Afrikaans is my mother tongue. It was the language of my formative years. I went to an English school though and spoke English because of my Scottish grandfather. It was amusing, actually. My gran always spoke Afrikaans to me, to the day of her death, but I insisted on answering in English... for Jim, my granddad.
Harieta did her 10 words in Romanian, so I offered to do 10 in Afrikaans... just for fun, so here they are :) I'm going to do my best with the pronunciation, but its hard, as the sounds are so different. I would do voice, but not being at my own pc, I can't. To the Afrikaners who read this, you're welcome to correct if you know of a better way to do the pronunciation or expand on the meanings. Where I put the 'r' into the pronunciation, it's there just to show the sound of the letter before. Gosh, this is harder than I thought!
maat - a maat (pronounced 'mart' without sounding the 'r'): 1) measure or dimension 2) mate, buddy, friend. "My maat kom saam." "My buddy is coming with."
makeer - (pronounced 'mukier' with the phonetic sound for the 'u'): to ail, lack, want. "Wat makeer jou?" "What is the matter?"
melkkos - (pronounced 'malk kors' without sounding the 'r'). Ah... milk pudding! Its basically strips of pasta-type dough boiled in sweet milk with cinnamon added. The end result is quite thick and true comfort food.
mebos - (pronounced 'meebors'. Same rule applies to the 'r'): dried and sugared apricots
moed (pronounced 'moot', but the 'oo' sound is short): courage. "Dit veg baie moed om oorsee te trek." "It takes a lot of courage to move overseas."
moeder - ('mooder' with the 'oo' being a short sound): mother... in honour of mother's day. The title of my blog is 'moeder taal', meaning 'mother language'.
ma-hulle - ('mar-hurla' again, not sounding the 'r'): roughly translates to 'mom and them'. It's more a way of talking than a word in itself, though it has its place pride (I was surprised) in the dictionary.
mamba - ('mumba'): a deadly snake. The black mamba is the largest venomous snake in Africa, with an extremely potent neurotoxic venom that attacks the nervous system; the bite is often fatal to humans without access to proper first aid and subsequent antivenom treatment, because it shuts down the lungs and heart.
mampoer - ('mumpoor' The 'r' in this one is rolled): a home distilled brandy
môre - ('mora' The 'r' is pronounced here and the 'a' is an almost dead sound): tomorrow or morning. "Goeie môre!" "Good morning!" or "Môre gaan ek inkopies doen." "Tomorrow, I'm going shopping."
Whew! That was harder than I thought it would be :) To end, here is Steve Hofmeyer singing "Agter elke man", which means "Behind every man".
And just because, here is Bok van Berg singing "De la Rey", a song about the Boer war and how the Boers fought while their wives and children were suffering in the British concentration camps. There appears to be a reawakening of national pride in the Boers of South Africa at the moment. This song has become something of an anthem for them.
*photo credit: Turtle SA*
