Arabic Afrikaans
Encyclopedia
Arabic Afrikaans was a form of Afrikaans
that was written in Arabic script. It began in the 1830s in the madrasa in Cape Town
. It is doubtful if 'Arabic Afrikaans' can be considered a language
or dialect of its own.
Abdul-Kahhar ibn Abdul-Malik in 1868. The most professional version was written in 1869 by Abu Bakr Effendi
, who came from Istanbul
to the Cape in 1862.
ic traditions according to the Hanafi
religious law. Written by Abu Bakr Effendi, it was printed using Arabic script throughout, but contained transcriptions of Afrikaans.
According to one of the 3 experts in this field, the German Hans Kähler, about 20 people were responsible for the text, but the most important contributors to Arabic Afrikaans opinion were:
This is a paragraph of the book Uiteensetting van die godsdiens:
The Arabic-alphabet version uses an Arabic word in several places where modern Afrikaans uses a Germanic word, e.g. dunya دنيا for wêreld, meaning "world". The Arabic words are entirely unknown in Afrikaans.
Without the above Translation into modern standard Afrikaans (which is in itself not standard Afrikaans although much closer to it), it is nearly impossible for an Afrikaans-speaking person to understand the above Transcription of the Arabic-alphabet text. Some words do however appear to resemble phonetic transliterations between Arabic script and the version of Afrikaans spoken by Cape Coloured people, mixed with Dutch.
Islam arrived in Malaysia during the early 1400s and these works were most likely teaching tools; a way for muslim teachers to instruct Malay slaves in the Cape while not necessarily being able to speak Dutch very well or at all.
67
verse 1 says:
Here in the Afrikaans text:
and Christian
origin, and therefore a unique treasure of the Afrikaners. This is supported by the fact that until around 1900, Afrikaans was considered a dialect of Dutch and therefore not recognized as a separate language. Even today, Afrikaans
and Dutch
are considered mutually intelligible. As far as the Christian European origins of Afrikaans go, Afrikaans speakers in the Cape had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel which dated to 1618 (decades before Jan van Riebeeck
came to the Cape). The first official translation of the entire Bible
into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit, E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet. This monumental work established Afrikaans as "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially amongst the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that had hitherto been somewhat sceptical of a Bible translation out of the original Dutch language to which they were accustomed.
Today efforts are being made to assess Afrikaans and its origin and contributions to it, especially in vocabulary, of other languages (e.g. Bantu, Khoisan, Portuguese and Malay). A major factor in this was the non-white Movement for Alternative Afrikaans, that succeeded in getting non-standard Cape Afrikaans recognized. Yet the role of Arabic Afrikaans in this emancipatory movement is as yet unclear.
Afrikaans
is a West-Germanic
language extremely close to the Dutch from which it originated and has been influenced by German
, French
and other languages, with a relatively small number of loanwords from Khoi and Bantu words which are mainly used as place names or in words like "karos" which have fallen into disuse as far as modern standard Afrikaans is concerned. Whether or not Arabic Afrikaans is a language
per se, Arabic has had at least some influence in South Africa, even if only 2 or 3 words have been borrowed from Arabic; the word "kafir", which means "infidel" or "heathen" in Arabic is a taboo word referring to black people. Additionally, the root of the Arabic word jihad
is "jahada", meaning "he struggled", which is the term often used by black South Africans to refer to the fight against Apartheid, which included bombings of shopping centres, courthouses, a cinema (Sterland bomb) and at least one car bomb (the Church Street bomb on May 20, 1983).
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
that was written in Arabic script. It began in the 1830s in the madrasa in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. It is doubtful if 'Arabic Afrikaans' can be considered a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
or dialect of its own.
Texts
74 Arabic Afrikaans texts are extant. The earliest, the "Hidyat al-Islam", is dated 1845, though its source manuscript no longer exists. The oldest surviving manuscript, which describes the basic Islamic learning, was written by the imamImam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
Abdul-Kahhar ibn Abdul-Malik in 1868. The most professional version was written in 1869 by Abu Bakr Effendi
Abu Bakr Effendi
Sheikh Abu Bakr Effendi was a Osmanli qadi who was sent in 1862 by the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I at the request of the British Queen Victoria to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to teach and assist the Muslim community of the Cape Malays....
