h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wrote this tribute a while ago - Pieter Pieterse was about the same age - 65 - that my dad was, when he died. It was interesting to me, now, to re-read this tribute to Pieterse. Has anyone read it? Comments?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/plain/A719020

I'd never heard of him, until I came across the entry by browsing - what a tragic end to what sounds like a truely philanthropic and talented person.

Was the mystery of who brought him to his death ever solved?


My sincere condolences on the recent passing away of your father, as well. I was hesitent to join in on your personal space, as I felt I, as a stranger, may be intruding.

Willem, that was most interesting. I had never heard of him, but the state of publishing in SA sound appalling. I suspect it is even worse now?

It must be the most dreadful thing to have someone killed, without knowing by whom or why. At least your father passed away with his family round him and knowing why he died, tragic and unfair though that is.

I am looking forward to your tribute to your Dad - to know a little more about him and what made him tick. You were so lucky to have him albeit for a shorter time than you would have wished.

Websailor

Thank you for this interesting - and well-written - tribute to a friend.

I can't believe Afrikaans publishing is in such a bad state. One reason might be that everybody counts on selling a lot of books for each printing - and, to get a wider audience, you have to have your work translated.

I recently read Denon Meyer's 'Blood Safari' - wonderful book - in English. I would have tried to get the Afrikaans version - it would have taken me a lot of dictionary work to read it, but been worth it - but I wanted to share the book, and nobody else over here can read Dutch at all.

The other night, I wrote an essay I was hesitant about. I thought maybe I was overstating the need for us to worry about the massive extinction of languages.

You have just reminded me that my thoughts were more on the mark than I believed.

May people long write in Afrikaans - and may they continue to share their unique viewpoint with us.

Hello folks!

Ev - you're always welcome on my page! Anyone else who's lurking as well.

The mystery of Pieter Pieterse's death has not been solved as far as I know. Same as about 95% of all murder cases over here.

I think the state of publishing in Afrikaans may actually be *better* now, than it was back then! There's been a bit of 'entrepeneuring' and activism in the publishing business. P. G. du Plessis managed to get another fine book out, in Afrikaans ... 'Fees van die Ongenooides' ('Feast of the Uninvited') since having told me he was having difficulties getting published (like I said in the tribute, du Plessis wrote his previous book in English). There's a steady stream of Afrikaans fiction, poetry and factual books being published, there's a weekly page in the paper discussing them.

The Afrikaans newspapers also seem to be doing fairly well. Most of them are available on the Internet. They are read by many of our 'ex-pats' in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and so on.

Afrikaans literature was one of my father's passions, and he had a doctor's degree in it. What I'm going to try, is to get more of his writings published. Like I will tell in my tribute to him, he has published a number of works, but there's a lot more that he wrote that he hadn't yet succeeded in getting published. But if, indeed, things are looking up in the publishing world, then there's a chance!

You know that I'm also a writer, but for now, my writing is mostly in English. I actually think I have a better chance of getting published in English first ... but if I am successful, I'll translate my own works into Afrikaans as well, and perhaps write some original Afrikaans pieces as well.

I totally believe that we must do all we can to preserve human languages! In my view, every language is part of the heritage of all of Humanity.

Over here though the issue has been sickeningly politicised! Afrikaans is seen by many as the 'language of the oppressor' (ignoring among other things, the very large number of non-white first-language Afrikaans speakers) and consequently ... I hardly exaggerate when I say, they want to see the language *destroyed* or at least relegated to a very small sphere. Many Afrikaans speakers of course, (and especially the white ones) are now on the defensive ... and that, too, gets nasty. So it's a dirty fight on both sides. And in the process as well ... the principle of language promotion gets lost. South Africa has eleven official languages and there are still more languages spoken here, some of them quite threatened. But English is now pushed above everything else. At a cost to Afrikaans ... but at an even greater cost to other indigenous languages! Sotho, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Venda ... these languages are being neglected now as well! Because, IF the government accepts the principle that these languages should be better developed ... promoting and financing the writing of books in them, teaching them in schools and so forth ... then it would be necessary to concede that Afrikaans should also be supported. But they would rather sacrifice these other languages as well, along with Afrikaans, and turn everyone English.

