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Requirements needed for reading this article? A sense of humour…
Some Afrikaners don’t like to speak English.
Why? Well, it all started in the late 1800s when the Afrikaners discovered gold in Johannesburg. They were very excited about their discovery and they told some Blacks to go dig it out for them.
The English in Britain caught wind of the discovery and, never ones to turn down the chance to exploit another country’s wealth, they went to Johannesburg and told the Afrikaners to piss off, which is English for voetsek.
The Afrikaners didn’t want to voetsek so they had a war.
The Afrikaners were winning the war because they hid behind rocks and bushes and shot at the columns of English soldiers that marched in broad daylight and wore lovely brightly coloured outfits.
The English were also losing because they were getting very bad sunburns from the hot South African sun. They didn’t take this into account when they came to fight a war in South Africa. This is why some Afrikaners call English Whites Rooineks (Rednecks).
Another thing Afrikaners call English Whites is Soutpiels (Salty Penises) because they say they have one foot in South Africa and one foot in England so their penises hang in the ocean and that’s why they’re salty.
Anyway, the British then got some hats sent over from England for the sunburn and they employed some dirty war tactics to get the Afrikaners to surrender – they took the Afrikaans women and children hostage and they burned their farms.
The Afrikaners couldn’t stand to see their families starving and dying in concentration camps so they stopped fighting and therefore the British won the war and earned the right to tell the Blacks to go dig the gold out for them.
Some Afrikaners are still disgruntled about all this and that’s one reason why they don’t like to speak English.
To be fair though, the majority of Afrikaners have let the past go and get on very well with English Whites and they do make an effort to speak English – effort being the operative word, because they’re not very good at it.
Afrikaners speak English with an Afrikaans accent, which according to some people makes them sound a bit slow. Also, despite having seen all the Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal movies, they still make fairly elementary errors in speech. Herewith some common errors:
1. When an Afrikaner woman sees a cute baby in a pram she says shame. Why shame? Really.
2. Despite inventing the rand and using the currency their entire lives, and despite the word having no Os or Ts, some Afrikaners still pronounce the word rand as ront.
3. Afrikaners don’t realise that a pair of jeans has two legs, hence being called a pair of jeans. Instead they will say something like, “This is my favourite jean pant.”
4. If you ask an Afrikaner if he can speak English and he thinks he can, he’ll reply that he speaks English very deliciously. This makes no sense because delicious is an adjective used to describe something that tastes good.
5. Concord is not a concept Afrikaners grasp well and that’s why you’ll often hear Afrikaners say things like “Those guys is my friends” or “I are wearing a jean pant”.
6. Afrikaners can get angry sometimes which may cause them to make threats. Unfortunately their threats are often lost in translation.
For example, if you make an Afrikaner angry by flicking him on the ear or something, he might bend down and pick up a stone and make the threat “I’ll throw you with this stone”. You’re left dumbstruck and can’t help but laugh and think where is he going to throw the stone and me?
Seriously, what kind of threat is that… throwing you with a stone? You’ll generally end up laughing at him, thereby making him angrier.
7. Afrikaners struggle to place their tongues against the bottom of their top incisor teeth and blow, thus making the “TH” sound. But they’re good at placing their lower lip against the bottom of their top incisors and blowing, thereby making the “F” sound.
This makes it difficult to understand what they’re saying. So you may hear the sentence “I’ll frow you wif a stone” when you were expecting “I’ll throw you with a stone”.
Even though they have been known to butcher the English language in these (and various other) ways, Afrikaners always speak English to English Whites because English Whites are even worse at speaking Afrikaans.
But while English Whites think it is funny to listen to Afrikaners speak English, Afrikaners cannot bear to hear their language being desecrated by a Rooinek.
This is an edited extract of an excerpt taken from The Racist's Guide to The People of South Africa, first published in 2010.
About the book:
The Racist's Guide to The People of South Africa is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek guide to South Africans of all races. From Coloureds who have no shame about public discipline, to Blacks who survive on a staple diet of chicken, Simon Kilpatrick, tackles the subject of our nation's diversity with an irreverence that is both insightful and laugh-out-loud funny.
