Afrikaans Quotes

It's hard for me to speak, whether in English or Afrikaans. The reason I write is because I cannot speak. I feel blunt.

Ek is meer bekommerd dat daar nie meer bome vir papier is nie as wat ek bekommerd is oor die toekoms van Afrikaans.

Afrikaans is one of the world’s best languages in which to curse; even when spoken politely, it can bruise innocent bystanders.

One of the things that people who don't know anything about white rhinoceroses find most interesting about them is their colour. It isn't white. Not even remotely. It's a rather handsome dark grey. Not even a sort of pale grey that might arguably pass as an off-white, just plain dark grey. People therefore assume that zoologists are either perverse or colour-blind, but it's not that, it's that they are illiterate. "White" is a mistranslation of the Afrikaans word "weit" meaning "wide", and it refers to the animal's mouth, which is wider than that of the black rhino.

Eleanor Baker is een van Afrikaans se beste skrywers en dis jammer dat baie Suid-Afrikaners dit dalk nooit, of te laat, gaan agterkom nie.

We were in a shop once, and the shopkeeper, right in front of us, turned to his security guard and said, in Afrikaans, “Volg daai swartes, netnou steel hulle iets.” “Follow those blacks in case they steal something.” My mother turned around and said, in beautiful, fluent Afrikaans, “Hoekom volg jy nie daai swartes sodat jy hulle kan help kry waarna hulle soek nie?” “Why don’t you follow these blacks so you can help them find what they’re looking for?

To paraphrase an old Afrikaans idiom; it is necessary to eat a bag of salt with these people to realise the extent of their misery and suffering within touching distance of one of the wealthiest little communities to be found on any continent. For those who wish to follow in my footsteps, it’s all there for the taking but it requires moments of considerable insight, humility and understanding of the frailties of human nature. Some would call it compassion.

A truly enlightened attitude to language should simply be to let six thousand or more flowers bloom. Subcultures should be allowed to thrive, not just because it is wrong to squash them, because they enrich the wider culture. Just as Black English has left its mark on standard English Culture, South Africans take pride in the marks of Afrikaans and African languages on their vocabulary and syntax. New Zealand's rugby team chants in Maori, dancing a traditional dance, before matches. French kids flirt with rebellion by using verlan, a slang that reverses words' sounds or syllables (so femmes becomes meuf). Argentines glory in lunfardo, an argot developed from the underworld a centyry ago that makes Argentine Spanish unique still today. The nonstandard greeting "Where y'at?" for "How are you?" is so common among certain whites in New Orleans that they bear their difference with pride, calling themselves Yats. And that's how it should be.

Afrikaans was the language of the white minority in South Africa, and the forced learning of it created resentment among blacks. Even so, Nelson Mandela made it a point to learn this language in prison in anticipation that it would help him lead the whole of South Africa.

Hymie, listen! Picking up a dozen punters in the shit house is one thing; taking on a whole bloody Afrikaans school is another. You don’t know these buggers like I do, these guys don’t gamble, the Afrikaans are very religious, you know.’ ‘Greed, my dear Peekay, transcends religion.

…En wat is dit dié? Duitse owner van ʼn boereplaas met ʼn Franse naam waar ʼn Brit gekidnap is. Fucking United Nations of Crime, dis wat ons nou word.

Ek het gedink Ek het gedink dat ek jou kon vergeet, en in die sagte nag alleen kon slaap, maar in my eenvoud het ek nie geweet dat ek met elke windvlaag sou ontwaak: Dat ek die ligte trilling van jou hand weer oor my sluimerende hals sou voel … Ek het gedink die vuur wat in my brand het soos die wit boog van die starre afgekoel. Nou weet ek is ons lewens soos ’n lied waarin die smarttoon van ons skeiding klink en alle vreugde terugvloei in verdriet en eind’lik in ons eensaamheid versink.

