My Greatest Love - Afrikaans
My late father and my mother were Afrikaans speaking. I heard only Afrikaans in the house daily. My late paternal grandfather was German Speaking and died in 1926. My grandmother’s and remaining grandfather on my mother’s side lived away from us. When we saw them, they talked to us in Afrikaans.
Raised in Afrikaans, I soon discovered that Afrikaans is a powerful, but also adaptable language. Besides life, God could not have given me a more fabulous gift than Afrikaans, the grammar of my heart and soul. I am one of only a few million privileged to have this language as my native language.
Afrikaans encompass all the technical words and sentences to explain science, engineering, law and all the beautiful intricacies you usually find in English etc. Afrikaans is a whole and full language and entirely understandable.
I love music and songs, but I could never understand what they were singing. The English world has translated the beautiful songs from all world languages, and they have a better understanding of its content than the average Afrikaans-speaker. If this music and songs love us, it must verbalise us in our language. I also translated some American musicals, written due to world influence.
However, what inspired me to translate the song is my passionate love for Afrikaans and to prove to my fellow Afrikaans speakers that Afrikaans is capable of everything under the sun. Now you can also hear how beautiful the folk and operetta songs are. We understand the English songs, but I translated them because it sounds even more appealing to me in Afrikaans. Translated Poems are as beautiful and astounding.
“Over the past year or two, I have followed with great interest the debate in English newspapers on the continued existence of the Afrikaans language. .. Forget about politics and enjoy this fascinating language. “Why give up one of the most attractive languages in the history of the world. For me, Afrikaans is one of the most beautiful and influential words in the world. My advice to Afrikaans speakers is sincere. Forget about politics. Utilise and enjoy the pure elegance and mastery of your speech. That’s enough reason to fight for that, “
An exchange student said he never heard an expression with more profane words, but also any other communication with so much feeling as Afrikaans. He is right about both. If someone swears at you in Afrikaans, you know you blighted. So powerful is Afrikaans.
I’ve wondered a lot about how Afrikaans sound to an ear that has never heard of it before. One lady replied it was the most gorgeous and most malleable language she had ever heard. Afrikaans look like a language that consists only of vowels and has no consonants. “You do not place excessive emphasis on your consonants like other languages. “
The University of Oxford or Cambridge said that Afrikaans is the most dynamic language in the world. Reportedly A foreigner said we have such a music-friendly grammar. A Black American came to South Africa as a child. He was impressed by the “ag” as in “Ah, man” and then people complain about our “g”, and our “g” is, in fact, a soft “g” and voiceless.
The Christian College in Australia now teaches Afrikaans as a second language to all their pupils (350). The teacher was an Australian married to an Afrikaner. She immediately learned Afrikaans and said the following about Afrikaans: “I love Afrikaans I can’t wait to teach it. One can describe things better in Afrikaans than in English.
To top it all, a French man, who himself speaks Afrikaans, among others, said: “Afrikaans is a natural language to work for you. One can do so much with Afrikaans; it is concise and bending. French is much more rigid. He feels Afrikaans is as beautiful as French, if not more beautiful. How dare anyone say Afrikaans is ugly? There is nothing more adorable than poetry about love in Afrikaans.”
“Afrikaans is a kind of Dutch, but then more original. Nice and good. “
I know that the Afrikaans-speaking opera singers need to put a lot of effort into learning their lyrics in the European languages. We appreciate that song fully when the song adequately translated when sung in Afrikaans. Especially singing it in Afrikaans in South Africa. Opera music and songs are more popular among most Afrikaners when sung in Afrikaans.
One night I listened to the singing performance of an Afrikaans-speaking singer in “Klankgrens” on KykNET. He then told his audience that he did not sing Afrikaans translations because a song only comes into its own in the language in which it verbalised. He then sang La Paloma in Spanish. However, he shot himself in the foot, because all the other songs after that were well-known English and European music, with Afrikaans words. How is it possible that a song can only come true when the lyrics were written in the original language while none of the audience understands what the song says?
In the early years when American Country and Western songs were so famous, most of them translated into Afrikaans and the records sold. No Afrikaans-speaking person bought the English version if there was an Afrikaans translation at his disposal. The old guard will still remember how we sang “As dit nag is in die Bosveld, dan droom ek”. Few know that this was the translation of “When its night time in Nevada I’m Dreaming.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4qFeibC2KE
Attempts were made to keep these translations musical and lyrical, the rhyme sounds natural and unforced, and the accents correct on all the syllables as required by the melodies. Because Afrikaans is such a singing, poetic and fluent language, the connecting sign, ^ to sing two words for one musical note, was used in a few translations. It works great.
Author: Mattheus Frederik
PS: This is an invitation to readers and particularly Afrikaners to contact me if you also enjoy my stories about Afrikaners and their language. Email mjmfrederik@gmail.com
