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3.1 God Makes Heaven and Earth&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;American Standard VersionBy Peter SnydersIntroduction: Please always bear in mind that we do not teach anyone because no one can be taught. The ability to know is in everyone, but to know, especially true knowledge (truth), we must do as Jesus says: we must ask, knock, and search. &nbsp; (Luke 11:9. “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”)&nbsp;Not even the Bible can teach anyone anything unless that person is ready to use his/her understanding. What spiritual Masters and Initiates do is merely point. Like the Buddha says: “Buddha can but point the Way, humankind must work out their own salvation.” So, there is no such thing as ‘just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.’ The Law of Karma says, “There are no free lunches. You must ask, seek, and knock for what you want.”In Thessalonians 5:21, it says that we must “prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.” The Buddha says nearly the same thing, except that He says that we must test all things. The two masters are complementary because after we’ve tested something, we have proved it to be either right or wrong. The Buddha says that we must believe nothing until we have tested it and found it to be good. He says that we should not even believe Him without testing what He says.We do not have a religion. This gives us the freedom to search for Truth wherever we can find it, irrespective of which Master or religious background it comes from. So, not having a religion of our own and neither belonging to anything (including cults), we cannot convert you to our way of thinking (religion).&nbsp;We are not going to teach you anything because, as we said earlier, we cannot. We will point like a signboard on the road. It says: This way to Cape Town; that way to the Airport; you are now on the M10; if you turn right here, you will be in Turfhall Road.’ The sign (pointer) cannot take you to any of those destinations. You must travel the way and the distance yourself.&nbsp;Or as Jesus says in Matthew 7:24:- Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock (foundation): 25. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock (foundation).&nbsp;26. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand:27. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.”This saying of Jesus is also the crux of everything that we do. We will begin with nothing unless we have a solid foundation. Grades R to III in Primary schools are called the foundation phase. In this phase, pupils learn the alphabet and construct words such as this, say, is, the, of, that, we, do, and so on. They also learn about numbers, units (0 to 9), tens (10, 20, 30, etc.), and hundreds (100, 200, 300, etc.). It doesn’t matter how high up they are – even as professors, they continue to use the words and numbers they learnt in the foundation phase.The foundation phase is in the Primary school. Primary, just like a foundation, means the first in the order of development: it is the first stage of civilization. And as we have said, it is the first of rank, of importance, or value. It is derived from the word prime. Look up this word and add it to the importance of the foundation phase.When we were in high school, the teachers would tell us at the end of the lessons which pages in our textbooks we had to read to get a notion of the next lesson. We have always done this so we could understand, say about 50% of the text.&nbsp;When our teacher gave us the lesson, this background knowledge made it possible for us to understand up to 90% of the text. Then, to fill in the other 10%, we would ask questions about the parts of the lessons we did not yet understand. This took us to 100%. The Supreme Master Ching Hai says that “knowledge without understanding is not knowledge.” It is rote learning. You can get an A in the examinations by just repeating parrot-wise what is in the book or the Bible. When it comes to religion, this type of acceptance of everything we are taught is called blind belief or blind faith. This is why people suffer so much because they do not know what the good is that they should hold onto.So, we will just be pointing. We will put the information there in front of you, and you must decipher it yourself. The Supreme Master Ching Hai says that once you have come to a full understanding of something, then the knowledge becomes yours. So, after we fully understand the whole lesson, the content then belongs to us. It doesn’t matter who wrote the book or who the teacher is.&nbsp;Afterthought. Everything written by us before and after this text was written spontaneously. &nbsp;AI had no input on the content. We do use the free Grammarly whose punctuation correction we have already learnt. It also points out when the number does not agree with the verb. We know this, but it gives us the opportunity to write spontaneously and correct departures afterwards.

