Afrikaans language is 98-years-old!

[Nat Quinn]

The Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations’ (FAK) cultural networks in the Cape explored the Paarl area for the celebration of Afrikaans as a language’s 98th birthday, which took place on 8 May.

This area is the birthplace of Afrikaans as a language and where the Fellowship of True Afrikaners (Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners, GRA) was established. The cultural network and high school students of the Voortrekkers went on a Language Pioneer tour to pay tribute to the pioneers who took Afrikaans as a language seriously.

There are many historical landmarks to be found in the Paarl area. So a visit was made at Paarl Gymnasium Primary School. On the initiative of Rev. GWA van der Lingen erected this school in 1858 as a church school with Dutch as the language of instruction. Arnoldus Pannevis, first zealot for Afrikaans, was a teacher here. A square on the school grounds is today called Pannevis Square. Rev. SJ du Toit’s parsonage was also in this school and his son, JD du Toit, better known as the poet Totius, was born here.

Grade 8 Voortrekkers in front of the Taalmonument

In the same highway is also the Patriot Building that once housed the printing house where numerous Afrikaans publications were printed. At the Straw Roof Church are the final resting places of rev. Van der Lingen, Arnoldus Pannevis and Gideon Malherbe, the latter one of the founders of the Fellowship of True Afrikaners.

These avid Afrikaans lovers reported to the home of Gideon Malherbe, today known as the language museum, at the table where eight men met on 14 August 1875 to make plans to promote a young, new language, Afrikaans, so that the Bible could be translated into this language.

After this we moved to the outskirts of Paarl and Wellington, to the farms where some of the GRA members, SJ du Toit, DF du Toit, Petrus Malherbe and CP Hoogenhout lived and worked and were laid to rest. The Huguenot Memorial School, the first school to be established for Afrikaans schooling, on the farm Kleinbosch with learners such as the poets AG Visser, DF Malherbe and Totius, also has its own rich story.

The Afrikaans Language Monument on Paarl Mountain is visible from afar, as the architect, Jan van Wijk, wanted it. The group sings the “Oukraalliedjie” inside the water pool and the words echo up in pure, beautiful Afrikaans.

“As you walk down the stairs in front of the monument, the words are written, ‘This is our seriousness'” says Juanine Kok, cultural organiser in the Cape Province. “We stood there and reaffirmed to each other how beautiful the language we speak is, a young language, but a language rich in vocabulary and a fully-fledged academic language that is not even a century old yet.”

 

source:Afrikaans language is 98-years-old! (afrinuus.com)

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