, who came from Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
to the Cape in 1862.
Uiteensetting van die Godsdiens
One of the best examples of this literature was Uiteensetting van die Godsdiens ("Exposition of the Religion"), a book laying out IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic traditions according to the Hanafi
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...
religious law. Written by Abu Bakr Effendi, it was printed using Arabic script throughout, but contained transcriptions of Afrikaans.
According to one of the 3 experts in this field, the German Hans Kähler, about 20 people were responsible for the text, but the most important contributors to Arabic Afrikaans opinion were:
- Abdul Kahhar ibn Hajji Abdul Malik (early 19th century)
- Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Baha ud-Din (mid-19th century)
- Ismail ibn Muhammad Hanif (mid-19th century)
- Abd ur-Rahman ibn Muhammad Al-Iraqi (late 19th century), and
- Abu Bakr Effendi (late 19th century).
This is a paragraph of the book Uiteensetting van die godsdiens:
- Transcription of the Arabic-alphabet text. The italics mark Arabic-language words:
- Iek bagent diesie kitab met Allah (ta'ala) sain naam. Allah (ta'ala) es rizq giefar ien dunya fer al wat liefandag ies. Allah (ta'ala) es beriengar ien die gannat ien dag ahirat fer al die miesie an djinns wat oewhap iman gadoet het. Al die dank an parais es rieg fer Allah (ta'ala) alien. Allah (ta'ala) het gagief fer oewhans islam sain agama. Islam sain agama oek waas gawies fantefoewhar Ibrahim sain agama... An Allah (ta'ala) het gamaak die Qur'an rasulullah sain hadit fer seker dalil fer oewhans... An Allah (ta'ala) het galaat oewhans wiet die riegtie wieg fan die ilms an gahelp fer oewhans oewham ta lier ander miesie oewhap die riegtie manierie.
- Translation into modern standard Afrikaans:
- Ek begin hierdie boek met Allah (hy is verhewe) se naam. Allah (h.i.v.) is onderhouer in die wêreld vir al wat lewendig is. Allah (h.i.v.) is bringer in die paradys in die laaste dag vir al die mense en djinns wat oop iman gedoen het (m.a.w. in die geloof gesterwe het). Al die dank en prys is reg vir Allah (h.i.v.) alleen. Allah het gegee vir ons Islam se godsdiens. Islam se godsdiens ook was gewees vantevore Abraham se godsdiens...En Allah (h.i.v.) het gemaak die Koran en die profeet se hadit vir seker bewys vir ons...En Allah (h.i.v.) het gelaat ons weet die regte weg van die godsdienswetenskappe en gehelp vir ons om te leer ander mense op die regte manier.
The Arabic-alphabet version uses an Arabic word in several places where modern Afrikaans uses a Germanic word, e.g. dunya دنيا for wêreld, meaning "world". The Arabic words are entirely unknown in Afrikaans.
Without the above Translation into modern standard Afrikaans (which is in itself not standard Afrikaans although much closer to it), it is nearly impossible for an Afrikaans-speaking person to understand the above Transcription of the Arabic-alphabet text. Some words do however appear to resemble phonetic transliterations between Arabic script and the version of Afrikaans spoken by Cape Coloured people, mixed with Dutch.
Islam arrived in Malaysia during the early 1400s and these works were most likely teaching tools; a way for muslim teachers to instruct Malay slaves in the Cape while not necessarily being able to speak Dutch very well or at all.
Qur'an
An example that used Arabic vowels was a handwritten Arabic–Afrikaans bilingual Koran (perhaps written in the 1880s). In it, for example, SurahSura
A sura is a division of the Qur'an, often referred to as a chapter. The term chapter is sometimes avoided, as the suras are of unequal length; the shortest sura has only three ayat while the longest contains 286 ayat...
67
Al-Mulk
Sūrat al-Mulk is the 67th sura of the Qur'an, comprising 30 ayat. The name of this sura refers to Malik al Mulk 'The Owner of All Sovereignty', literally 'King of the realm', one of the 99 Names of Allah...
verse 1 says:
- Arabic: tabāraka 'llaðī biyadihi 'lmulku تَبَارَكَ ٱللَّذِيْ بِيَدِهِ ٱلْمُلْكُ = "Blessed be he in whose hand [is] the kingdom."
