The origin of Afrikaans

Transitional justice is the process of dealing with wrongdoing committed in the context of conflict or repression for the sake of recognizing victims, holding perpetrators to account, and, most fundamentally, contributing to societal transformation. This paper considers, from the perspective of transitional justice, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). The author’s analysis is comparative. Specifically, the focus is on the armed struggle to end apartheid in South Africa and the pursuit of transitional justice in the aftermath of apartheid’s end with the civil rights movement in the United States. Although the achievement of transitional justice in South Africa is unfinished in important respects, explicit steps in that direction were made in South Africa that were not made in the United States. This account conceptualizes M4BL in the United States in part as a response to the absence of transitional justice in this context, and as calling for mechanisms of transitional justice to address explicitly past wrongs as part of the pursuit of broader societal transformation.

From a diachronic perspective, Germanic languages are in the process of deflection. In this context, there appears to be a rather chaotic amount of variation within the verbal inflectional paradigms of Dutch dialects. Based on the paradigms of the verb leven (“to live”) in 253 Dutch dialects, we provide a description and a paradigmatic analysis of the variation that we found in verbal inflection in geographically determined, synchronic varieties of Dutch. It turns out that the observed variation is remarkably consistent: there are nine different paradigms, eight of which show a geographically delimited distribution. We discuss the observed geographical variation in the context of Germanic deflection. We argue that variation and deflection are determined by paradigmatic simplification of the feature system involved. We demonstrate that the following economy strategies are relevant: (A) the reduction of the number of distinctive features for a particular affix in an inflectional paradigm: each affix within the Dutch verbal inflectional system is characterized by one phi-feature only; (B) the introduction of a default category [+finite]; (C) the reduction of the number of feature categories in an inflectional paradigm: Dutch inflectional paradigms allow the presence of only one inflectional category ([number], [person], [gender]). These strategies largely determine the realm of variation, within which regional varieties occupy different positions. By doing so, we provide a perspective on paradigmatic change, triggered by properties of the language system.

The present paper is an attempt to investigate and throw some light on J. M. Coetzee’s celebrated novel Disgrace (1999) in South Africa’s post-apartheid in order to indicate the ramifications in the aftermath of apartheid in which with the subversion of the white authority, and the change in power structures of the society, the once dominant ideology presupposing the white superiority over the black fades away. Through identity crisis, mimicry and violence, the white hegemony shatters and a new power structure comes into being. Hence, David Lurie, the protagonist along with his daughter Lucy are taken as representatives of the whites that suffer both physically and psychologically and go through an identity crisis which leads them to a kind of awareness regarding their current situation in the post-apartheid period. Having endured and suffered some pains that are going to be presented in the subsequent sections of the current study, David and Lucy draw a conclusion that there is apparently no way but co-existence and compromise between the two races. Apartheid, indeed, leaves a wound for both the black and the white through conflicts and collisions between them. Therefore, Lucy can be regarded as the symbol of redemption and reconciliation between the two races. In what follows, the word apartheid will be first defined and elaborated on, then applied to Coetzee’s selected novel in order to examine and demonstrate its overarching effects on both the white and the black.

Like modern Greenbergian typology, traditional dialectology has assumed a functional perspective in its morphosyntactic research. In this view, syntactic doubling phenomena in dialects have been mostly understood as means of extending either clarity and/or emphasis. The functional perspective has its merits and is justified: in the field of dialect syntax, there are many older studies which have revealed plenty of very interesting data. In colloquial and dialectal German, there exists a possessive construction which shows a kind of double marking. DP-internal prenominal possessor construction (DPIPPC) seem to occur in all Germanic languages, as well as in many non-Germanic and non-European languages. DPIPPCs exhibit a kind of double marking which is restricted to the surface, whereas there is no doubling in narrow syntax proper. The traditional analysis of DPIPPCs as possessor doubling is based on the assumption that possessive pronouns are all of the same syntactic category 'pronoun'. Keywords: dialectal German; DP-internal prenominal possessor construction (DPIPPC); morphosyntactic research; non-European languages; syntactic doubling phenomena

