Have you heard about Afrikaans language? Are you fond of Afrikaans language and mesmerized by its culture? Then we are delighted to present you some interesting facts about the not so popular language.
- There are 12 million speakers of Afrikaans language across the continents. About 6.4 million people verbally communicate in Afrikaans as an indigenous language and about the same number speak it as a second language. Opt for an Afrikaans language course in Kolkata to explore more facts about its origin and speakers.
- Afrikaans is a low Franconia West Germanic language originated from Dutch and spoken and is one of the statutory national languages, and an official language in nine provinces.
- Afrikaans language had its origin from the West Germanic language family, from where other languages like English, Dutch, and German hailed from. It was initially considered as the slang version of Dutch language.
- Besides people of South Africa, the language is widely spoken in other countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Swaziland and in Lesotho. Apart from the African nations, it is also prominently spoken in other countries like Zambia (96,000), Australia (43,700), New Zealand (27,400), the USA (23,000), Eswatini (17,000) and the Netherlands (14,300).
- It is often referred to as a “young language”. It could be traced in the beginning of the 17th century during the time Dutch colonists started to construct a supply station for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope. An Afrikaans language course in Kolkata will help you explore other unknown facts about the language. By undertaking the course, you will come to know more about the origin, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar of the language at the hands of experts.
- Most of the words in Afrikaans language are derived from its parent language Dutch. The language is also influenced by other native languages such as Bantu and Khoisan.
- There are many funny words in Afrikaans language such as plesang, bekend, besoek, nee, lekkar etc. “Piesang” refers to “banana”, “bekend means the same when compared to “beken” in Indonesian, which means “famous”. However, “beken” is a colloquial word in Indonesian and mainly finds application among youngsters. “Besoek” rhymes with “besuk” in Indonesian, which is “to visit ill people”. “Nee” refers “No”.
- Afrikaans, written with the Latin alphabet, began to feature in newspapers and political and religious works in approximately 1850. Then in 1875 a group of Afrikaans speakers from the Cape took the initiative and established the Genootskap vir Regte Afrikaanders (Society for Real Afrikaners), and printed many books in Afrikaans, on grammars, dictionaries, religious publications and histories. They also published a journal known as the Patriot.
Join IITT for Pursuing Afrikaans language course
IITT takes pleasure in introducing Afrikaans language course in Kolkata for those who are keen on learning the language and enthusiastic about becoming familiar with its culture and customs. The ISO 9001: 2015 certified academy also provides basic, diploma, and advanced diploma courses in Spanish, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Greek, Turkish, Czech, Dutch, German, Thai and other sought-after foreign languages. The institute is one of the best training destinations of foreign languages and boasts wonderful learning environment, world-class infrastructure, awesome training facilities, superb trainers, 24*7 online support and much more fabulous features for learners. Teaching is a combination of classroom lectures, interactive sessions, hands-on classes, workshops, text-books, topic notes etc. Classes can be taken in both face to face and online format as per your choices, schedule, and needs. The e-learning takes place through video and audio clips that are led by top-notch instructors and faculties.
Posted by Jack Smith