Hierdie artikel deur Dr. P.J. Nienaber het verskyn in Lantern (“Die Tydskrif vir Kuns en Kultuur”), jaargang 8 volume 8 nommer 4, van April – Junie 1959. Die artikel is geskandeer en digitaal verwerk, dus kan daar spelfoute wees. Foute in grammatika en bedenklike Engels is egter die skrywer se eie.

Introduction

This year the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations organized a festival, lasting seven weeks, to celebrate the ‘Wonder of Afrikaans’. Essentially a festival that is South African in character, it will nevertheless be spoken of beyond the country’s borders, not only where Afrikaners find themselves, but where Afrikaans is used as in some African territories, and in Holland and Belgium, where it is understood.

Afrikaans, as a language with its roots in Europe, has an unusual history. It developed rapidly at the Cape and spread all over South Africa. More than that, though a Germanic tongue, it did not hesitate to shed the inflections common to the Germanic group. Perhaps the reason was that, in its initial growth, it was a spoken language of the people and therefore not confined by the niceties of dictionaries and grammars, conservative in their action. In this simplification, later defined by normal rules when it was accepted as a written language, it has joined the ranks of the most evolved of modern languages.

From its beginnings as the tongue of a vigorous people of Western culture, it has been adequate to express most ideas commonly current; indeed, as examination of the first volumes of the great new dictionary shows, it has been ever ready in adapting or coining terms to describe the essentially South African scene. In its use of technical terms it has had to follow another course, and boldly at that, so that technical terms for the complexities of the modern sciences and their application are being devised and spread with thoroughness.

Characteristic of Afrikaans is its wealth or idiom, most being derived from life as it is lived in the South Africa milieu from day to day. Often picturesque and always graphically descriptive, they reflect the very soul of the Afrikaner people and the experience of three centuries of life on the African continent.

The fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the South African Academy for Science and Art has inspired the nation-wide festival of the Afrikaans language on the theme of ‘the Wonder of Afrikaans’, For me there are three wonders: (1) That of the existence of Afrikaans; (2) that of the rapid advance of Afrikaans as the language of a culture, and (3) that of its remarkable literary achievements within half a century.

THE NAME

The name of our language is intimately connected with the name of our people and is, indeed, derived from it. The name of Afrikaner lies within the field of recent history, for according to Theal it had acquired its ordinary meaning by 1735 and must al ready have connoted the idea of a separate people.

As early as 1707 Hendrik Bibault had proclaimed: ‘I am an Afrikaner. In any event, opinions about the word ‘Afrikaner’ as the appellation of a people diverge considerably in writings that date between 1806 and 1860. Many travel writers and diarists of that period speak of ‘Cape Dutch’, and it is exceptional for any other word to be used for the inhabitants of the Southern portion of Africa whose language was the then I current ‘Dutch’.

But in the second half of the 19th century Afrikaner became the honourable title of the white inhabitants of South Africa, quickly gaining ground with the national awakening of the Afrikaner people at the Cape after 1875 and the founding of the Society of True Afrikaners. Afrikaner is the designation to-day of everyone, whoever he might be, born in South Africa and looking upon the country as his home. Indeed, the word Afrikaner can no longer be translated into English.

Afrikaans as the name of the language is not old. If we have to date its acceptance, we should give 1870. It owes its origin to Afrikaner, and its first use was adjectival: It was not then a noun. And the word Afrikaans makes great claims: it would connote the language of Africa as a whole, though it is spoken only in the south. That is why Hollanders so often speak of ‘Zuid-Afrikaansch’, for more precise localization.

Afrikaans has had several competitors, but of them we shall name only Kaapsch-Hollands or Cape Dutch, Kaaps, laag-Hollands, Boeren-Kaapsch, the Taal, and Boer Dutch. As these appellations may to-day be regarded as spent coin, we pass on with no further remarks.

Although Afrikaans, as far as I can ascertain, was first used as a written word by Dr. Pannevis in 1872 in a letter about the Bible in Afrikaans in De Zuid-Afrikaner, it might well have been used earlier.

THE WONDER OF ITS EXISTENCE

C. J. Langenhoven described Afrikaans as ‘the one and only white man’s language fashioned in South Africa and not brought ready-made over the sea, imbued with the love and the suffering of all that our forefathers had been through, in the struggle that ended in triumph, the one bond that binds us together as a nation, the expressed soul of our people.’

The wonder of the existence of Afrikaans lies in this, that throughout history no other instance is known of a Germanic language changing so rapidly and radically into an independent language.

Philologists have come to the conclusion that the dialects of 17th century Dutch transplanted to the Cape by colonists from every level of society, displayed tendencies in the first half of the 18th century sufficiently divergent from Dutch to justify talk of a separate language. Some say that about 1700 Afrikaans had already acquired its form, others that by 1750 it was possible to speak of Afrikaans, or at any rate of a proto-Afrikaans, and all that in the few years since 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck had landed at the Cape with his band of officials to found a refreshment station for the Dutch East India Company.

