grammatical constraints and motivations for - University of the ...

While researchers and sociolinguists generally agree that Afrikaans developed
from Dutch and was influenced by the variety of languages present at the Cape,
the debate is mostly about whether the language is an ex-colonial one or an
African one and whether it is a form of Dutch or a unique language.
Based largely on Webb and Kembo-Sure’s (2000) argument on whether Afrikaans
is African or ex-colonial, my opinion is that Afrikaans is an African language as it
is spoken and owned by the people of Africa. However, it is not exclusively
African, owing to the fact the language was not created in isolation. Afrikaans did
not become a language of its own, on its own. It developed mainly from Dutch,
but was influenced by the languages spoken at the Cape during the seventeenth
century – European and African alike. No exact date may be pinpointed to mark
the birth of Afrikaans, as it was a process of evolution and creolization, leading to
the existence of a language so different to Cape Dutch that it became a language
in its own right.
1.4 Changing Attitudes toward Afrikaans
Attitudes toward language are usually based on the functions a language serves, as
well as the politics and social conditions associated with it. The roles and status of
Afrikaans have changed a great deal over time, and so, speakers have come to
adopt different attitudes toward the language.
During the seventeenth century, Dutch was used for communication between
slaves and their owners and was also spoken among slaves from the East Indies,
Madagascar, East Africa and West Africa (McCormick, 1990). In addition to this,
Dutch was the official language of the V.O.C. who had control over the
administration, church, law, education and the economy. At the time, education
was poor, but the V.O.C. later established a need to teach Dutch to the slaves and
so the first school was established.
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