- Afrikaans: °n dī kūnuň skap is bīdī hūka Allah ta`ālā °n vārlik Allah ta`ālā is bās fir aldī its
- ان دي كُوْنِڠْ سْكَپْ اس بِيْدِيْ هُوْكَ الله تعالا ان ڨَارْلِكْ اللـه تعالَا اِسْ بَاس فِـَرْ اَلْدِيْ اِتْسْ
- = "En die koningskap is by die hoë Allah ta`ālā en waarlik Allah ta`ālā is die meester van alle dinge."
- meaning: "And the kingship is with the high Allah (may he be exalted) and truly Allah (may he be exalted) is master for all things."
- (° = vowel sign missing, ň = "ng" as in "king", ` = ayinAyin' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
, underlined = in Arabic.)
Here in the Afrikaans text:
- [ň] is written as ayinAyin' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
but with three dots above ڠ. - [v] is written as [f] but with three dots above ڤ.
- [f] in "fir" has both an [a] vowel and an [i] vowel.
- As in Koran Arabic the letter of prolongationMater lectionisIn the spelling of Hebrew and some other Semitic languages, matres lectionis , refers to the use of certain consonants to indicate a vowel. The letters that do this in Hebrew are aleph, he, waw and yod...
in [ī] and [ū] has sukūn.
- The Afrikaans preposition by is written as part of the next word, likely by copying Arabic language usage with some prepositions.
- The Afrikaans word al = "all" is written as part of the next word, likely by copying Arabic language usage with al- = "theTHETHE is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:*Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven , a Dutch university of technology...
". - In فِـَرْ the 'a' vowel was handwritten straight above the 'f', but the limitations of UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
typesetting have pushed it to the left in this copy.
Arabic under Apartheid
The apartheid regime was reluctant to openly acknowledge the influence of other languages spoken in South Africa on Afrikaans, since Afrikaans was purported to be a pure language of AfrikanerAfrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
and Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
origin, and therefore a unique treasure of the Afrikaners. This is supported by the fact that until around 1900, Afrikaans was considered a dialect of Dutch and therefore not recognized as a separate language. Even today, Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
are considered mutually intelligible. As far as the Christian European origins of Afrikaans go, Afrikaans speakers in the Cape had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel which dated to 1618 (decades before Jan van Riebeeck
Jan van Riebeeck
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck was a Dutch colonial administrator and founder of Cape Town.-Biography:...
came to the Cape). The first official translation of the entire Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit, E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet. This monumental work established Afrikaans as "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially amongst the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that had hitherto been somewhat sceptical of a Bible translation out of the original Dutch language to which they were accustomed.
Today efforts are being made to assess Afrikaans and its origin and contributions to it, especially in vocabulary, of other languages (e.g. Bantu, Khoisan, Portuguese and Malay). A major factor in this was the non-white Movement for Alternative Afrikaans, that succeeded in getting non-standard Cape Afrikaans recognized. Yet the role of Arabic Afrikaans in this emancipatory movement is as yet unclear.
Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
is a West-Germanic
Germanic
Germanic may refer to* The Germanic languages, descended from Proto-Germanic.* The Germanic peoples**List of Germanic peoples**List of confederations of Germanic tribes* German people* Germanic mythology...
language extremely close to the Dutch from which it originated and has been influenced by German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and other languages, with a relatively small number of loanwords from Khoi and Bantu words which are mainly used as place names or in words like "karos" which have fallen into disuse as far as modern standard Afrikaans is concerned. Whether or not Arabic Afrikaans is a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
per se, Arabic has had at least some influence in South Africa, even if only 2 or 3 words have been borrowed from Arabic; the word "kafir", which means "infidel" or "heathen" in Arabic is a taboo word referring to black people. Additionally, the root of the Arabic word jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
is "jahada", meaning "he struggled", which is the term often used by black South Africans to refer to the fight against Apartheid, which included bombings of shopping centres, courthouses, a cinema (Sterland bomb) and at least one car bomb (the Church Street bomb on May 20, 1983).