Let us, then, take 1725 as a date between the two and say that at about that time we can without any doubt set the appearance of Afrikaans. There are a few direct witnesses to justify researchers in this deduction. In any event, Afrikaans must naturally have attained its independence as a language before the Great Trek of 1836, otherwise there would not have been the remarkable degree of uniformity in the language as found over so wide an area.

In the account of his journeyings, (1803-1806) H. Lichtenstein says directly that the people use a ‘clipped, powerful Afrikaans-Dutch language’. But there is older evidence: the German soldier-schoolmaster Mentzel reports in the period from 1733 to 1741 an increasing use of the word ons (we) instead of wij at the Cape. From similar evidence it can be calculated when Afrikaans assumed its definite form.

The great difference between Afrikaans and Dutch is not in the vocabulary but in the formal aspect of inflections. In contrast with such forms of loop as lope, loopt, lopen, leep, leept, leepen, and gelopen, Afrikaans merely has loop and geloop. In contrast with de and het (the) Afrikaans has merely die. Afrikaans is therefore economical, and this economy has led many to think that Afrikaans is poor simply because it has fewer inflections than Dutch. They forget that modern Dutch, compared to the Dutch of the Middle Ages, gives the same impression of poverty, that Danish and English have hardly any inflexions left and certainly are not poor. It is one of the most interesting phenomena in the lives of languages that the older the documentation, the richer the inflection. The development of language from the earliest times until to-day is in the simplification of formal elements. It is the normal process.

There is nothing unnatural when languages take the road of deflection; this process of simplification is by no means exhausted in our language. Yet in regard to Afrikaans one circumstance makes it difficult to accept that the defleclionary and analytical trend is to be ascribed to the usual laws of internal growth. There is one thing that arouses the suspicion that abnormal factors have been at work: the surprisingly short time which Afrikaans took to discard suffixes, which all happened in the course of two or three generations. In 1657 the first free burghers received land; about 1725 it was obvious enough that a new language had been born at the Cape differing entirely in formal and other aspects from the original language. To repeat: in all history no other instance is known of a Germanic language changing normally in so radical a manner.

The cause of the acceleration of the process must be sought. It is possible that it was another language. The learned have propounded various theories: one has said that Afrikaans changed so much under the Hottentot influence, another finds the cause in the French of the Huguenots, a third in German, a fourth in the language of the slaves, a patois of Portuguese and Malay words and phrases.

Over against these are others who say that Afrikaans owes its existence to the mixture of dialects, or the natural development of Dutch dialects, without the braking influence of schools, books, and intimate contact with the mother country.

To-day most of the learned follow a sort of middle course. They believe that, where Afrikaans was not shaped in its natural, spontaneous growth by internal laws, its shape was affected, or the change was accelerated, by external factors such as the general intercourse of Hollanders speaking Dutch with other people, slaves included, who were learning Dutch. In any event, preference must be given to the explanation by internal development, for it is just as possible as external influence. The two causes naturally operate at the same time. If the early researchers had paid more attention to the dropping of inflections and less to vocabulary, we should to-day be more advanced in our study of the language.

THE WONDER OF THE RAPID RISE OF AFRIKAANS AS A LITERARY LANGUAGE

The second wonder is the elevation of Afrikaans, once regarded as a language fit for the kitchen, to a cultural language, and that within half a century.

‘In our wonderful Afrikaans, born from the lowly necessities and the rough soul of the countryman without privilege, the farmer and his tenants, the shepherd and the labourer, in which you can express anything, from the lowest to the highest, from the most ugly to the most beautiful, from the foulest to the purest, better than in all the highly developed languages of the world, have I found my pearl of great price’, is the testimonial of C. J. Langenhoven in My Share in the Language Struggle.

Let us now review briefly the elevation of Afrikaans to a cultural language.

OLDEST WRITINGS

All spoken languages have had a long history as such before being reduced to writing. This has also occurred with Afrikaans. The learned used to view typical Afrikaans with its departure from the normal, as a ‘wrong’ form of Dutch. As a result, no-one thought of writing the ‘wrong’ form before about 1860, and therefore passages in the language of the people, before that time, are rare.

For all that, in 1795 we find a song, to a well-known tune, in which the writer, a champion of the Orange cause, makes fun of the rash Commandant Delpoort and his men who came from Swellendam and elsewhere to drive the English invaders from the Cape, but forgetting their bombast and running away when the first shell burst among them.

The author not only ridicules the ‘heroes’ but also their unusual speech, the Afrikaans language, and the satirical Song in Honour of the Swellendam and various others Heroes at the Bloody Action at Muizenberg is therefore our oldest known piece intentionally in Afrikaans.