A Favorite start to a book [sorry it's long!]: "In yesterday’s Sunday Times, a report from Francistown in Botswana. Sometime last week, in the middle of the night, a car, a white American model, drove up to a house in a residential area. Men wearing balaclavas jumped out, kicked down the front door, and began shooting. When they had done with shooting they set fire to the house and drove off. From the embers the neighbors dragged seven charred bodies: two men, three women, two children. Th killers appeared to be black, but one of the neighbors heard them speaking Afrikaans among themselves. And was convinced they were whites in blackface. The dead were South Africans, refugees who had moved into the house mere weeks ago. Approached for comment, the SA Minister of Foreign Affairs, through a spokesman, calls the report ‘unverified’. Inquiries will be undertaken, he says, to determine whether the deceased were indeed SA citizens. As for the military, an unnamed source denies that the SA Defence Force had anything to do with the matter. The killings are probably an internal ANC matter, he suggests, reflecting ‘ongoing tensions between factions. So they come out, week after week, these tales from the borderlands, murders followed by bland denials. He reads the reports and feels soiled. So this is what he has come back to! Yet where in the world can one hide where one will not feel soiled? Would he feel any cleaner in the snows of Sweden, reading at a distance about his people and their latest pranks? How to escape the filth: not a new question. An old rat-question that will not let go, that leaves its nasty, suppurating wound. Agenbite of inwit. ‘I see the Defense Force is up to its old tricks again,’ he remarks to his father. ‘In Botswana this time.’ But his father is too wary to rise to the bait. When his father picks up the newspaper, he cares to skip straight to the sports pages, missing out the politics—the politics and the killings. His father has nothing but disdain for the continent to the north of them. Buffoons is the word he uses to dismiss the leaders of African states: petty tyrants who can barely spell their own names, chauffeured from one banquet to another in their Rolls-Royces, wearing Ruritanian uniforms festooned with medals they have awarded themselves. Africa: a place of starving masses with homicidal buffoons lording over them. ‘They broke into a house in Francistown and killed everyone,’ he presses on nonetheless. ‘Executed them .Including the children. Look. Read the report. It’s on the front page.’ His father shrugs. His father can find no form of words spacious enough to cover his distaste for, on one hand, thugs who slaughter defenceless women and children and, on the other, terrorists who wage war from havens across the border. He resolves the problem by immersing himself in the cricket scores. As a response to moral dilemma it is feeble; yet is his own response—fits of anger and despair—any better?" Summertime, Coetzee

selfs al is dit nodig dat julle 'n kort tydjie bedroef gemaak word deur allerhande beproewings 7 sodat die egtheid van julle geloof getoets kan word. Julle geloof is baie kosbaarder as goud, goud wat vergaan. Selfs die suiwerheid van goud word met vuur getoets, en die egtheid van julle geloof moet ook getoets word, sodat dit lof en heerlikheid en eer waardig mag wees by die wederkoms van Jesus Christus.

Israeliese knessetlid, voormalige minister

Die hart is 'n erdwurm - jy kan hom nie volg nie, jy sny net stukke wurm af, aspris of per ongeluk, en hulle sukkel blind aan.

So instead, Brant, Miller, and many other northern plains beekeeping outfits rely on labor brokers who arrange temporary visas for South African workers—mostly white Afrikaaner farmers and twentysomethings looking for adventure and relief from their country’s erratic economy.

Die hart se brûe bly onverbrand, selfs al woon jy ver in 'n ander land

Jesus die beloofde Verlosser is. Met

It was a glorious experience for the children to travel by rail and the panoramic views of Africa through the big glass window in the rear of the last car of the Blue Train, were beyond description. It was just as you would expect it to be, as described in a vintage National Geographic magazine, with springbok and other wild animals abounding. The distance is approximately the same as from New York City to Chicago and took an overnight. Adeline and Lucia talked late into the night as the children tried to hear what was being said. There was a lot of catching up to do, but it had been a long and exhausting day and the next thing they all knew, it was the following morning and the train was approaching Cape Town or Kaapstad in Afrikaans, affectionately known as the “Tavern of the Seas.

It was a glorious experience to travel by rail for the children and the panoramic views of Africa through the big glass window in the back of the last car were beyond description. It was just as you would expect it to be as described in a vintage National Geographic magazine, with springbok and other wild animals abounding. The distance is approximately the same as from New York to Chicago and took an overnight. Adeline and Lucia talked late into the night as the children tried to hear what was being said. There was a lot of catching up to do, but it had been a long and exhausting day and the next thing they all knew, was that it was the following morning and the train was approaching Cape Town, affectionately known as the “Tavern of the Seas.” When the train finally came to a halt, after being switched from one track to another through the extensive rail yards, the realization sank in that this was their new life. Kaapstad, Cape Town in Afrikaans, would be their new home and German, the language they had spoken until now, was history. A new family came to meet them and helped carry their luggage to waiting cars. All of these strange people speaking strange languages were uncles, aunts and nephews. An attractive elderly woman who spoke a language very similar to German, but definitely not the same, was the children’s new Ouma. However, to avoid confusion she was to be addressed as Granny. She lived in a Dutch gabled house called “Kismet” located in a beautiful suburb known as “Rosebank.” This would be their home until Adeline could find a place where they could settle in and start their new life.

