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Ever wondered what the meaning behind the Afrikaans address "oom and tannie" is? Well, it has been confirmed through a PhD investigation by a University of the Free State (UFS) student that the two words are rooted in the word "respect".
Dr Carla Ellis looked at the use of oom and tanie as a form of address in her PhD research titled ‘n Sosiolinguistiese ondersoek na due gebruik van oom en tannie as annspreekvorme onder Afrikaanssprekended in Bloemfontien en George (A sociolinguistic investigation into the use of uncle and aunt as forms of address among Afrikaans speakers in Bloemfontein and George).
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Ellis said that 2 600 Afrikaans speakers participated in the study, which she described as empirical, and that she used mixed methods of data collection.
She sought to get to the bottom of why some people react violently when addressed as oom or tannie.
Ellis has been teaching sociolinguistics in the department of Afrikaans, Dutch, German and French at UFS since 2014.
“Sociolinguistics refers to the use of language in different social contexts, and it covers a wide area of variables that can influence the way a speaker speaks. In sociolinguistics, we look at aspects between a speaker and the addressee that differ or match,” she said.
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She said in the case of oom and tannie, the speaker makes certain inferences about the addressee based on age, gender and will accordingly decide how to address the interlocutor.
Ellis was supervised by Professor Nerina Bosman from the University of Pretoria and Dr Annette de Wet, who served as the co-supervisor.