These deviations from the norm of local tendencies in language occur more commonly about 1823. For health reasons M. D. Teenstra stayed some weeks in the country in 1823 and in his Fruit of my Labours he mentions the language and reproduces a dialogue in Cape Dutch to show his fellow-countrymen in Holland what it was like.

In 1830 there appeared on the scene a Frenchman who had become an Afrikaner, Charles Etienne Boniface, and he sent a letter in Hottentot-Afrikaans to the paper De Zuid-Afrikaan. Two years later, in 1832, Boniface wrote the first original play in the country, The New Order of Knights, in which he made fun of teetotallers. In it there appear from time to time argumentative Coloured people, and Boniface makes them speak in their own form of Afrikaans.

About 1835 two Britons, Rex and Bain, wrote a monologue called Kaatje Kekkelbek; part is sung, part recited. Kaatje, the Hottentot girl, uses Hottentot-Afrikaans in the spoken parts, and in the sung parts a mixture of Afrikaans and English. She comes on to the stage playing a Jew’s-harp, introducing herself thus:

My name is Kaatje Kekkelbek,
I come from Kat Rivier,
Daar’s van water geen gebrek,
But scarce of wine and beer.

We now come to a very important person in the history of the language: Louis Henri Meurant (1811-1893). His Dutch newspaper, Het Kaapsche Grensblad (The Cape Border Newspaper) began soon after 1844 to publish pieces, especially letters, in Afrikaans, most of them being by Meurant himself. His letters are in a pithy Afrikaans. In 1860 he was magistrate of Cradock and a fiery champion of the partition of the Eastern Province of the Cape and the Western Province. He pleaded this cause vigorously in the local paper, The Cradock News, and in 1861 his contributions were collected in book form as Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar (Conversation between Nick Truthteller and John Doubter). And there we have the first book in Afrikaans!

In the same year Meurant wrote a series of letters in Het Cradocksche Nieuwsblad (The Cradock Newspaper) describing the progress of the debate in Parliament on the subject of partition. Prom the literary point of view these letters are far superior to the Zamenspraak – they are human reports of fine quality. The letters were republished in other papers, read avidly, and followed with enthusiasm.

In the Orange Free State, in The Friend, there existed an unknown urge to write in ‘Boer Dutch’. It was the result of Meurant’s brilliant use of the language, especially his witty use of his material, which brought it out. It was Meurant who stimulated the use of the language in the Press. He unleashed a hitherto unrealized desire to write and started a movement which increased incredibly in tempo.

In 1861 appeared the first book of verse in Afrikaans, religious in subject and by D. C. Esterhuyse. Thenceforward the number of letters and dialogues grew so fast that it is impossible to name them individually. Between 1861 and 1875, when the next phase begins with the foundation of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (the Society of True Afrikaners) pieces in Afrikaans had claimed space in practically every Dutch and bilingual newspaper and periodical.

ANGLICIZATION

Afrikaners at the Cape had by the 1870’s gone so far along the road to anglicization that it is a wonder that they were saved at all. It was the Dutch culture that had to be anglicized, for in 1806 the Cape had passed into English hands, where previously in had been in the possession of Holland and enjoyed a culture that came from Holland. The English way of life had found root on South African soil.

The circumstances were in the main as follows: the established White population was unilingual, speaking Dutch, and the ruling class, occupying the key positions, was also unilingual, speaking English. This led to attempts at reform, with conflicts emanating from the attempts. The British Government for its part did much to attract English immigrants in order to establish a settled English- speaking population, and on their part the Dutch opposed anglicization.

As far as the policy was concerned, it led among other things to the arrival of the British Settlers of 1820 in the Eastern Province. Until then, the Dutch element had had to deal with the less advanced Native races, but thenceforward they had to deal with a nation of fellow White men; in the past they had absorbed all White immigrants, but the English had the spiritual strength to resist absorption.

As the English section ruled and occupied the country, its members had a strong feeling of individuality, and even superiority, which was the dynamic in the maintenance of language, religion, customs, and way of life. Although they were at first a small percentage of the White population, they were immediately a civilizing factor of importance and their influence was felt. This was especially so in the sphere of entertainment (balls, horse-racing) and local government (district and road boards, municipalities, and participation in the central government).

Coupled with this was the fact that cultural ties with Holland were being severed one after the other, while the new colony was being drawn closer to England in every way.

It is obvious that the authorities not only did everything to bring out British colonists, but also fostered British thought among the rest of the White population. This took the form of a number of laws aimed at supplanting Dutch. Anglicization began at the top, with government institutions. The language of the government was English; it was the official language in all government departments. Lord Charles Somerset abolished Dutch in the courts, imported Scottish clergymen in order to anglicize the Afrikaners in the exercise of their religion, and the schools were anglicized too. Indeed, the schools were the most important instrument of the policy, for he who teaches the children of today moulds the people of to-morrow, and sympathies follow education.