In that moment, I felt sad just thinking about leaving South Africa, and the people that I had met along the way during my cross-country adventures. In such a short space of time, they had filled my heart like they say in Afrikaans, propvol, meaning to full capacity, or to the point that there’s no space left – propvol meaning that not even a small cap full of something could fit because the space is chockful and completely stuffed. And that is exactly how my heart felt – propvol, stuffed with little South African remembrances and an endless string of little moments held together by the names of people, locations, or Afrikaans words or phrases combined with tasty meals enjoyed around dining room tables, outdoor living spaces, and confined places like the inside of the Land Rover while driving down the coastline of South Africa. Propvol, and yet that wasn’t enough….

And as my head hit the pillow that night, my prayer for my son remained simply that his last wish would finally be fulfilled…in some future moment through the same type of faith that allows a 600-year-old Quteniqua Yellowwood tree to grow from a single seed. His last wish being the chance of speaking to me about the one topic that his heart couldn’t find any rest while living on earth – that the true gift of that opportunity would truly come to fruition. In the interim, I had to follow in the words of Khalil Gibran when he said that there should be spaces between our togetherness to love one another “…but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul.” Space between our togetherness to find a way on its own accord, outside of the scrutiny of my mothering protection. That night, I went to bed with the reassuring, concluding words of Khalil Gibran “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters with seared scars.” Scars seared with the anointing warmth of love, a reminder of love’s miracle, and the hope that my loving son would find his peace even from beyond the grave since love makes whole the broken and crooked parts of every story, including stories already lived and wishes never fulfilled because they all stem from the same seeds… Inexhaustible Love.

If the meaning of the mountain range overlooking the home’s peace is called the Quteniqua Mountains, which is rally made up of the Langeberg Range (northeast of Worcester) and the Tsitsikamma Mountains (east-west along The Garden Route), and if the collective name of the mountain range references the idea of honey, the honey that can be found at Amanda and Lena’s home starts with kindness, a type of kindness the touches the world’s core understanding of compassion. “I want to give you a used copy of my favorite book that I think helps to explain what exactly I love about this area. Out of all of her books, this is probably one of the least favorite books based off readers’ choice, yet it is my favorite book because I think it truly understands the spirit of this area.” Amanda handed me the book. “Da-lene Mat-thee,” I said. “Is that correct…” Before I could finish, she had already answered my question. “Yes, the author that I had spoken about earlier today. Although she is an Afrikaans author, this book is in English. The Mulberry Forest. My favorite character is Silas Miggel, the headstrong Afrikaans man who didn’t want to have the Italian immigrants encroaching onto his part of the forest.” She paused for a second before resuming, “Yet, he’s the one who came to their rescue when the government turned a blind eye on the hardships of the Italian immigrants. He’s the one who showed kindness toward them even when he didn’t feel that way in his heart. That’s what kindness is all about, making time for our follow neighbors because it’s the right thing to do, full stop. Silas is the embodiment of what I love about the people of this area. It is also what I love about my childhood home growing up in the shantytown. The same thread of tenacity can be found in both places. So, when you read about Silas, think of me because he represents the heart of both Knysna and the Storms River Valley. This area contains a lot of clones just like him, the heartbeat of why this area still stands today.” That’s the kind of hope that lights up the sky. The Portuguese called the same mountain range Serra de Estrellla or Mountain of the Star… If we want to change the world, we should follow in the Quteniqua Mountain’s success, and be a reminder that human benevolence is a star that lights up the sky of any galaxy, the birthplace of caring. As we drove away, for a second, I thought I heard the quiet whispers from Dalene Matthee’s words when she wrote in Fiela’s Child: “If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for…a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.” And that’s what makes this area so special, a space grounded in the impossibility held together through single acts of human kindness, the heart of the Garden Route’s greatest accomplishment. A story for all times…simply called, Hospitality, the Garden Route way…

