Everything about Arabic Afrikaans totally explained
Arabic Afrikaans was a form of
Afrikaans that was written in
Arabic script.
One of the best examples of this literature was
Uiteensetting van die Godsdiens ("Exposition of the Religion"), a book laying out
Islamic traditions according to the
Hanafi religious law. Written by
Abu Bakr Effendi, it was printed using Arabic script throughout, but contained transcriptions of Afrikaans.
Abu Bakr Effendi was sent in
1862 by the
Ottoman sultan Abdülâziz to the
Cape of Good Hope to teach the
Muslim community of the
Cape Malays. From 1862 to 1869 he studied the local language use and compiled the book, which was finally printed and published in 1877 by the state press in
Istanbul. For this reason, it gives an invaluable insight into the use of Afrikaans in the so-called "Slams" (slang for Islamic) neighbourhoods of Cape Town in that period. It is also significant, since this community didn't have
Dutch as
mother tongue and were therefore mostly unaffected by its
orthography. The book, totalling 354 pages, was divided into 8 parts, each dealing with a specific part of Islamic law:
- ritual cleansing (pp. 2–66)
- ritual prayer (pp. 66–219)
- religious tax (pp. 219–258)
- fasting (pp. 258–284)
- slaughtering of livestock (pp. 284–302)
- religious prohibitions (pp. 302–344)
- drink (pp. 344–349)
- hunting (pp. 349–354)
Adriaanus van Selms, a
Dutch scholar and
Semitic researcher, published a translation of Abu Bakr Effendi's work in 1979. Since the original work presented spoken Afrikaans without using vowels, van Selms's biggest task was to decipher which Afrikaans words were being referred to.
The
apartheid regime never publicly acknowledged these and similar facts, since Afrikaans was purported to be of
Afrikaner and
Christian origin, and therefore a unique treasure of the Afrikaners. Today efforts are being made to assess Afrikaans and its origin much more honestly, and to accept it as a truly multicultural and (at least partly)
creole language.
An example that used Arabic vowels was a handwritten Arabic - Afrikaans bilingual
Koran (perhaps written in the 1880's). In it, for example,
Surah 67 verse 1 says :
Arabic: tabāraka 'llaðī biyadihi 'lmulku = "Blessed be he in whose hand [is] the kingdom."
Afrikaans: °n dī kūnuň skap is bīdī hūka Allah ta`ālā °n vārlik Allah ta`ālā is bās fir aldī its
- = "En die konungskap is by die hoege Allah ta`ālā en waarlik Allah ta`ālā is baas vir al die iets."
- meaning: "And the kingship is with the high Allah (may he be exalted) and truly Allah (may he be exalted) is master for all things."
- (° = vowel sign missing, ň = "ng" as in "king", ` = ayin, underlined = in Arabic.)
Here in the Afrikaans text:
[ň] is written as ayin but with three dots above ڠ.
[v] is written as [f] but with three dots above ڤ.
[f] in "fir" has both an [a] vowel and an [i] vowel.
As in Koran Arabic the letter of prolongation in [ī] and [ū] has sukūn.
The Afrikaans preposition by is written as part of the next word, likely by copying Arabic language usage with some prepositions.
The Afrikaans word al = "" is written as part of the next word, likely by copying Arabic language usage with al- = "the". Further Information
Get more info on 'Arabic Afrikaans'.
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