--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
wrote:
> At 7:52:33 AM on Saturday, February 21, 2009, Francesco
> Brighenti wrote:
>
> > Isn't Afrikaans considered a modern dialect of Dutch?
>
> By whom, and in what context? It's certainly descended from Dutch
> dialects -- southern dialects, if I remember correctly, but for
> obvious reasons it's generally accounted a distinct language.
> E.g., Afrikaans is one of the official languages of South Africa;
> Dutch isn't.
...though in South African universities, the study of Dutch language
and literature is a compulsory part of degree courses in Afrikaans.
Your inherent suggestion that Afrikaans is no longer considered a
dialect of Dutch may well be correct, particularly since it has been
committed to writing for a century now; yet I had heard somewhere
that many scholars still today define it as an extraterritorial
dialect of Dutch. By doing a search on the Google Books website, I
found the confirmation that this wasn't just a blunder of mine due
to bad memory. Please check my search results out by yourself:
http://tinyurl.com/dgl5s9
http://tinyurl.com/djbhma
Best wishes,
Francesco