Without going into detail, it can be said that the result of these and other factors was that the Afrikaner began to despise his spiritual heritage, his people, his language, and his country. ‘Dutch’ fell into disrepute. It virtually became a term of opprobrium for something inferior. C. P. Hoogenhout characterized the language position of 1870 by saying in some verses that English was heard on every hand and that the mother tongue was being done to death in school and church.

SELF-AWARENESS GROWS

We have already shown how the first efforts at writing Afrikaans occurred. There was, however, nothing much in the way of love for the language as a medium for the expression of thought. The writers known to us by name were for the most part not Afrikaners but foreigners able to use Afrikaans in attempts to joke or to amuse. They looked down upon the language as a vehicle of thought and used it as a plaything. It was only good enough for pretending to be unlettered or to produce yokelish, comic effects. The Cape was becoming anglicized; Afrikaans had no future.

But when the picture was at its darkest, Afrikaans was moving in to claim its own. To wage the campaign in earnest, men were required with a love for and faith in the language of the people, men ready to make sacrifices, to give their time, their money, strength, and love.

However strange it may seem, it took a long time to bring home to the Afrikaners themselves that Afrikaans was indeed their language. Although they no longer spoke or wrote Dutch with ease or even correctly, they continued to regard it as their mother tongue.

First of all they had to be made aware of the simple truth that it was Afrikaans that was their own tongue. They had to be convinced and converted, and as always in great movements towards reformation, one or a few intellectuals had a better idea of the steps necessary and came forward as champions of the new cause. There had to be leaders with a clear vision and they had to recruit disciples.

The leader was Dr. A. Pannevis (1838- I 188S). A Hollander by birth, versed in the classical and various modern European languages, as a teacher at the Paarl Gymnasium he brought a great influence to bear on one of his pupils, later the Rev. S. J. du Toit, opening his eyes to the existence and utility of Afrikaans. In private conversations he convinced many that Afrikaans was the future language of South Africa. Indirectly he set the First Afrikaans Movement going by means of his letters advocating a translation of the Bible into Afrikaans, addressed to De Zuid-Afrikaan (1874) and then to the British and Foreign Bible Society (1874).

Pannevis was supported by another man from Holland, C. P. Hoogenhout, who also wrote in Afrikaans to De Zuid-Afrikaan and published, in 1873, the third book in Afrikaans, a history of Joseph.

Under the nom de plume of Ware Afrikaner (True Afrikaner) the Rev. S. J. du Toit also advocated the use of Afrikaans and warned the Afrikaner against anglicization, calling upon Afrikaners to awake before it was too late.

In his letter to the British and Foreign Bible Society Pannevis named the Rev. S. J. du Toit as a possible translator of the Bible into Afrikaans; unfortunately, he called Afrikaans a ‘gibberish’, and that frightened the society out of undertaking the translation. Their secretary in Cape Town was, however, told to make investigations and got into touch with the Rev. S. J. du Toit and C. P. Hoogenhout. They decided that the time was not yet ripe for the task but founded the Society of True Afrikaners to develop Afrikaans into a written language.

Although Pannevis was not present at the meeting which founded the society, its existence was the direct result of his letter to the British and Foreign Bible Society. Not only did he recruit disciples but he gave a great impetus to their unification into a society as a closed group working for an ideal, to convince the people that they had a language of their own. In that sense we can call Pannevis the father of the Afrikaans movement.

It soon became apparent that this was more than a language movement. Its motto was: ‘For language, nation, and country’. It gathered the true Afrikaners, the patriots, together into making a united effort for their own language, nation, and country. They sought to make the entire people aware of their spiritual heritage and to persuade them to acceptance. The society addressed itself to that part of the people that lived in mental poverty, that understood Dutch to some extent but could not express themselves adequately and easily through it. To inspire the people, they had to be given a voice; they had to speak, not merely to listen. Thus the national movement was originally a campaign to make the people conscious or their language. That is why the society looked not only to adults and its own period but also to the children in the schools and to the future.

Its leaders, and especially the Rev. S. J. du Toit, were inspired by great faith and love. Otherwise they would not have been able to fly in the race of current opinion. Their campaign was nothing short or a revolt against established attitudes and convictions. For mere self-protection against public disapprobation they later had to adopt a pseudonym for the editor or their sheet, The Afrikaans Patriot. Later, enmity towards their efforts flamed high, and they had to suffer much in the way of misapprehension and belittlement. Yet they persisted in their act of faith.

They presented a united front, composed a national anthem (Every Nation has its Land), issued a manifesto, published a newspaper (The Afrikaans Patriot), published nearly a hundred books, including novels, tales, a play, volumes of verse, history, schoolbooks, etc. They founded a periodical, Ons Klyntij (Our Little One), translated various books of the Bible, and called into being a political organization, the Afrikaner Bond.