We followed him to a covered veranda. In America, we would call that a lemonade porch, however, in South Africa, they call it a stoep. A meeting place located outside the front of the home where friends and family can gather, and one can watch the rising or the setting of the sun in the cozy spot simply called a stoep. The stoep projected a natural ambience of peace and harmony, as a light breeze filled the space with its woodsy fragrance of pine and other natural fragrances inspired by the area’s shrubbery. It almost felt like it was hypnotizing one into a deeper state of tranquility, a state of existence that celebrated the quiet pockets of solitude where a richer from of living is housed. It made one slouch a little more meaningfully and relax the muscles of your body a little more conscientiously, as you let go of one’s innate need to think – to think to the point of hyper focusing on the meaningless details of life, for example, the incessant need to make every moment in life count… Yet, the stoep’s lesson of deeper living is simply the gift of becoming reacquainted with the joy of just being – open yet connected to now, without a higher purpose beyond that. Sometimes, the greatest gift that we can give ourselves is just to sit in the rawness of the moment without any outcome or intention in mind – except, to breathe in the life of the area around us. That is where my afternoon’s lesson ended, knowing that a stoep is a space where quality of human connection is made with or without the presence of any audience because it’s that space that celebrates the stillness of nothing and yet everything simultaneously, or in the words of Rumi: “In order to understand the dance, one must be still. And in order to truly understand the stillness, one must dance.” In South Africa that concept is lovingly called…Die Stoep, a space of possibility.

As we drove out of one of The Kruger National Park’s main gates, before I could think further, I added, “That was a lekker holiday!” If South Africa had taught me one thing, it is that South Africans who are natural collectors of little moments understand that the feelings of contentment should have a scale to measure where exactly a person is on the range of gratitude. And lekker is exactly that, one word to measure the depth of one’s connection to the feelings of life within one. In that moment, my scale of contentment was sky high, and by the way I had just pronounced that word, I had just made it clear to the world that I was starting to understand the value of one word to convey a complete thought of happiness through its shifting context of interpretation – the gift of acknowledgement of an instant spark of awareness within. Lekker, simply stated -- a visceral connection to our understanding of the wealth of happiness residing in our heart by means of a single moment unfolding right now – in front of us. Lekker…enough said.

At Hennie’s home in Worcester, in true South Africa style, we braaied choppies, Boerewors, chicken, and braaibroodtjies along with a few different types of salads and dessert, which included Peppermint Tart with vanilla ice-cream. My day started when I learned that my hart se punt is an expression to reaffirm exactly how much we love something or someone. My day ended by learning that love is a measurement of how much our heart can hold. The type of love that makes you feel propvol because the area is completely filled up. And that’s the type of love that helps us to understand expressions of love that we have never considered before since love gives us the confidence to understand that love can’t be contained into little bottles or containers of security. Love is an ever-flowing emotion much like a running river that inspires us as it sweeps across our lives, and it covers everything with its inspiration simply called my hart se punt. A point that reminds us that we’re not that special, love is our universal gift. A point that always pulls us toward our heart’s True North, even when can’t initially see the blessing that is hiding past the weight of the cross. An anchor of truth that’s freeing, as it pulls us toward our life’s highest purpose to be made whole, not perfect, through love’s grace that is simply called... Die Punt, The Point.

Veld, that space within most South African hearts that mirrors the open expanse of land where the greatness of life resides in the vastness of grasslands captured in the imaginations of wanderers and adventurer seekers alike when we stop our overthinking and optimize our ability to enjoy life’s unscripted moments that are wide-open and usually – right in front of us. Veld, a word for the miracle of newness and the appreciation for the life that is waiting to be lived, one grass blade at a time, and a lesson for humans in appreciating the fullness of life’s abundance when we slowdown the pace of our own world to absorb the miracles happening all around us – at any given moment. Veld, although this word literally means an open expanse, that is what life around us is truly about – an open expanse of miracles just waiting on us for our sense to mature… The magic of South Africa, a spell that will leave your heart as open as the veld and the expanse beyond that. A lesson in feeling small…

Bernie reached over and pressed the pause button. ‘Is that a South African accent?’ Matt nodded. ‘Sounds like it and I think Du Plessis is an Afrikaans name.