This article presents a brief overview of the language means of the German used in modern media discourse. Currently, the role of political communication, mediated by media discourse, is becoming increasingly important and attracting more and more attention of linguists. The language of the media is dynamic, imaginative, expressive, at the same time it is subject to the general principles of the functioning of the language system. A good example of this is the use in the texts of German-language online editions of the names of proper and derived lexical units. The focus is on deonyms, formed from the names of famous political figures of Germany and Austria. The results of the analysis show that proper names have an associative potential; in the process of use in speech, they can undergo semantic changes, lose touch with the designation of a specific person, and become a derivational basis for new lexical units. Thus, in the German language, thanks to the structure of anthroponyms and typical word-formation models, there appear deonyms-verbs, deonyms-participles, deonyms-adverbs, deonyms-adjectives, deonyms-nouns. They are designed to perform suggestive and manipulative functions in media discourse. This language phenomenon is of interest from the point of view of cognitive science, semantics, translation studies, comparative linguistics.

In this article two aspects of language maintenance are investigated. Firstly, the effect which the variable 'language variety', i.e. standard variety versus dialect variety, has on the language maintenance patterns of Dutch‐and German‐born immigrants in Australia, i.e. do German and Dutch standard speakers maintain their first language variety better than German (Swabian) and Dutch (Limburgs) dialect speakers? The investigation proved that the overall rate of language maintenance in the first generation was not greatly influenced by the fact that the informant was a dialect or a standard speaker. An analysis in terms of 'language variety' did, however, clarify certain patterns of language behaviour which were left unexplained in an analysis in terms of 'language'. It also revealed that certain dialect speakers (here the Limburg dialect speakers) maintained only their dialect and not the standard variety which considerably reduced the group of speakers with whom they could converse in the mother tongue. Language loyalty for dialect speakers from Limburg was perceived only in terms of the dialect and not the standard variety or the Dutch language per se. The second aspect of the investigation was concerned with the phenomenon of diglossia in immigrant societies. Besides Fishman's description of the language situation of immigrants in America as 'bilingualism without diglossia', the concept of diglossia has not been applied to an immigrant context. This investigation shows that the type of diglossia prevalent in the immigrant's home country or region bears a considerable impact on the language situation in the new environment. A plea is therefore made to create a typology of diglossic situations which would greatly enhance the study of language use patterns of immigrants from diglossic areas.

This book presents an analysis of Spanish prepositional clauses (< P + CP >) - complement and adverbial clauses. The goal is to examine the syntax and evolution of those clauses and their components in Spanish, contrasting them with other European languages. Prepositional argument and adjunct clauses are grammatical in present-day Spanish. However, Medieval Spanish only attests the latter; the former were not frequent until the 16th/17th centuries. Both types are examined in their syntactic evolution and properties, including clausal nominality, argumenthood, nature of prepositions, and optionality. Latin and Portuguese, French, and Italian - both in their present-day and past forms - are studied and compared to Spanish. Likewise, several Germanic languages are surveyed. These languages show variable grammatical degrees of < P + CP >. The comparison reveals aspects which challenge the commonly accepted conclusions about the clausal patterns of each language. This study offers a novel approach to the analysis of Spanish prepositional clauses by looking at its properties and formation not only from within but also in contrast with other languages. It argues for cross-linguistically valid categories and explanations in order to comprehend the properties of human language.

This paper explores features of the new lexical and phraseological units of German political discourse and their function in other languages. German media discourse, reflecting the policy of one of the major European states, generates many new lexemes and idioms. An important component of the neologisms is vocabulary based on politicians’ names. Deonyms are widespread in all European languages; however, their formation and function have certain differences, both morphological and semantic. The article studies the peculiarities of such new words as merkeln and Merkelism in the political discourse in different languages. While the German language is characterised by the use of verb deonyms, they are not characteristic of Slavic languages. In turn, the neologism Merkelism is being actively used by the media of almost all European countries, although its semantics vary. Relevance is the main condition for a new lexical or phraseological unit to enter the active vocabulary of another language, which is demonstrated through the neophraseme Europa der verschiedenen Geschwindigkeiten. The connotational meaning of phraseology in a given language depends on the political situation and linguocultural characteristics.