Opposition was violent. The English-language newspapers let their disapproval be known when they could no longer suppress the influence of the society by their silence. President Reitz had to take a determined stand against Mr. Wirgmann and the South African Magazine in 1880 when that divine followed other belittling opinions by branding Afrikaans as a patois. But opposition was to be expected from such a quarter. When it came from quarters whose support could have been expected, it inflicted grievous wounds, that is, when it came from the Dutch, for whom it was meant to be a balm.

There were also the learned, such as Lord de Villiers, who in a lecture described Afrikaans as poor in vocabulary and inflections and unsuitable for the expression or lofty thought (May 1876). He was also of opinion that English was the future language of the country and he did not regret that. Others also stood aside, as did the Dutch newspapers. Dutch schoolmasters forbade their pupils to read The Patriot, on pain of expulsion. In 1882 the Cape synod spent nearly two days investigating against the spirit and the tenour of The Patriot and distributed thousands or pamphlets against it.

The main reason for opposition was the form of the language, represented to be the mother tongue, the true, pure language of the country. It was against this claim that its opponents took their stand, and in it the principal content of their letters of protest and arguments was grounded. No; Dutch, the language of the pulpit, that was the civilized tongue. Afrikaans, on the contrary, was belittled by ascribing to it a mean and doubtful birth, as the language of Hottentots, its utility was denied, because it was poor in vocabulary and inflexions, and it was said to have no grammar, no literature.

About 1900 the First Period came to an end. The South African War had much to do with that, but the basic reason was the political change of the leader, the Rev. S. J. du Toit, who, at the time of the Jameson Raid (1896) and again during the South African War, ranged himself with England.

The society had carried the Afrikaans idea to the broad masses of the people and in many respects prepared and smoothed the path for the next generation.

A NEW LOW POINT

With the Treaty of Vereeniging (31 May 1902) the republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal lost their political independence and became part of the British Empire. But the Afrikaner people unconsciously knew that a people is conquered, not when it signs a treaty of peace with a pistol at its head, but when it ceases to be itself, ceases to protest against expropriation.

The future of the Afrikaans language was then at its darkest. The influence of the schools at the Cape had made it customary for educated Afrikaners to converse together in English and to write to each other in English. The authorities had done all they could to discourage the use of Dutch and to sever the Afrikaner people from their traditions and institutions. From 1900 a knowledge or Dutch was no longer required of public servants and inspectors of schools – to know Dutch was a handicap rather than an advantage.

As for the former republics, the authorities did their utmost, as in the days of Lord Charles Somerset, to anglicize the entire people, again using the schools. Within three years 3,000 English teachers were brought in from England, and the language they knew was English.

Anglicization spread fast, not only among the less advanced, for it became fashionable to speak English in well educated circles. This caused great confusion among Afrikaners: most could no longer write Dutch, while they despised Afrikaans as a language fit for the kitchen, so all they could do was to write in English.

Good Afrikaners opposed this distressing state of affairs and believed that only one way was open to them, to raise Afrikaans to a written language. But they met determined opposition from the authorities who wanted English as the only language of the country and, more determined still, from the champions of Dutch, especially from those who were responsible for the simplified Dutch spelling. They, and among them were Dr. W. J. Viljoen and Professor P. J. G. de Vos, wanted to use this spelling to popularize Dutch in South Africa and thereby dispel the spectre of Afrikaans.

The champions or Dutch fought doughtily against Afrikaans, even calling it a patois or a Hottentot language. Afrikaans, they repeated, would sever the ties with Holland and make Dutch literature strange to the Afrikaner.

Those favouring Afrikaans as a recognized language of the people argued roughly that Dutch was an artificial language in South Africa, because it was learnt at school but never actually spoken, being used by the well educated merely for speechifying or preaching. As Dutch was not a spoken language in South Africa, but the language of books, Afrikaans would have to be raised from its lowly state and recognized as the real language of the people.

All those working for the advancement of Afrikaans were at the same time lovers of Dutch. They knew well enough that the two could never be divorced and that Afrikaans needed Dutch, for it would be a tragedy if Dutch literature was a closed book for the Afrikaner .

The direction to be taken was obvious: the elevation of Afrikaans to the position of a written language. It was then that the leaders stepped forward, most of them being men with academic training. Their task was to hamstring the arguments of those who said that Afrikaans was no language, had no grammar, and so forth.

At the beginning of the Second Period of the Afrikaans movement the leaders were three: J. H. H. de Waal, Gustav Preller, and the Rev. W. Postma, all of them seeing clearly that it was no longer a question only of supporting the language but also of saving the people.