This was but the first of a number of lies Kruger would tell about the death of Steve Biko. The Afrikaans expression ‘Dit laat my koud’ means literally: ‘It leaves me cold.’ More colloquially: ‘I don’t care’ or ‘I don’t feel a thing.’ In fact, Mr. Kruger had gone further. He had extended the bounds of his jocularity at the time. ‘One feels sorry about any death. I suppose I would feel sorry about my own death,’ he said. Typically, in seeking to repair the damage of his first statement, he made the damage worse.

People to often say "justice" but mean "revenge

Dis drome van rykdom wat ons arm maak.

Toe sien ek, die ou tannie met die swak teologie wat drie weeskinders in haar plakkershuis inneem, doen meer as sewe goeie teoloë . . .

Kom ons reël 'n braai, dan moan ons bietjie oor hoe sleg dit gaan in die nuwe Suid-Afrika.

Dis asof ons onsself nie kan help nie. Ons raak maklik deurmekaar. Ons kompliseer eenvoudige waarhede wat bloot geleef moet word, en oorvereenvoudig komplekse dinge waaroor ons eerder moet stilbly.

Dalk moet ons nie so verbaas wees wanneer ’n prostituut, ’n dwelmverslaafde en ’n hawelose ’n erediens bywoon nie. Dalk moet ons eerder verbaas wees omdat so baie welaf mense wat vir hulleself leef en net nou en dan krummels vir die armes gooi, so tuis voel in ons eredienste.

Die 'ons mense eerste'-evangelie staan radikaal in teenstelling met die evangelie van Jesus, want selfsug is die teenoorgestelde van liefde.

n ronde gebou met 'n toring en 'n hoender op is eintlik 'n aardige hok vir 'n alomteenwoordige God ('n ouditorium ok)

God is ’n vreemde Kunstenaar. Hy skilder skilderye wat self ook kan skilder.

Jy kan iemand in allerhande mense in allerhande situasies indwing, maar jy kan niemand dwing om vry te wees nie.

Lynette was from South Africa and had met Robert at age eighteen near Johannesburg, when both were working for the Swiss chemical company Ciba-Geigy. Though Lynette’s first language was Afrikaans, she attended an English-language school at her father’s insistence. After she and Robert moved to Switzerland and later started their family, she spoke English at first to Roger and his older sister, Diana

While based in Natal, Gandhi was also drawn into the Indian question in the Transvaal. Here, the ruling race were the Boers, who spoke Afrikaans and were largely of Dutch extraction. When, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the British took firm control of the Cape, the Boers commenced their ‘great trek’ inland. They established themselves beyond the Vaal and Orange rivers, displacing the Africans and taking control of vast areas of fertile land. Their economy, and their sense of self, was founded on farming, herding and hunting. While the British coveted the coast – which provided access to their jewel in the east, India – the Boers had possession of these inland territories.

groot. 24 Ek sê

is

My worst ever speech was one I did for a pharmaceutical company in South Africa. They were paying me $1,000 and my airfare. It was a fortune to me at the time, and I couldn’t believe my luck. That would last Shara and me for months. I soon found myself at a hotel in the Drakensberg Mountains, waiting for six hundred sales staff to arrive at the conference center. Their bus journey up had been a long one and they had been supplied with beer, nonstop, for the previous five hours. By the time they rolled off the buses, many of them were tripping over their bags--laughing and roaring drunk. Nightmare. I had been asked to speak after dinner--and for a minimum of an hour. Even I knew that an hour after dinner was suicide. But they were insistent. They wanted their thousand’s worth. After a long, booze-filled dinner that never seemed to end, the delegates really were totally paralytic. I was holding my head in my hands backstage. Sweet Jesus. Then, just as I walked out on stage, the lights went out and there was a power cut. You have got to be joking. The organizers found candles to light the room (which also meant no slides), and then I was on. It was well after midnight by now. Oh, and did I mention that all the delegates were Afrikaans-speaking, so English was their second language, at best? Sure enough, the heckling started before I even opened my mouth. “We don’t want an after-dinner speaker,” one drunk man shouted, almost falling off his chair. Listen, nor do I, big fella, I thought. I suspect it was just as painful an hour for him as it was for me. But I persevered and endeavored to learn how to tell a story well. After all, it was my only source of work, and my only way of trying to find new sponsors for any other expeditions that I hoped to lead.

