![]() ![]() Similarly, the resemblance of Afrikaans verbs like lees ("to read", Dutch lezen) to the first person singular and verbs like gaan ("to go") to infinitive forms in Dutch means that julle lees ("you read") or ek gaan ("I go") would be understood by Dutch speakers more readily than jullie lezen or ik ga would be by Afrikaans speakers. The simplification of verbs in Afrikaans, with almost all verbs being regular and the near absence of the simple past tense, means that while the phrase ek het gehelp ("I have helped" or "I helped") would be recognisable by Dutch speakers, the Dutch phrases ik heb geholpen and ik hielp would not be as readily understood by speakers of Afrikaans. wees genadig, meaning "be merciful" or "have mercy"). Conversely, wees, meaning "to be" in Afrikaans, is used as the imperative in Dutch, although it is used as the imperative in religious contexts in Afrikaans (e.g. In Afrikaans, het is the inflection of the verb hê ("to have" from Dutch hebben) although sy (cognate with zijn) is used as the subjunctive of "to be", while we in Dutch is cognate with "we" in English, a language widely understood by Afrikaans speakers. Intelligibility of Afrikaans to Dutch speakers Cognate words Īlthough Afrikaans borrows some lexical and syntactical structures from other languages, including Malay, Portuguese, Khoisan languages, Bantu languages, and to a lesser extent Low German, Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non- cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the other way around. Mutual intelligibility tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. Research suggests that mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. An estimated 90 to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin, so there are few lexical differences between the two languages, however Afrikaans has considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling. Light green (right): primary Afrikaans speaking regions – South Africa, NamibiaĪfrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia it is a separate standard language rather than a national variety, unlike Netherlands Dutch, Belgian Dutch and Surinamese Dutch. ![]() Dark green (left): largest Dutch speaking regions – Dutch Caribbean, Suriname, Netherlands, Belgium. ![]()
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