And much support for all this comes of course from 'the Market'. There's a HUGE market for English. There is NO WAY other indigenous African languages ... whether in South Africa or elsewhere ... can compete and *beat* English on equal terms. If J. K. Rowling had written her works in Venda and published them here then pretty much no-one in the world would have heard of Harry Potter, and she would have made just about no money.

This very idea of *global* competitiveness in the free market, will doom 99% of all human languages unless we can find an alternative system.

I've always believed that the thing that might save human languages other than the big, global ones, is if there were more support for smaller, local markets, and for translations ... and if people in the world were encouraged to learn more languages other than their native tongues ... and to read works in different languages. I can read Afrikaans, English, German and French, though I can't fluently *speak* the latter two. I would like to learn at least one of our indigenous African languages also ... I have picked up a few words and phrases of Northern Sotho but I'd like to know it well. I wasn't serious enough to learn it properly in school, I'm ashamed to say.

You are preaching to the choir, here.

I cannot bear to see a language die. And as I'm saying in an essay, they do this at the rate of 10 a year.

You're right - learn all of them you can, support them. In Brooklyn, they comb the attics of elderly people and put together a Yiddish library. The New Testament has just been published in Gullah, thanks to the Wycliffe people. (Gullah is a rare creole spoken in South Carolina and on barrier islands by the descendants of West African rice farmers.)

Thanks to a professor I had in grad school, I can just about pronounce the word 'Xhosa'. I get a cramp in my tongue.

Desktop publishing, 'on-demand' publishing, and the web may help save the literary heritage of languages that don't have mega-audiences. I recently ran across one in Pennsylvania 'Dutch', which is an old dialect of German still spoken in Lancaster County.

I think it's reprehensible to try to save a language only if you approve of its history. That's like adopting only the 'cute' children. (Don't get me started on whether the English should be throwing brickbats here...)

>>Ev - you're always welcome on my page! Anyone else who's lurking as well<<

Thank you kindly young sir.



I'm a great (silent) smiler and nodder, until I feel I have something worthwhile to say or contribute.

But once I get going.... - well, just ask Websailor

Indubitably

Websailor

My long contribution to the afrikaans language and the way it has grown was snaffled from this.

aurevoir all my friends. some of you have my private email addy if you would like to continue the friendship.

Otherwise I am off....cannot bear censorship.
Christiane M. Elias\MA(cum laude)(US) 1980

Interestingly enough, although I was a critic of aparheid I was NEVER censored in south africa, because I am a phenomenologist. Something the BBC had better learn about if they do not want to become extinct like dinosaurs. !!

9/Feb./2010 7/25

I have written a long contribution to this which I enjoyed writing and I hope was objective.

It has been snaffled from this site. My first explication has aslo been snaffled from this site. I do not have the time to do it a thrid time.

I am off. although a critic of aparthied I was NEVER CENSORED IN SOUTH AFRICA. I believe that it is because Iam a phenomenolgst. ]]Howver, the BBC cannot handle it so au revoir.
I have loved meeting so many of you and I bid you all adieu.

Christiane M. Ealis MA(cum laude) (US)

also known as Alsoran 90 and a researcher for nearly 10 years.

Willem,

sorry for butting in.

Christiane, please! It is not the BBC! You are not being censored. It is automated, the software does not know you as a person, whether in a wheelchair, aged or otherwise You must shake off this persecution complex you have developed with regard to the BBC!

Have you realised that you can type all your contributions on your computer when you are NOT online? Type it up, save it in Word or Notepad. Copy and paste it in to your message box once you are online and you will still have it in Word/Notepad even if you click the wrong key later.

It occurred to me that Age Concern provide free computer lessons for s. Perhaps you could phone them and see if someone would be prepared to come out and go through it with you, till you get the hang of it. Or type up clear instructions for you to follow each time till you got the hang of it.

I would do that for you myself but I don't use a PC, I use an Apple Mac computer which is slightly different and I might confuse you.

