, that was _poison_ ek sê." Meaning it was fantastic.
("Ek sê" means, literally, "I say", like the upper class characters in the old movies would say. "I say, old chap ... " So I suppose some guy coming home with his friends from the bughouse (you know, the bioscope) with his connections long ago might have started parodying something in the dialogue of the movie they'd all just watched, and next thing you know, everyone's slanging "ek sê" around. Until they suddenly don't any more.)
@@sicko_the_ew That was the kiffest China!!! Kiff = Funky / Cool
@@gysgijsbers4202 And then for a _woes_ small woman, there's a saying you might _smaak_ : "Klein botteltjie, sterk gif."
("Small bottle; strong poison", for "passers by". Don't get on the wrong side of her. :D )
Someone said that about my sister-in-law, once. He was right.
I believe kiff comes from Coloured slang. Means pleasant, desirable, especially nice.
your video really helped me thank you for looking deep into SA languages
I also speak some French and a little German (Namibian background). Thinking it will be easy, I have casually tried to learn "proper" Dutch. Not easy at all, I found the grammar especially a nightmare. Afrikaans sentence construction is often very similar to French. I think the French influence is often underrated, a good bit of the vocabulary is also similar. In fact, I would say I found French easier to learn than German.
As a South African, I can say never have I used the word "shebeen" when I'm at a bar, as there are 2 major differences between the two. "Aikona" is also a phrase barely used by English South Africans.
How about a follow-up video comparing different South African Englishes? A lot of those examples sentences at the end feel a bit.. not natural & mish-mashed (probably a bit dated too). Sticking to a specific region/city/community would be more illuminating.
In Cape Town we said quarts not quartz, where quart refers to a quarter of a gallon (close to a litre in volume).
There are different accents depending on culture. The mocked SA accent is usually Afrikaans. We can tell on the phone who the speaker on the other end: Indian, Afrikaans, English or African (there are several of them.) Almost everyone speaks English, but as a South African of English descent I deem this as not necessarily a good thing as I have to hear my language being murdered daily - bad grammar, wrong spelling, incorrect usage etc. Good English is no longer taught in our schools so even young English speakers here csn't spell or even speak their own mother tongue properly anymore
Indians came across to Kwa Zulu Natal as indentured labourers to work on the sugar farms.
Most of them did not go back because they loved the country so much.
Durban area up to the Upperhighway area is very English
Most of the South African's voice are almost inaudible, even with my volume turned up to maximum. It has been interesting to me as a South African to watch this video. As another viewer has commented, yes, Afrikaans is closer to Flemish than Dutch and it also has some Latin and German in it.
I'd imagine the KZN Midlands (Maritzburg) to be one of the biggest English enclaves. Pure English is still spoken there as the area was settled mostly by Brits. For example, I'm easily confused for a Brit. South East usually
Natal used to be called "The last outpost" (of the British Empire)
100% agree with you
Yes, I am from Hilton near Howick and we definitely don't sound at all like Jo'burgers or Capetonians. I was once in Pretoria and the Afrikaans lady serving me at the shop asked where I was from- when I told her, she said, " Ja, I thought you sounded coastal".
@@reuelmelville5232 Thank gawd you don't sound like you're from Brakpan/Benoni 😆
As an English speak from Cape Town, even the way words are different fro what the people from Johannesburg use. This was interesting, thank you.
I’m afraid the South African guy did have a rhotic R, except in “mother’s”. There are differing degrees of strength of the pronunciation of R in American English, but he did say all the Rs but one.
Yes, as a South African myself I am very surprised by his accent.
It has an American twang to it - not only the Rs but also some of his 'ah' sounds are more American - 'acrahs' rather than 'across', for instance. Also some of his t-sounds are pronounced like an American 'd' - 'ethnicidies' for instance. It's subtle but enough for me at first to immediately pick it up
Most probably from watching a lot of Hollywood.