The leader of the delegation to Zuma was reportedly Lloyd Hill. At the opening, Hill thanked the president for seeing them and said in Afrikaans: “OK, ouens, hier's julle kans nou. Die ou ballie is 'n naai net soos ons [OK, guys, this is your opportunity. This old fossil is a fucker just like us].

commandant. late 17th century: from French commandant, or Italian or Spanish commandante, all from late Latin commandare ‘to command’ (see COMMAND). command-driven adj. [COMPUTING] (of a program or computer) operated by means of commands keyed in by the user or issued by another program or computer. command economy n. another term for PLANNED ECONOMY. commandeer v. [with obj.] officially take possession or control of (something), especially for military purposes: a nearby house had been commandeered by the army. take possession of (something) by force: the truck was commandeered by a mob. [with obj. and infinitive] enlist (someone) to help in a task: he commandeered the men to find a table. early 19th century: from Afrikaans kommandeer, from Dutch commanderen, from French commander ‘to command’ (see COMMAND).

DWAAL, noun, a dreamy, dazed, or absent-minded state. "In that space of peaceful serenity, I finally understood that home is where you heart feels free. A place far removed from any physical barriers or constraints. Home is a space where you feel alive. You feel like dancing. A dance called dwaal – meaning to wander into the uncharted waters of our stories unexplored and underrepresented chapters" (All Roads Lead to Cape Town, a novel about the birthplace of our togetherness and amazing words like 'dwaal' -- side note, born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, J.R.R. Tolkien described this word through his own unique perspective when he said: 'Not all who wander are lost'.

The family tree model is a useful presentational tool which has been successfully applied to other language groups, for example Eskimo-Aleut, Sino-Tibetan or Austro-Asiatic, but it is nonetheless misleading in a number of respects. Firstly, it takes far too little account of language contact (see Case study on next page): the dotted arrow in the diagram above is an attempt to represent the very strong lexical influence of (Norman) French on Middle English, which belong to quite separate branches of the Indo-European trunk. The branching works well where there is a physical separation between speaker groups, allowing varieties to develop independently, as in the case of Afrikaans and Dutch, but in most cases the picture is rather messier, with branches often confusingly intertwined.

So I see people mocking my usage of patois… or Jamaican creole which is a form of pidgin created from Afrikaan, Spanish and English languages. This is a Jamaican page by a Jamaican author. The person in the video is Jamaican. It’s common for people to think English is an indication of intelligence albeit only 20% of the world’s population speaks English and only 5% are native English speakers. I mean English itself is a creole of sorts with words from Celtic, Slavic and Latin languages.. Smartest people in the world are Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Indians) their native languages are Hindi, Mandarin and Creole Cantonese. Swahili and Igbo are big creole languages in Africa. Linguistic discrimination is not even warranted based on how languages are developed. Glottophobics are as bad as racist with their linguicism. English is just a superstrate language due to Anglo- Saxon colonization and the British empire… English is still a superstrate because of large English speaking populations such as America, England, South Africa, Nigeria and Canada.

Wie sou die ware swerwer wees / die een wat reis, die een wat lees?

Take a look at the changes in Matthew 6:92 over the course of about 1,000 years (this does not take into account accents and shifting in sounds). Beginning of Matthew 6:9 Date Our Father who art in heaven and/or Our Father who is in heaven Late Modern English (1700s) Our father which art in heauen Early Modern English (1500–1700) (KJV 1611) Oure fader that art in heuenis Middle English (1100–1500) Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum Old English (c. a.d. 1000) One thousand years ago, English looked somewhat German. But to make things worse, English is actually classified as a Germanic language, along with languages like Swedish, German, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Austrian, Icelandic, and so on.

Kan jy my woorde, liefste, hoor Of iets die blanke stilte stoor Waardeur ons siele eensaam gaan?

Oor my eerste boek, Confessions oor kerkwees, het ’n dominee in die Kaap gesê: “Dit lees lekker op die toilet.” My gebed is dat dit ook so sal wees met hierdie boek.

Wat drink jy?” vra Anderson se knapie nuuskierig. “Aperol. Wil jy ‘n slukkie hê?” “Nee dankie. Dit lyk soos Oros!

Hulle sê ‘n ma is slegs so gelukkig soos haar ongelukkigste kind.