Don't give up and

Websailor

The site also automatically fails posts that are largely in a language other than English. Yes, it annoys the multilingual among us. But if you're using Afrikaans, you need to remember to translate all of it. Then the mods will re-instate it.

I think (but I may be wrong) that she was actually writing in English, *about* Afrikaans Mala so that wasn't the problem.

Websailor

More a question of touching the wrong keys methinks something we all do now and again.

Websailor

She was probably using Afrikaans phrases to illustrate. Unfortunately, that's enough to set off the mods. I assumed that's what happened.

But I don't see any failed postings here. Or failed entries on her space. So it was probably just a fluke.

Hi folks! Christiane, I've sent you a message elsewhere ... I do hope you reconsider. And I do hope you find someone over there who can help you out and show you 'the ropes' about the computer stuff.

Anyways ... back to the discussion. Like I say, Afrikaans is currently as far as I am concerned not in big trouble, assuredly not in immediate danger of dying out. Other languages here, need a lot more help. I think with endangered languages one can take hints from work with endangered species. Concentrate first on the ones most in danger. I think those, over here, would be some of the surviving languages of the Bushmen, that is to say the Khoi-San languages. They are the original 'click' languages. The clicking sounds of Xhosa (such as the sound represented by 'xh' which your prof taught you, Dmitri!), Zulu, and others, most probably were 'imported' into those languages through the influence of the Bushmen and the other Khoi-San peoples.

Afrikaans have incorporated some words from the Khoi-San languages, but not the actual clicking sounds! But we've taken over many words - with minor modifications. With me being interested in plants, the common names we have for many of them, come from Khoi-San languages, like:

ghaap - common name for Hoodia plants
kambro - common names for a number of plants with thick tubers
koekamakranka - a pretty flowering plant with spirally-twisted leaves
karkai - common name for plants of the Tacky or Stonecrop family in South Africa
karee - a number of hardy indigenous tree species
dagga - cannabis plant

And other words:

kwagga - a zebra
gogga - a 'bug' or a general arthoprod or invertebrate with legs
namakwa - name of a people and a region
karos - an animal skin used as a cloak or blanket
kierie - a wooden walking-stick or club
abba - to carry on one's back, as mothers traditionally do with their babies
eina - ouch!

These are words imported from Khoi-San languages. So those languages have contributed to Afrikaans - and we Afrikaners can certainly help those *original* languages to survive!

I've used a number of Afrikaans words - actually Khoi-San words 'adopted' by Afrikaans - *with* translations or definitions - in the previous posting. Let's see if they 'moderate' it ...

Nope ... it's still there!

From the Constitution of South Africa:

"Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages."

The 'State' is not doing this.

"The national government and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must regulate and monitor their use of official languages. Without detracting from the provisions of subsection (2), all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably."

They're pushing English above everything else. They've recently made this excuse: THEY were not the ones who made English into the high-status language that it is - English 'empowered' itself, all around the world; the other languages must therefore also 'empower' themselves without government help.

"A Pan South African Language Board established by national legislation must
(a) promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of -
(i) all official languages;
(ii) the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and
(iii) sign language; and
(b) promote and ensure respect for -
(i) all languages commonly used by communities in South Africa, including German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu; and
(ii) Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and other languages used for religious purposes in South Africa."

The Pan South African Language Board is not doing much, as far as I am aware. The status of Afrikaans is being consistently eroded, and *nothing* is done, as far as I can tell, to develop any of the official languages other than English. As for promoting other languages used by communities in South Africa ... I only know this one little example, but I studied German at the University of Limpopo a couple of years ago. In addition to teaching the locals German, the University also received German students and visitors every year. There was very little official support for the Department of German and, indeed, this year they announced they will be closing the German department. By the way they're also closing (or have already closed) the departments of Northern Sotho and Venda at the University - which is in the very heartland of the Northern Sotho (Pedi) and the Venda people!

It is likely that Christiane hit 'preview' instead of 'post message'.

She would totally lose her message if she then clicked onto 'My Space', which is probably why she thought she was being censored.

I've done it myself, many times


lil xx