There are thousands of languages spoken in Africa. However, some of those languages are used in different countries. This is the case for languages such as Afrikaans and Fulani.
AFRIKAANS:
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It originates from 17th century Dutch dialects spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it began to develop independently. Hence, historically, it is a daughter language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" or 'kitchen Dutch'. Although Afrikaans adopted words from languages such as Malay, Portuguese, the Bantu languages, and the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin. Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form. Estimates of the total number of Afrikaans-speakers range between 15 and 23 million.
Afrikaans Dutch English German
ek was (present: is) ik was I was ich war
ek kon (present: kan) ik kon I could ich konnte
ek moes (present: moet) ik moest I must have ich musste
ek wou (present: wil) ik wilde/wou I wanted to ich wollte
ek sou (present: sal) ik zou I would ich sollte
FULANI
The Fula or Fulani language (Fula: Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular; French: Peul) is a language of West Africa. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. It is spoken as a first language by the FulÉ“e (Fula or Fulani people) and related groups (such as the Tukulor in the Senegal River Valley) from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan. It is also spoken as a second language by people in the region. While there are numerous varieties of Fula, it is typically regarded as a single language. However, it has been found that nine different translations are needed to make the Bible comprehensible for all Fula speakers, and it treats these varieties as separate languages.
Example
lootude, to wash (something)
lootaade, to wash (oneself)
looteede, to be washed
I try to learn Fula, it's a very rich language with a lot of words to describe the same thing, it's much more precised than french, but its also very difficult to pronouciate espelly for me as French people. Diarama for this post
ReplyDeleteOh I see that you understand a little bit of Fula. You are absolutely right. It is a very difficult language and even I, although I am Fulani there are certain words that I can't say.
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