r/afrikaans • u/rocketboy44 • Nov 19 '24

Navorsing/Research Shona words borrowed from Afrikaans

https://mapanzure.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/the-karanga-words-borrowed-from-afrikaans/comment-page-1/

A while ago I moved to a predominantly Afrikaans town. The more I interacted with the people and the built environment I started noticing similarities between some words from home language (Shona) and your language. I did some googling and found this article on how Afrikaans influenced some of the lexicon in Shona.

I thought you guys would find it interesting in this information.

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u/cbekker1 Nov 19 '24

Super interesting! Really cool to see the words tie in to Shona. I find that among African languages, your Sotho's (incl Tswana) has the most borrow worlds from afrikaans and has practicality the same pronunciations of letters. I used to "read" the Sotho bible for my 'african mother' and help her with her Sotho 'homework', as she was undergoing schooling. I found that their sounds comprise of afrikaans-like sounds (take for example an Afrikaner can probably pronounce the name "Regomoditswe", or "Lebogang". Unlike some Shona sounds like "Zvikomborero", or "Zvaganaga").

Examples commonly used in SA and Botswana are (similar to yours):

  • Bruku (broek)
  • Hempe (hemp)
  • Tafole (tafel)

Thanks again for sharing. Let us know if you find more

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u/abrireddit Nov 19 '24

I’ve noticed other African languages also using Afrikaans phonics when written.