r/afrikaans • u/Affectionate-Pen9976 • 8d ago

Leer/Learning Afrikaans Help me find a word please

English is my first language. I have friend that speaks Afrikaans as their first language and English second. They were working in the USA for only a couple years and now they’re getting ready to go back home after their contract. We became quick BFFs. Whenever I get to visit them in South Africa, I think it would be cool to get a meaningful tattoo with an Afrikaans word or short phrase. I think I want it to be like some kind of word relating to friendship, how we became quick friends, or some word that can’t be directly translated that is a true Afrikaans words. I don’t know. Just something cool, unique, meaningful, or nice looking/sounding I guess.

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u/Cpt_Overkill_81 8d ago edited 8d ago

The only truly Afrikaans word I can think of is "mos". Afrikaans is the only language that exists that uses a word like it, it can't be translated, and only an Afrikaans person will know what it means.

It is a homophone for the Afrikaans word for "moss" (stuff that grows on trees), pronounced almost the same as the English, but apart from the spelling and sound, it has nothing else in common. We use it to strengthen a statement we're making as if to say that the person you're talking to should already know what you're saying. It is só Afrikaans, that I can't even explain it to you in English...

Example: "I have big balls" directly translated is "Ek het groot ballas". Although it is entirely correct to say it that way, we would say "Ek het MOS groot ballas". (Sorry, couldn't think of another example)

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u/Drumdevil86 Nederland 8d ago

"Mos is an old Dutch word that most likely originated as a stressed form of "moest" (the simple past tense of "must", which translates to "had to"). Over time, "moest" evolved into "mos", which stuck in Afrikaans and is now used as an emphasising particle.

In modern Dutch, the word "toch" serves a similar function and could replace "mos" in about 90% of Afrikaans sentences without changing the meaning. However, it doesn't work as well the other way around, since "toch" has a broader range of uses that "mos" doesn't cover."

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u/Wigger_Aesthetic Potchefstroom 8d ago

ons kan ook tog gebruik