Die dorp se kerk is werklik mooi en die argitektuur het haar vir ‘n paar minute besig gehou. Die ou gebou het ‘n statigheid wat verlore gegaan het in die ontwerp van al die ander kerke waarin sy al was. Seker nie vergelykbaar met katedrale in Europa nie, nee. Minder prag en praal, meer erns. Dit is ‘n gebou wat mense kan aanspoor om hulle sondes te oordink. Nie te bieg daaroor nie, want bieg is ‘n ander saak. Dit sit nie in protestante se bloed om te bieg nie. Hulle huigel en swyg.

You are under arrest for the murder of Morah Djo, you have the right to remain silent…’’ one officer proclaimed. I YELLED, CALLING THEM BOERS, CALLING THEM OPPRESSORS IN AFRIKAANS as they dragged me out of the bathroom. My body was tossed into the police van. It seemed surreal, he needed to die.

Hoekom weet niemand nie dat Afrikaans as taal Suid-Afrika se eerste anti-koloniale verset was nie? Eers teen die taal Hollands en toe teen die Engelse taal. “Julle

Einde is vir die paadjie, nie vir die bestemming

Een arts kan heel in het algemeen de mensheid proberen te dienen, maar het staat hem uiteraard ook vrij zich alleen in dienst te stellen van een bepaald deel van de mensheid. Een zekere dr. Thaler bijvoorbeeld had ongeveer tweehonderd jaar geleden in Wenen de uit Nigeria afkomstige Soliman na diens dood met de toestemming van keizer Franz de huid afgestroopt, had de man die in een veldslag het leven van de vorst van Lobkowicz had gered, een neger genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had de leraar van de vorsten van Liechtenstein, een zwarte genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had de vrijmetselaar van de loge De Ware Eendracht, een Moor genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had bij wijze van spreken de broeder van de vrijmetselaars Mozart en Schikaneder, de borg van de naar opname in de loge strevende wetenschapper Ignaz von Born, een Afrikaan genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had een gehuwde Wener, die zes talen vloeiend sprak, wiens dochter later getrouwd was met baron Von Feuchtersleben en wiens kleinzoon Eduard in het begin van de negentiende eeuw naam maakte als dichter, de huid afgestroopt, had een gezien man uit de hogere Weense kringen, die lang geleden weliswaar een Afrikaans kind was geweest, genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had een mens die in het begin van zijn leven op de slavenmarkt was ingeruild voor een paard en later was doorverkocht naar Messina, genaamd Soliman, om kort te gaan: een voormalige slaaf van een laag ras genaamd Soliman de huid afgestroopt. Hij had de huid daarna gelooid, op een corpus van hout gespannen en, tegen de wens van diens dochter, die verzocht 'de huid van haar vader aan haar te overhandigen teneinde hem volgens de regels ter aarde te kunnen bestellen', tegen de wens van die dochter haar opgezette vader ter stichting van het Weense publiek in een vitrine op de vierde verdieping van het Keizerlijk Naturaliënkabinet gezet. Het veren rokje waarmee de Moor was uitgedost, was - wetenschappelijk niet geheel correct - afkomstig van Zuid-Amerikaanse indianen, maar het exotische aspect van het preparaat kwam daardoor veel beter tot zijn recht. Heel even stelde Richard zich voor dat in een vitrine in het staatsmuseum van Caïro bijvoorbeeld de opgezette archeoloog Heinrich Schliemann zou staan, gekleed in een Spaans stierenvechterskostuum of in Mongoolse klederdracht van schapenleer en zijde.

On the same day, a bunch of school-aged adolescents in Soweto got tired of the government’s latest idea: that their already inferior education should henceforth be conducted in Afrikaans. So the students went out into the streets to air their disapproval. They were of the opinion that it was easier to learn something when one understood what one’s instructor was saying. And that a text was more accessible to the reader if one could interpret the text in question. Therefore—said the students—their education should continue to be conducted in English. The surrounding police listened with interest to the youth’s reasoning, and then the argued the government’s point in that special manner of the South African authorities. By opening fire. Straight into the crowd of demonstrators. Twenty-three demonstrators died more or less instantly. The next day, the police advanced their argument with helicopters and tanks. Before dust had settled, another hundred human lives had been extinguished. The City of Johannesburg’s department of education was therefore able to adjust Soweto’s budgetary allocations downward, citing lack of students.

