General about Afrikaans
Afrikaans(南非荷兰语) is a Low Franconian variety, derived from Dutch, mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Due to emigration and migrant labour, there are possibly over 100,000 Afrikaans speakers in the United Kingdom[1], with other substantial communities found in Brussels, Amsterdam, Perth, Western Australia, Toronto and Auckland. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaners and the Coloureds or kleurlinge/bruinmense (including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua).
Geographically, the Afrikaans language is the majority language of the western one-third of South Africa (Northern and Western Cape, spoken at home by 69% and 58%, respectively). It is also the largest first language in the adjacent southern third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 43% and 41%, respectively). It is the most widely used second language throughout both of these countries for the population as a whole, although the younger generation has better proficiency in English.
Afrikaans originated from the Dutch language. The dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch" or "Kitchen Dutch", although these terms were mainly pejorative. Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until the late 19th century, when it began to be recognised as a distinct language, and it gained equal status with Dutch and English as an official language in South Africa in 1925. Dutch remained an official language until the new 1961 constitution finally stipulated the two official languages in South Africa to be Afrikaans and English (although, curiously, the 1961 constitution still had a sub-clause stipulating that the word "Afrikaans" was also meant to be referring to the Dutch language). It is the only Indo-European language of significance that developed on the African continent.
External links
The Ethnologue: AfrikaansWordgumbo: Afrikaans
Afrikaans sample at Language Museum
An introduction to Afrikaans
Learn Afrikaans Online
Portals and links lists
Litnet- Literature, culture and debateDie Knoop- A very large list of links to Afrikaans websites
Woes.co.za- A popular multi-user blog
The New South African - Afrikaans- More about South Africa's official languages.
Kuier.co.za- A popular multi-user blog
Organisations
Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK)- Federation of Afrikaans Cultural AssociationsAfrikaanse Taal- en Kultuurvereniging (ATKV)- Afrikaans Language and Cultural Association
Vriende van Afrikaans- Friends of Afrikaans
Afrikanerbond- Formerly a political organisation, now language activists
Pro-Afrikaanse Aksiegroep (PRAAG)- Action group for Afrikaans and Afrikaner interests
Spell checkers
Spel.co.za- Spell checker for Microsoft OfficeWSpel- Spell checker for Microsoft Word
Translate.org.za- Spell checker for OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird
Dictionaries
English to Afrikaans- from Wordgumbo.com (6397 words)
Afrikaans-English-Afrikaans Online Dictionary- sometimes using Esperanto as intermezzo (7975 Afrikaans words)
Afrikaans at Dict.info- Afrikaans into 57 languages (roughly 2300 words each) and Afrikaans-English (10 127 words)
All information above is from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans_language
