SANPAD Afrikaans Variation Project

This project will document Afrikaans dialects and varieties over a period of three years.  We will travel to diverse communities in the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape regions and record people speaking Afrikaans and to administer a questionnaire.  Anyone from any South African university can get involved.  See below for funds for fieldwork, transcription, translation etc.Contact Dr De Vos for details.

• Visit the project Moodle administration website (for guest access to non-project members, please contact Dr De Vos).
• A simple introduction to the importance of Afrikaans dialects (simple)
• The importance of studying dialect morpho-syntax in general (slightly more complex)

Researchers working on this project come from Rhodes University and Stellenbosch University.  The project will focus on building networks in Afrikaans communities, often in rural and marginalised areas, with special emphasis on non-standard varieties. These communities are most at risk from underdevelopment and are affected by urbanization and land-related issues amongst others. 

The project is conducted in collaboration with our research partners at the Meertens Insitutute, Stellenbosch University and Prof. Du Plessis from Northwest University. 

• The project aims to: contribute to the preservation of the linguistic cultural heritages of diverse communities, especially in rural areas,

• Develop a cross-thematic research space to encourage fruitful and significant cooperation between South African researchers

• Document the state of Afrikaans language varieties with respect to specific morpho-syntactic markers, thus establishing a baseline against which to measure subsequent linguistic change,

• Provide concrete data about language change with which to inform language policies.

• Develop a network of language informants within the various speech  communities which could plausibly be utilized in subsequent research and/or development initiatives.

Afrikaans Language Variation Online Database

The online database of morpho-syntactic variation in Afrikaans is currently being developed. Click on the picture to get an enlarged version.

Database Relationships

Below is an image of a sample search, showing the links to the sound file so that researchers can hear the actual response given by the interviewee. Click on the picture to get an enlarged version.

Sample Data Search

Below is an image of a sample data report printed by the database. Click on the picture to get an enlarged version.

Sample Data Report

• The database is continually being updated with more data.
• Currently, there are 5252 question-response pairs in the database and the data of 32 respondents from 10 datapoints in the Eastern, North Eastern and North Western Cape regions.
• Most respondents have hyperlinks to audio but responses from East Cape respondents do not have hyperlinks yet.
• The text transcription of each question will follow in due course, although a few have been done for isolated questions.