The Kroondal German of South Africa - Das Kroondal Deutsch von Südafrika

Kroondal, in the Northwest Province of South Africa, is one of over 25 German-speaking communities in the country. The German variety spoken in Kroondal has preserved distinct features of the Low German variety brought by the village's founders - missionaries and farmers from northern Germany - who settled here more than 140 years ago. A notable Low German feature is the pronunciation of the consonant clusters /sp/ and /st/, as heard in words like "spitzer Stein" ('sharp stone'), which in Kroondal are pronounced [sp] and [st] as in Low German, in contrast to the Standard German pronunciation [ʃp] and [ʃt]. Furthermore, Kroondal German has been influenced by Afrikaans and, more recently, by English.
Interviews with Kroondal residents resonate with the deep emotional ties that many German-South Africans maintain with their German language, even while living in a highly multilingual environment. In Kroondal, Afrikaans and English, and to a lesser extent, Setswana, are commonly spoken alongside German. This documentary offers some personal insights into the use of Kroondal German and other languages, along with reflections from local German-speaking residents on the future of their language in South Africa.
For a linguistic analysis of Kroondal German, please refer to the book "Sixth-generation contact German in South Africa: The case of Kroondal German" (freely available at elpublishing.o....
​For more information on our Kroondal German project, see www.sheenashah....