In Cape Town De Waal made propaganda for Afrikaans in his periodical De Goede Hoop (Good Hope) (1903); in the Orange Free State Postma wrote his manifesto pleading for the rights of Afrikaans; and in the Transvaal Preller set things moving with a series of articles, ‘Let us be Serious’, in De Volkstem.

In Afrikaans-speaking circles in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State this pioneer work aroused the feelings necessary for the combination of efforts into an association, resulting in the foundation of the Afrikaans Language Society in December 1905 at Pretoria, intent upon convincing Afrikaners that Afrikaans was their language. A year later, also in Pretoria, The Afrikaans Language Association was formed, and in 1908 the society, Our Language, in Bloemfontein. These societies worked for the good of Afrikaans by means of lectures, plays, and, in the instance of the Afrikaans Language Society, by convening congresses.

In 1909 a society was formed to reconcile the champions of Dutch and those of Afrikaans; it was called the South African Academy for Language, Letters, and Art. The body was of great importance in the direction taken by the Afrikaans cause; first it tackled the difficult question of spelling; in 1915 the proposed spelling rules were approved and published, and they were applied in later editions of the Afrikaans Vocabulary. The Academy’s spelling is recognized as the only one to-day. Schoolbooks especially in the early years were examined from the standpoint of spelling and style ; the Hertzog Prize was presented annually by the Academy for the best literary work.

To-day the Academy also presents the Stals Prize for the mental sciences and the Havenga Prize for natural science. In 1942 a faculty of natural science and technology was added to the Academy.

OFFICIAL RECOGNITION

Official recognition of the Afrikaans language then came rapidly, and that is another of the wonders of Afrikaans. During the negotiations before Union one of the most difficult questions was that of language. General J. B. M. Hertzog caused Section 137 to be inserted in the Act of Union, laying down that Dutch had equal rights with English in all respects. Full bilingualism was thus guaranteed in South Africa.

It is to be noted, however, that it was Dutch not Afrikaans that was to be recognized. The Government therefore instructed the schools that equal language rights applied, and in 1912 the Provincial Council of each province, except Natal, decided that children should be taught in their home language as far as standard IV, which really meant in the official language that they knew best. Under this ruling, of course, Afrikaans-speaking children were not taught in Afrikaans but in Dutch. This discrepancy provoked C. J. Langenhoven to introduce legislation in the Cape Provincial Council saying that ‘Dutch’ meant ‘Afrikaans’. This was soon followed in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

Laws had been made, but they still had to be applied. The provincial legislation gave the Afrikaans language societies an immediate and clear goal and diverted their activities into new channels: through the activities of the Afrikaanse Studentebond (Union of Afrikaans Students) Afrikaans was recognized in the universities in 1918; and in the same year the first chair of Afrikaans was established at the Grey University College, Bloemfontein.

Although by 1914 Afrikaans had gained much ground as a cultural language, the attitude of the church towards the Afrikaans movement was one of withholding approval, for the church seldom experiments with new things and even more seldom with causes of discord. When the Afrikaans cause had proved its power of lasting, it took root in the church and then grew so fast that Afrikaans was recognized in all four Dutch Reformed Churches as their official language.

On this subject Langenhoven exclaimed: ‘Truly, the cause is of the Lord and it is wonderful in our eyes, too wonderful for us to believe our own senses’.

The lead was taken by the Orange Free State synod which recognized Afrikaans when it met in 1916 and decided to translate the Bible into Afrikaans. The other churches quickly followed the example: translators of the Bible were nominated, and after considerable delay it was decided in 1923 that the translation should be from the original languages. The Academy named advisers on language to help with the translation, and the complete Bible appeared in Afrikaans in 1933. The rhymed Psalms followed in 1937 and hymns in 1944. Afrikaans had thus conquered the church.

Now we must consider the position of Afrikaans in Parliament, the highest legislative body in the land.

In 1918 J. H. H. de Waal introduced a motion that for the purposes of administration Afrikaans should be included in the word ‘Dutch’ in Section 137 of the Act of Union. But on the motion of N. J. de Wet it was decided that the term included Afrikaans ‘except in Bills, and Acts of Parliament, and in official documents of both Houses’, in which the simplified form of Dutch was to be used.

The significance of this decision was that the entire public service was thrown open to Afrikaans. Yet in the proviso there lurked one obstacle, for in Parliament itself Afrikaans was not recognized as a written language for administrative purposes.

An end was brought to this dualism in 1925 when, on the recommendation of two select committees, it was decided that Afrikaans would be included in the word ‘Dutch’ in the section concerned and that from the first session of 1926 it would take the place of Dutch for Parliamentary purposes.

Afrikaans had thus gained complete recognition. Who, knowing the position of the language at the end of the South African War, would ever have dreamed that in less than twenty years the despised language of the people, by acting through the language societies, would not only have replaced Dutch but conquered what appeared to be impregnable fortresses? That was indeed a miracle!

