From what is known, Afrikaans is said to be a sister dialect to 17th century Dutch. The people who formed the original Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic which became Transvaal) were still Dutch speakers & only became Afrikaans speakers later. I don't know when Cape Dutch became Afrikaans but there seems to be an indigenous influence. I'm guessing the Cochokhoe, who lived in Cape Town pidginized the Dutch language they were speaking & gave us Afrikaans.
Afrikaans is still seen as a language of the oppressor & is mostly spoken in the western half of South Africa. But what does this language mean to us today? Should it still be taught in schools seeing as to how developed it is? Or should it be forgotten as the language of a government that followed Nazi ideologies?
It's only spoken in two countries, Namibia & South Africa. Many Afrikaans speakers speak English so there's little need in learning the language today. Maybe Afrikaans (& Orania) is just a stubborn attempt at holding on to a dying identity or does Afrikaans have a real purpose in South Africa today? English is a Germanic language & so is Afrikaans - if you know either English or Afrikaans, it's easier to learn other Germanic languages. But to take Afrikaans seriously as a national language for me is nostalgic to describe it mildly. I think learning pure Dutch would be more beneficial to any individual that's faced with an Afrikaans vs. Dutch choice.
I feel Afrikaans is a doomed language. I think there's a reason why the she-devil in the Lucifer series speaks Afrikaans. But maybe it's just because it sounds coarse & threatening to English speakers but languages that sound coarse & threatening are less likely to be willingly learnt anyway except for individuals that have to take a second language for matric but feel they already know their home language i. e. myself.
There's a whole monument dedicated to the Afrikaans language & Afrikaans is still loved by the Boer volk but I don't see it's future in a multicultural South Africa.