Peter Garrett, Nikolas Coupland &amp; Angie Williams, Investigating language attitudes: Social meanings of dialect, ethnicity and performance. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003. x + 251 pp. Hb $79.95. As its title suggests, this book focuses on attitudes to language and dialect production, perception, and use, and particularly on attitudes to language variation, dialect, speech style, language preference, and minority languages as well as their speakers. As we know, an important aspect of the complex social psychology of speech communities is the arbitrary and subjective intellectual and emotional response of a society's members to the languages and varieties in their social environment: Different language varieties are often associated with deep-rooted emotional responses – social attitudes, in short – such as thoughts, feelings, stereotypes, and prejudices about people, about social, ethnic and religious groups, and about political entities. These emotional responses and perceptions of language and dialect phenomena are biased by cultural, social, political, economic, or historical facts or other circumstances within the speech community. Sociolinguistically based research may build a more complete and accurate picture of the speaker's linguistic behavior, in the context of its complex social psychology, as well as of the regard for language use within the community, and may further understanding of the dynamics of speech communities as well as of the subjective life of language varieties.

The article explores the linguistic peculiarities of the works of James Joyce, known for his passion for experimenting with the means of expressing creative intent in pursuit of the ultimate realization of the potential of his native language. It highlights the author’s creative techniques, such as musicalization, blending, interlingual puns, deconstruction of words, inten tional grammar errors, and many more. A structural analysis was employed to examine several ‘deformed’ lexical units found in Joyce’s works “Ulyss es” and “Finnegans Wake”. Despite adhering to conventional word- build ing patterns, the rich semantic complexity inherent in Joyce’s poetics poses significant challenges for interpreting these neologisms in the source language. The translations of the novel “Finnegans Wake” into German by Beck and Stündel have been analyzed. The results of the comparative analysis of English (original) lexical innovations and their equivalents in German are presented, facilitating a comparison of the lexical systems’ capabilities in both Germanic languages. It is noted that the genetic relationship between the German and English languages allows for a more pronounced demonstration of the writer’s word-formation technique in translation. This becomes particularly evident when comparing the German versions of Joyce’s works with their translations into other languages, including Russian.

Notes on Contributors

One of the main objectives of foreign languages departments of higher educational establishments is to form a sufficient level of future teachers’ communicative competence in both a first and a second foreign language. Its indispensable constituent is phonetic competence which should be paid special attention to in the process of professionally oriented teaching of a foreign language. The article aims to describe the process of preparing, organizing and conducting an experiment on forming future teachers’ phonetic competence in English as a second foreign language after German, as well as to present its results. The experimental teaching was preceded by a pre-experimental test serving to define the students’ interiorized level of those second foreign language professional phonetic competence components that are identical to the ones defined in the structure of future teachers’ first foreign language phonetic competence. The received results become clear evidence of the fact that the future teachers’ level of interiorized professional phonetic competence at the beginning of studying English at university is not sufficient, thus, it requires further systematic development. Considering the German language a possible means of enhancing students’ English pronunciation acquisition, the author uses two variants of methods. Variant A takes into account their phonetic knowledge and subskills in their native and first foreign languages, which becomes the base for forming and developing their professional phonetic competence in English. This presupposes the use of activities which along with English speech units include those of the native and German languages. The students identify the features which are identical to their English equivalents and are encouraged to transfer the subskills of their pronunciation from German or a native language into English. Variant B involves future teachers’ experience of acquiring only their native language. The experimental teaching is followed by a post-experimental test, whose results in contrast with the ones received at the beginning of the experiment show the effectiveness of the both variants of methods. However, the comparison of the average increase indices in the level of professional phonetic competence components proves the expediency of applying Variant A of methods in the process of teaching the pronunciation of English after German.

As part of a global pattern of Asian exclusions, in the early twentieth century, the Cape Colony effectively excluded new Asian immigrants by requiring immigrants to pass a literacy test in a European language. A permit system, employing the technologies of photography and anthropometry, was developed to facilitate transnational travel for those already in the colony who were unable to comply with the literacy test. This article pieces together fragments of the biographies of two Indians who functioned as immigration agents/interpreters to bridge the immigration bureaucracy and the seekers of documents. Its focus is on the bureaucratic implementation of the law, the performative acts of the agents at the immigration offices and docks, and their clients and their opponents. It argues that, deploying attributes of respectability, these agents penetrated the codes of behaviour of officials and developed relationships and spheres of influence. The agents facilitated Indian Ocean mobilities and shaped the functioning of the bureaucracy, rendering it dependent, and its systems of identification fallible.