Afrikaans is also recognized oversea: it can be heard on the radio from Holland and England; there is a chair of Afrikaans at Amsterdam; before World War II it was taught at the University of Berlin, and attention is paid to it at University College, London. Various Afrikaans books have been translated into European languages.

APPLICATION

Afrikaans is now fully recognized in every aspect of our lives, but the application of the laws depends upon the Afrikaans-speaking people themselves. The question now is to support and expand the Afrikaans idea in political, cultural, and economic fields. That is why the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Societies had to come, with its effective motto, ‘Support and Build’. Its aim is ‘the promotion of close co-operation among all Afrikaans cultural and related societies by means of (a) common and, where necessary, simultaneous action, and (b) the protection and expansion of a national culture based on the religion and traditions or the Afrikaner.

The third wonder of Afrikaans is its remarkable and superior literary achievement within half a century, for, from the literary point of view, we can leave what was written before 1900 out of account.

Afrikaans literature, in particular its poetry, dates from after the South Africa War, when suddenly the plant burst into flower. It was as if everyone had been struck dumb by the shock of war, until Eugene Marais and Jan Celliers appeared on the scene. Poetry was something new, deriving its power from integrity; its foundations were in the experience of the people. It took its first, faltering steps in poets such as Totius; then followed the high moments of vision, expressing the intimate form of the suffering of the people.

In Totius’s Rachel occurs the most mature expression, but in Winternag (Winter’s Night) by Marais (1905) Afrikaans is elevated for the first time to a poetic language, proving its poetic qualities. In that poem are found for the first time the lyricism of nature and a personal voice, with individual feeling; yet the personal is universalized, the particular given at a general value. In Winternag Marais becomes the herald of Afrikaans poetry, the first poet of Afrikaans, announcing a newcomer to the poetic art.

Following Marais were the triumvirate of Celliers, Totius, and Leipoldt, bringing with them an unexpected blossoming of Afrikaans poetry. We have called Marais with his Winternag the herald, but his work did not appear in volume form until 1925, whereas Totius’s By die Monument, (At the Monument) and Celliers’s Die Vlakte en ander Gedigte (The Plain and other Poems) both made their appearance in 1908, and Leipoldt’s Oom Gert Vertel en ander Gedigte (Oom Gert Relates, and other poems) in 1911.

The pain of war is in all the early works of these poets, for it pervaded all the post-war poetry like a sombre leitmotiv; each felt the pain differently and interpreted it in his own way.

The poetry of Celliers was a surprise for the Afrikaner. In his work are heard for the first time stately and full music, an elevated tone not heard since – a skill, a beauty of Afrikaans unknown until then. Thoroughly grounded in Dutch, he brought a new richness to Afrikaans. It must be remembered that when Celliers started to write, there was no Afrikaans literary tradition; his value lies in his language and a prosody of great variety.

As subjects, Totius chose the War, nature, and personal grief, showing throughout the attitude of the Calvinist. On the other hand, Leipoldt had his eyes on the world of the day, not on the here-after; he was the first to use the language as powerfully as the people did and was one of the outstanding poets of nature.

D. F. Malherbe, C. J. Langenhoven, and A. G. Visser belong to the second group of the ‘First Generation’ that followed the war. Visser was the poet of love and, by the spirituality of his work, gained great popularity.

About 1920 there began a trend in Afrikaans poetry that cannot be defined with any great clarity; a new sound was heard, but not clearly. There was a measure of revolt against the ruling traditions and in the sphere of religion too.

The War had not been forgotten, but the poets were further from it and were not moved by the immediacy of suffering as much as by the deeds of heroism, as in the Rit-rympie (Riding verses) of Toon van den Heever, the most important of the generation of 1920. Others were A. D. Keet, Theo Wassenaar, Kleinjan van Bruggen, and R. A. Fagan. Quite apart is the classicist Theo Haarhoff who published volumes in 1931 and 1933, seeking to revivify classical antiquity, in all its humanism and beauty, in Afrikaans.

The ‘Generation of 1934′ followed, including C. M. van den Heever, I. D. du Plessis, W. E. G. Louw, N. P. van Wyk Louw, Uys Krige, and Elisabeth Eybers. Naturally they did not form a close group, nor is the new in poetry to be found to the same degree in each, for they have not consciously pursued the same ideals.

C. M. van den Heever, in some ways a link between the old and the new, was the first of them to come to notice in 1930. All were individualists, even I. D. du Plessis, most reminiscent in style of the earlier generation. In Elizabeth Eybers we hear the sorrows of love, and Uys Krige is ‘not so much an individualist as a strongly individual poet of romantic melancholy at the transitory nature of beauty.’ The most spontaneous representative of the new poetry was N. P. van Wyk Louw.

