Afrikaans Expressions Explained
I'm a through and through Engelsman, rooi nek soutpiel who always struggled with Afrikaans at school. If memory serves, I managed an E for it in matric. Despite the struggles though, I always found two things about the language fascinating: colloquial expressions, and the way short words were often combined to make one much longer word.
One of my first business cards when I worked at a city hotel had my job title in Afrikaans on the reverse: Voorkantoorbestuurder. And I've always wanted to go visit Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein just to say I did.
In terms of colloquial expressions though, Afrikaans often tends to go the other way with lots of word shortening going on. Got sent these pics recently which amused me no end. (I was going to type some of the better ones, but I'm so tired of fighting with autocorrect right now, pics will have to do.)
I mean how can anyone not appreciate the poetic nature of "magtig swarrie, ek het n moerse babelaas!" ?