Reviewed by: The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership by Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ Abdelkader Ben Rhit The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership BY MŨKOMA WA NGŨGĨ U of Michigan P, 2018. 228 pp. ISBN 9780472053681 paper. The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership explores the identity of African literature or rather the lost identity of African literature. In this book, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ raises the question, “What is African literature?,” which he answers with “African literature is a question to itself.” (188) He strongly disagrees with the canonization by the writers who gathered in Kampala for the first Makerere African Writers Conference, dubbed the “Conference of African Writers of English Expression.” His book raises some pertinent questions regarding African literature’s unending battle with the language issue, which has been a matter of disagreement between Ngũgĩ’s father, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Chinua Achebe. Ngũgĩ argues that writing in African languages is a necessary step toward cultural identity and independence from centuries of European exploitation, and it is part and parcel of the project of decolonization. However, Achebe argues that African identity can be expressed through English, the colonizer’s language. Although the language question features prominently in The Rise of the African Novel, Ngũgĩ’s main argument is that African literature predates the Makerere generation. He takes issue with “the elision of earlier African writings such as the South African examples” (Cajetan 228) and the longstanding assumption—cultivated by publishers and literary critics over the decades—that the “African novel” began with the Makerere generation. This, Ngũgĩ believes, is the critical issue. “What does it mean for the African literary tradition when there is an absence of sustained critical readings of African writing before the Makerere writers?” (106). In his book, the younger Ngũgĩ reiterates the vital importance of writing African literatures in African languages because writing in English has contributed to the ascendancy of English and the thriving of African literature in English at the expense of literature written in African languages, like the earlier African writings from South Africa that Ngũgĩ highlights in his book. He states, “In The Rise of the African Novel I am exploring the question of why African literature means writing in European languages” (9). To this end, Ngũgĩ proposes the reconstruction of the history of the African novel, taking into consideration the writings of those who predated the Makerere generation. [End Page 209] The book is divided into an introduction and five chapters. The introduction highlights the major issues to be discussed throughout the book, namely the identity of the African novel, the Makerere writers, and questions of language, identity, and ownership. In chapter one, “No Shrubbing in the English Metaphysical Empire, Please: A Question of Language,” Ngũgĩ explores the “various ways Makerere and post-Makerere African writers have responded to the language question in African writing” (26). In chapter two, “Amos Tutuola: Creating the African Literary Bogeyman,” Ngũgĩ considers the “aesthetic costs and opportunities of noninterventionist editing” (26). His analysis of Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard (1952) reveals a poor command of English, arguing that editors did the author an injustice by leaving grammatical errors in the text. In chapter three, “Africa’s Missing Literary History: From A. C. Jordan’s Child of Two Worlds to NoViolet Bulawayo’s Fractured Multiple Worlds,” Ngũgĩ traces the genealogy of the African novel and African literary criticism beyond their conventional beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. He takes issue with critics who “chronicle African literature commencing from the “wrong literary epoch” (qtd. in Muchiri 1), showing that Africa’s body of fictional texts is enriched by reaching “back in time … and across space” (107). In chapter four, “Manufacturing the African Literary Canon: Costs and Opportunities,” he argues that the binary between what is literary and what is popular is “a false opposition” (154) because this has led to the canonization of the African political novel at the expense of other forms and genres in African writing. His creation...

Changes to place names comprise a relatively small proportion of geographical names approved every year. This can be ascribed to lack of leadership and guidance, a lack of political sophistication, ignorance and conservatism. Three kinds of name changes have been made since 1994: changing of historical and recent personal names; changing of non-personal names in European languages and Afrikaans; and changes to spelling. The names that have been substituted are, in turn, names of historical or more recent persons; old, non-personal names or more recent, inventive, names; or translations into African languages. Most of the controversies over changing names concern history: should one version of history be wiped out by another, and how accurate are arguments based on versions of history? Whether or not to change the spelling of names to make them conform to current orthographies is debatable. United Nations guidelines advise against it, but concede that offensive names should be changed, and black people see older spellings as offensive, whatever the reason for them. Some spellings have been changed, and more are to come, but language specialists have not yet settled every aspect of the orthographies of the official languages. Changing names can be divisive, as episodes since 1994 illustrate. Government authorities have at times acted in a triumphalist way and ignored the requirement for consultation, but ANC leaders have acknowledged white sensitivities. Whites concede the right of Africans to their place names, but express reservations that sometimes cloak conservative resistance. Government authorities could do more to allay the fears of whites. Some name changes suggest that generosity of spirit and good humour will prevail.