Some Afrikaners don’t like to speak English.
Why? Well, it all started in the late 1800s when the Afrikaners discovered gold in Johannesburg. They were very excited about their discovery and they told some Blacks to go dig it out for them.
The English in Britain caught wind of the discovery and, never ones to turn down the chance to exploit another country’s wealth, they went to Johannesburg and told the Afrikaners to piss off, which is English for voetsek.
The Afrikaners didn’t want to voetsek so they had a war.
The Afrikaners were winning the war because they hid behind rocks and bushes and shot at the columns of English soldiers that marched in broad daylight and wore lovely brightly coloured outfits.
The English were also losing because they were getting very bad sunburns from the hot South African sun. They didn’t take this into account when they came to fight a war in South Africa. This is why some Afrikaners call English Whites Rooineks (Rednecks).
Another thing Afrikaners call English Whites is Soutpiels (Salty Penises) because they say they have one foot in South Africa and one foot in England so their penises hang in the ocean and that’s why they’re salty.
Anyway, the British then got some hats sent over from England for the sunburn and they employed some dirty war tactics to get the Afrikaners to surrender – they took the Afrikaans women and children hostage and they burned their farms.
The Afrikaners couldn’t stand to see their families starving and dying in concentration camps so they stopped fighting and therefore the British won the war and earned the right to tell the Blacks to go dig the gold out for them.
Some Afrikaners are still disgruntled about all this and that’s one reason why they don’t like to speak English.
To be fair though, the majority of Afrikaners have let the past go and get on very well with English Whites and they do make an effort to speak English – effort being the operative word, because they’re not very good at it.
Afrikaners speak English with an Afrikaans accent, which according to some people makes them sound a bit slow. Also, despite having seen all the Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal movies, they still make fairly elementary errors in speech. Herewith some common errors:
1. When an Afrikaner woman sees a cute baby in a pram she says shame. Why shame? Really.
2. Despite inventing the rand and using the currency their entire lives, and despite the word having no Os or Ts, some Afrikaners still pronounce the word rand as ront.
3. Afrikaners don’t realise that a pair of jeans has two legs, hence being called a pair of jeans. Instead they will say something like, “This is my favourite jean pant.”
4. If you ask an Afrikaner if he can speak English and he thinks he can, he’ll reply that he speaks English very deliciously. This makes no sense because delicious is an adjective used to describe something that tastes good.
5. Concord is not a concept Afrikaners grasp well and that’s why you’ll often hear Afrikaners say things like “Those guys is my friends” or “I are wearing a jean pant”.
6. Afrikaners can get angry sometimes which may cause them to make threats. Unfortunately their threats are often lost in translation.
For example, if you make an Afrikaner angry by flicking him on the ear or something, he might bend down and pick up a stone and make the threat “I’ll throw you with this stone”. You’re left dumbstruck and can’t help but laugh and think where is he going to throw the stone and me?
Seriously, what kind of threat is that… throwing you with a stone? You’ll generally end up laughing at him, thereby making him angrier.
7. Afrikaners struggle to place their tongues against the bottom of their top incisor teeth and blow, thus making the “TH” sound. But they’re good at placing their lower lip against the bottom of their top incisors and blowing, thereby making the “F” sound.
This makes it difficult to understand what they’re saying. So you may hear the sentence “I’ll frow you wif a stone” when you were expecting “I’ll throw you with a stone”.
Even though they have been known to butcher the English language in these (and various other) ways, Afrikaners always speak English to English Whites because English Whites are even worse at speaking Afrikaans.
But while English Whites think it is funny to listen to Afrikaners speak English, Afrikaners cannot bear to hear their language being desecrated by a Rooinek.
This is an edited extract of an excerpt taken from The Racist's Guide to The People of South Africa, first published in 2010.
About the book:
The Racist's Guide to The People of South Africa is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek guide to South Africans of all races. From Coloureds who have no shame about public discipline, to Blacks who survive on a staple diet of chicken, Simon Kilpatrick, tackles the subject of our nation's diversity with an irreverence that is both insightful and laugh-out-loud funny.