The poets of 1934 were individualists, but each after his own manner, for they did not confine themselves in ivory towers and cut themselves off from the people – witness the national poems of W. E. G. Louw and N. P. van Wyk Louw. Absorbed in their own psychological problems, they analysed them and thus came to a clear view of life, so that in their work is much of self-revelation. They shun the old problems of the earlier poets and express their own loves and sorrows, direct and naked. They are not easily linked to a theme, for it is life in all its variety that holds them.

Without calling their originality in question, these poets were under the influence of the best modern Dutch poets, especially the generation of 1910, an influence to the good in the refinement of language and expression. This new feeling for life was reflected in new art forms, with subtler and freer verse and a refined musical quality.

We speak of the ‘Group of 1934′, a date used because that year saw Die Ryke Dwaas (The Rich Fool) of W. E. G. Louw, a volume that introduced a new era in Afrikaans poetry. But it was the elder of the brothers, N. P. van Wyk Louw, who was the strongest and most conscious of the group. His first volume, Alleenspraak (Soliloquy) appeared in 1935, followed by others with new and higher levels. It was also N. P. van Wyk Louw who found fame for Afrikaans poetry oversea and the acknowledgement that it stood on an equal footing with the best in Europe. Translations had already appeared of Afrikaans volumes, such as Poems by Eugene Marais (translated by A. E. Thorpe) and The Quiet Adventure by Elisabeth Eybers.

WINTER NIGHT

The wind, it is biting
and chill.
Agleam in the twilight
and still,
Like God and His grace without end,
So the plains in the starlight extend.
  Up above, far away,
  In their serried array,
Like beckoning hands,
The tall grasses sway.

With sad music laden,
  The east wind blows on,
Like the song of a maiden
Whose lover is gone.
Each blade in its fold
A dewdrop doth hold,
So soon to be turned
To frost in the cold!

From: Poems by Eugene Marais (translated by A. E. Thorpe.)

MARY

One of God’s holy seraphim
with joyful news came down to earth:
in humble praise you sang a hymn,
Mary, maid of Nazareth!

But when the neighbours looked askance
and Joseph thought he’d go away,
could you predict the dreary load
of shame your son would bear one day?

When, with a little secret smile,
you stroked your body – could you tell
the mingled love and dread with which
he’d have to brave the pit of hell?

And in the stable – as you lay
forsaken in your agony -
could you foresee the lonely way
that led into Gethsemane?

When gaudy monarchs journeyed far
their homage and their gifts to bring,
did you know with what boisterous shouts
the soldiers would proclaim him king?

When in your arms you held him so
as babes are cradled to be nursed
and watched his sucking, did you know
how helplessly he’d writhe with thirst?

When darkness flooded you, and John
came up and took you by the hand,
Woman of Sorrows, did you then
remember all and understand?

From: The Quiet Adventure by Elisabeth Eybers.

About 1940 a new group appeared, continuing the tradition of that of 1934. Except for D. J. Opperman, they showed few signs of a new trend. To the group belong S. J. Pretorius, Ernst van Heerden, Olga Kirsch, S. V. Petersen, and G. A. Watermeyer. A little later, say 1950, followed P. J. Philander, Ina Rousseau, and Peter Blum.

Opperman immediately took a place in the front rank with his volume Heilige Beeste (Holy Cattle), though his unusual qualities evoked some opposition. In his succeeding volumes he shows renewal and enrichment of subject and fulfilment for, responsible and sober, he never displays weakness or sentimentality.

PROSE

Although prose has not reached the heights of Afrikaans poetry, there have been works worthy of attention. Prose, with objective and calm descriptions of situations of complexity and narrative art that goes with insight and maturity, appears later than poetry. In the emotional post-war years comes the lyrical expression of poetry; later reflection gives form to the prose description of Afrikaans life with its wealth of themes and its own problems.

Ultimately a picture of Afrikaner life in the Western milieu is obtained. Some works, such as Uit Oerwoud en Vlakte (From Primaeval Forest and Plain) by Sangiro, have been translated into various European languages, as well as Somer (Summer) by C. M. van den Heever.

Other important writers of prose are D. F. Malherbe, with Die Meulenaar (The Miller) and Hans die Skipper (Hans the Skipper), Jochem van Bruggen with his Ampie trilogy, Micro with Toiings and Pelgrims (Pilgrims), J. van Melle with En ek is nog by (And I was there), G. H. Franz with Moeder Poulin (Mother Poulin), Hettie Smit with Sy Kom met die Sekelmaan (She comes with the New Moon) and M. E. R. with Uit en Tuis (Out and In), Die Eindelose Waagstuk (The Endless Adventure), and others.

Drama in Afrikaans has had its successes with Leipoldt, Fagan, Grosskopf, and De Klerk, but its future lies ahead when the wonder of Afrikaans has developed yet further.