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My interest in the Afrikaans language started in about 1970 when I first returned from a three-year tour of duty with NATO in Maastricht, The Netherlands. My exposure to Nederlandse and Maestreech lead me to seek further exposure to the lowlands languages via Short Wave Listening (SWL).
I started listening to Radio Nederlands whenever I could, though most of the broadcasts (Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles) I could receive in at my home in Utah were in English. As I tuned the bands, I started hearing something fairly regularly which sounded a lot like Nederlandse but with a lot of words that were "mispronounced" and a lot of new words! That was Radio South Africa (RSA) broadcasting in Afrikaans.
I became an avid listener and sent for materials written in Afrikaans, since I am much more a visual learner. I gradually made my way through the Afrikaans text--sometimes pronouncing a word whose spelling I didn't recognize only to find an old friend in a Dutch word!
This interest in Afrikaans lead to an interest in the country, South Africa. It was not until the early 1990, however that I finally took the opportunity to learn more about the history of the country and the language. Finally I was able to take a couple of trips to South Africa and hear and see Afrikaans first hand.
By putting this page here, I am trying to help, in some small way, to keep Afrikaans alive. It is a spoken and literary language that deserves to remain a world language. I have put a number of worthwhile references to the language from the Net here so that each of you can at least see the language.
Article on Creole aspects of Afrikaans
Afrikaans Wikipedia: Afrikaans
Department of Afrikaans-Univ. of Stellenbosch
Online English to Afrikaans Dictionary