It was the easiest day, I thought so. All the candles lost their flames, not by one wind, or five. The wind crossed our earth for nothing and by all nothing. Because of an everlasting white spark in the right hand, the left left it All, behind, not on her desk or in her office. It does not make sense. All these words, I have undescribed. Well, I was good at it!

Volledige beheer is altyd 'n illusie.

And, as in ancient Israel, modern purity codes function politically as well as socially. The very same myths of “chosenness” that shape patriotic ideologies in the U.S.A. also shape the dreams of neo-Nazi white supremacists and the social codes of Afrikaaner apartheid. And what about the socio-symbolic apparatus of our national security state, with its “priesthood” of the security-cleared and its “holy places” surrounded by barbed wire?

It's quite easy to assume that a multilingual person is stupid. When you know only one language, you become a specialist in that language. You make no mistakes. People listen to you with seriousness, and life is good. But you become a specialist because you are limited in your vocabulary. For example, English speakers use the word 'can' without making any mistakes. They are always confident that the right word is 'can'. As a result, they may be perceived as intelligent people. Because confidence can easily sway the masses. But in the case of a multilingual person, the vocabulary is expanded. When they speak, their brain has to consider the word 'can' in English, 'pouvez' in French, 'kan" in Afrikaans or Dutch, 'puede' in Spanish, and so on. So, while the brain is trying to go through each language memory box, taking into consideration its rules, the speaker could appear blank in their face, slow in the mind, or stuttering when they speak. Then, the society may start to reject them, or to label them as 'stupid.' Unfortunately, many people, especially foreigners, suffer because of this mistaken perception. The message here is that we need to broaden our views about other people. We need to consider them as equally intelligent as we often see ourselves.

Ouma always woke up before the birds did. She called it waking up at ‘mossiepop’ — Afrikaans for sparrow’s fart.

Die mensdom is die kuns om liefde te maak sonder om 'n vyand te maak

Kom ons reël 'n braai en dan moan ons oor hoe swaar ons kry in die nuwe Suid-Afrika

We need a change of attitude, because let's face it, no one’s going to change color

Met zij nagel ritste Simon het pakje sigaretten open dat de ober met de koffie had gebracht. Hij had zin in een sigaret. Deze kingsize Gauloises zaten strak in het pakje geperst. Het kostte Simon extra moeite, omdat hij wat nerveus werd door de bedelaar, die opnieuw op het terras was verschenen. Hij had bijna een sigaret te pakken. Hoe groter de inspanning, hoe sterker de lust toenam. Eindelijk kreeg hij er een te pakken, snoof de sterke geur van de Virginiatabak op. Hij stelde zijn IMCO-aansteker zo in dat de vlam niet te hoog werd. Hij haalde de rook diep over de longen, die nog soepel en elastisch waren. Dagelijks liep hij een uurtje hard met Diderot. Hij luisterde naar het aangename knisteren van de tabak, ademde de rook van een nieuwe trek in. 'S'il vous plait, monsieur.' Bij zijn dringende verzoek raakte hij per ongeluk Simons arm aan en de sigaret rolde in de gleuf tussen terras en betonwand. De bedelaar putte zich uit in excuses. Simon stak een nieuwe aan. De vlam van de aansteker schoot omhoog, het vloei schroeide voor de helft weg. De man met de vogel probeerde de sigaret uit de gleuf te peuteren. Simon pakte eenclustertje van vijf sigaretten, reikte ze hem aan. 'Voila.' De bedelaar dankte nederig, de doffe vogel boog. Hij was minder dan een worm. Simon wierp een blik op de vogel en het viel hem nu pas op dat die een poot had. De Noord-Afrikaan geeuwde. De vogel en Simon keken tegelijk in het donkere gat van de mond, die akelig ver opengesperd was. Over zijn tandvlees lag een paarse gloed. (...) Simon voelde voldoening over zijn edelmoedige daad, hoe klein ook. Ze kon het eventuele kwaad dat in het universum al op gang was gebracht bezweren. Simon geloofde nog steeds met volle overtuiging in een zinvol geordende wereld die boven de persoonlijke uitging, kon zich de wereld niet voorstellen zonder een goddelijke realiteit. Daarover sprak hij met niemand. Ook niet met zijn eigen vrouw.