3.1 Kaaps

3.1 Kaaps

© 29.9.2022 by Peter Snyders G

You are supposed to do your own verifications of what is presented because we are committed to nothing but the truth. So, please consider the rule in your own way of writing and speaking Kaaps. 

We have been given more than 3,000 Kaaps words, so we will be using them to substantiate our understanding of how and why Kaaps is the way it is. You should look at all the renditions of Kaaps by your fellow writers. With regards to assimilations, when you read Chapter Three of Kora, you will at times come across words used by Prof. Menán du Plessis, like: cross-dialectal alternations, varieties, instead of, substitution, alternated, and self-correction. When we deal with these, you would not even know it.

When I started, I looked at a few pages, took a few pages of Kaaps by Kaaps writers, and translated the Dutch even though I had not actually studied Dutch except with Afrikaans I at UNISA. It was here that I learnt about diacritical sounds. These are the only ways a verb or consonant is expressed. I also gave an English translation of the Kaaps word. All this was a mountain of work, but I had to do it to give proof.

We have enough Kaaps, so we will not need any more unless the writer or speaker would like his words to be in a Kaapse Wordlist. If so, then he or she must send us a table containing his Kaaps words and a column of brief English translations. I will add the Dutch. Look at our lists of words showing why we speak and write the way we do.

The best thing to do is to create a custom.dic which you call Kaaps. You then put your writing through it and add to the dictionary every word that does not agree with Afrikaans. When you are done, copy the whole file and paste it into a file with a name of your own. If you do not do this, we will not have the time to do it for you.

All my own works I have had to put aside to send you two posts a week. So, I cannot answer your letters. I suggest you either wait for me to handle your problem or start a forum where you discuss issues with other blog members.

So now, we have just, by way of trying to recreate how the Khoikhoi creates a novel (new) word with foreign Dutch sounds, given an example of why Kaaps say ek for ik and Djan for Jan. We have given you a few examples from a long list of Kaaps words to show that it was not created by an academic person, but they are part of many people’s home language, that is, Kaaps. 

We would also have started a blog line that covers many aspects of contact with the Kora in European languages. Consult those issues if you would like to have a day-by-day European contact before Van Riebeeck came to the Cape. 

At last, understanding that Van Riebeeck had just said his name, the Khoikhoi gives in a similar fashion his own name, let’s say Dzoroǃnoagu. This means ‘I am Dzoro.’ Notice, like the Nguni languages in South Africa, I am Dzoro is one word. You are going to come across numerous examples in Kaaps where two or more words assimilate (blend) into one word.

Van Riebeeck realizes that even if he wanted to learn Kora, that would never happen, what with the dj and click and all. So, he replies (for instance) Joro [jɔrɔ] – to which Dzoro [ʤɔrɔ] can relate, albeit with a slight exchange of the first letter. If you read the early Cape history, you will see that most of the Khoikhoi who had an association with the Dutch (and the English) were given Western names. An example is Harry for Aushumao.

Quibblers will argue that Van Riebeeck had been to the Far East and would have therefore gone directly to the point-and-name system. Since 1652, to date, there has been no attempt at understanding the fundamental processes of Kaaps. Much of that which has been said was imbued with race- and class-related ideologies. We need centuries (374 years to be exact) to catch up, so we have to use the adiabatic system of science, where anything that is not relevant is excluded. 

Also, we have taken a worst-case scenario because we would like to return to our postulation (derivation from circumstances), like the greetings we originally attempted to use. We must concentrate only on the linguistics and leave out unnecessary history and references, which could often be dubious.

For us to proceed in a systematic way, we would like to be allowed to go back to just a few basic linguistics that we shall need going forward. We will attempt, as Prof. Menán du Plessis tried to do in her book, Kora, to keep in mind our target groups and to try to remember our non-specialist readership.

The older linguistics concentrated on the differences in languages. This probably led to the propagation of ideas about so-called “proper,” “cultured,” “pure,” “superior,” and “civilised” languages, among others.

The new (current) linguistics decided to change the approach to what languages have in common. To standardise the phonetics (the study and systematic classification of the sounds made in spoken utterance), they had only one criterion: only civilised languages – spoken or written – would qualify. 

They defined a civilised language as a language that is rule-governed. They discovered that all languages with or without a writing system are rule-governed and therefore civilised! We will linguistically show how Kaaps obey all the rules. We will prove that you cannot take Dutch, Kora, or Afrikaans as a standard for a completely new language like Kaaps.

To keep everything simple, allow us to only use the distinctive (diacritical) phonetic signs [a,] [ε] (alt + 238), [i], [ɔ] (alt + 596), and [u]. ε is the same as ê and is written as e in Kora. ɔ is like ô and is written o in Kora. The i is pronounced as ie and the u is pronounced oe. They are written as i and u in Kora.

These are the first or original sounds used by the first humans to develop a language for themselves. The first three are used by a baby when she cries, and the final two are added when the child begins to speak. 

For a diacritical sign, we use the square brackets [ ]. (Some linguists use / /). A diacritical sign says that the sign can only be expressed in one way, not always the way it is spelled. 

If you have not already downloaded, free of charge, Kora, please use the URL given below.

https://sahistory.org.za/archive/kora-lost-khoisan-language-early-cape-and-gariep-menan-du-plessis