South Africa

Transcription:

I was born in also a rural environment, uh, about 20 kilometers from the main city, uh, in that particular area or angle - triangle of three cities, uh, which were mainly industrialized cities? So it was fascinating to me as an individual growing up to be par of both an Afrikaans speaking background, and going to Afrikaans speaking schools in Afrikaans churches but we were actually staying on the river, and the river traditionally has been the playground of the rich Johannesburgers who were all mainly English. So, I grew up, uh, until the age of 5 not even in a certain sense hearing English because I was at home and did not go to a kindergarten, um, then went to an Afrikanns school and all of a sudden then came across all the English-speaking kids on the bus going back and forth? And realized that there was actually another language being spoken in the country? Fortunately, some English-speaking people from Britain moved in further down the road, um, they did not have children and because my brother and I were the only kids around on the block, they obviously acted as babysitters. So, eventually then I got to understand what they were saying to me, and eventually, I think by the time I was about six or seven could, uh, distinguish the two languages? Um, and that was the -the almost the English influence where the English influence started in - in, uh, my own life. It was always moving between these two languages and trying to, um, understand the - the differences because I think the, uh, language structure of Afrikaans is very much like German and Dutch. So, it's a fairly - I think - a very uncomplicated, uh, language structure, um, and that's personally where I usually get confused is in my - my brain's working on both sorts of languages and I sometimes get my language structure completely incorrect in both languages. And the, if I can do an Afrikaans translation of the sentence: Wanneer sonlig reëndruppels in die lug raak, word dit 'n prisma en vorm 'n reënboog. So, that's the, that's where the Afrikaans person would, would come from. The other, the only other very very clear um, Afrikaans dialect literally is again a a group of Afrikaans speakers that stay in the Cape and, um, they have a very rolling "R" sound. So they would, they would literally roll each "R", um: En hulle kom van die Bree Rivier [= And they come from the Bree River]. So they literally when they, they talk in "R"s they roll their "R"s. So they would say, well you know, when a "what strrikes rraindrrops - rraindrrops". It's literally that that pronounced.