3.1 God Makes Heaven and Earth

3 Brief History of KaapsA brief look at the history of Kaaps and the origins of Afrikaans. &nbsp;By Peter Snyders. G&nbsp;Most people who know anything about South Africa (and even those who do not) are familiar with Afrikaans, one of South Africa’s (SA) 11 official languages and a tongue generally accepted as a localised form of Dutch that was born in SA after the Hollanders settled in the Cape.What most people don’t know, though, is the largely untold story of Kaaps, or Cape Dutch as it is also known, and the controversy that exists surrounding this language’s right to be respected and its role in the evolution of Afrikaans.Historically speaking, Kaaps preceded the form of Afrikaans that is officially accepted today, but as it was mostly used by the slaves and workers of the past, it was undermined by a certain class of people.This vernacular is still widely spoken throughout the Western Cape, and efforts are being made to rekindle and restore speakers of the language their rightful dignity.What is Kaaps?This native language was born in the 17th century out of a need to communicate in the Dutch-dominated colony with Cape Town as the capital. During those early days, the region was filled with a mixture of cultures from all over the world, from the indigenous Khoisan and Malays to West African and Madagascan people. Many of these groups were enslaved by the Dutch East India Company and other affluent Netherlanders, and, as a form of revolt, they refused to assimilate and speak the language of the colonists and rather created a new creole to not only communicate with each other but also keep their conversations private.And so, Kaaps was born.As it was partly influenced by a large and devout Cape Muslim population, the first recording of this fledgling language was written in phonetic Arabic and dates to the early to mid-1800s.Regarded as lesser than pure Dutch and often termed kombuis taal (kitchen language), this ‘slave tongue’ carried very little status in the social hierarchy. What is interesting to note is that kombuis means ‘kitchen’ in modern-day Afrikaans, but in Dutch it refers to a galley, which also indicates its use on the ships.Because most of the population of the Cape Colony at that time was made up of slaves, the Pidgin-Kaaps language became widespread. As a result, this vernacular gradually became the first language of the newer generations, eventually outpacing Dutch as a primary language in the area.Kaaps vs. AfrikaansIn 1875, once the descendants of the first Europeans to colonise the Cape had started referring to themselves as Afrikaners (people from Africa), the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (GRA), or The Society of True Afrikaners, in English, made one of the first attempts at standardising the Beskaafde (civilised) Afrikaans language. It was only in the 1991 Afrikaans Word List and Spelling Rules that ‘civilised’ was replaced by ‘standard’ Afrikaans.The society was established in Paarl by a collection of middle-class farmers, small entrepreneurs, artisans, and budding professionals to promote the Cape Dutch vernacular as the lingua franca of the nation in a move that was likely a response to British imperialism. Distancing itself from the language’s origins in the slave quarters, the GRA and its founders made a point of marketing their new standardised dialect (Afrikaans) as the pure language of the Afrikaners, thus branding the Kaaps that it was based on as slang and once again characterising it as a second-class tongue.Even though the standardising process cut out many of the colourful phrases, Afrikaans today is still littered with words, like eina, gogga, kwagga, aitsa, from the Nama languages spoken by the Khoisan and words, like piesang (the original spelling is pisang), from the Malay.This standardised version of the language became an elitist tool of discrimination, even though slavery was abolished, and when the National Party came into power in 1948, it quickly became the language of the oppressor. To this day in South Africa, this stigma is still maintained, although it has been three decades since the nation’s liberation from the Apartheid regime.Meanwhile, despite the standardisation into Afrikaans and the compulsory language of instruction laws created by the Apartheid government in 1925, the community that used the original form of the Kaaps language, still held onto its ancestral background and continued to speak Kaaps, with most not even realising the heritage of the language.Modern-day KaapsAccording to the 2011 South African census results, approximately 49.7% of Western Cape dwellers speak Afrikaans, and most of these speakers are from Coloured communities. While this statistic refers to the Afrikaans in its standard form, Kaaps is what is widely spoken in these communities.Despite its pervasiveness, though, the perception of Kaaps in modern society remains negative: it is considered an uncouth and vulgar version of Afrikaans, and it is often noted that speakers are unfairly judged based on this historic language.This attitude does not exist unchallenged, though. To relay the history of Kaaps and differentiate it from standard Afrikaans, a group of hip-hop dancers, rappers, spoken word artists, and musos came together in 2010 to produce the hip-hop era Afrikaaps. Through jazz, hip-hop, traditional goema, and reggae music, the troupe takes the audience on a journey from the early days of Autshumao (Harry the Beachcomber) to present-day Cape Town to reveal the heritage, culture, and beauty of Kaaps.Not to mention, while very little literature about the history of Kaaps is available in the public domain, social activists are trying to spread the word, not only to give Kaaps its rightful place as an official language in South Africa, but also to restore the dignity of Capetonians and, by extension, South Africans who have been made to believe that their mother tongue is a broken one.We would like to thank Emile YX? for his invaluable contribution to this piece. by Meagan Hamman: Connect with me on Google+!Read more about Cape Town colloquialisms.Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog , and if you have a smartphone, add m.capetownmagazine.com to your home screen for quick access on the go!Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, join our Google+ circle, connect with us on LinkedIn, check out our photos on Instagram, and follow our Pinterest boards for updates on what’s happening in and around the Mother City!

3 Brief History of Kaaps

<h3>6 Kaaps</h3>By Peter Snyders 6.9.2020&nbsp;In our 4 Kaaps, we dealt with the tilde (~) in a nasalised vowel in Kora. While Kaaps has lost most of this nasalising feature, this has not happened with the lengthening of a vowel, even though a pidgin speaker likes to keep matters short and typical, to avoid being confused. The phoneme vowel [a] (or a in Kora) is short as in the examples given before. When the vowel is retained a little longer, as in maar, haat, saam, naand, darem, angel, and saans, the drawn-out vowel is written with a macron [ā] or ā (alt + 0257) in Du Plessis’s Kora dictionary.&nbsp;Some linguists use a: but this may cause punctuation confusion. So, when we write the above words diacritically (to distinguish a universal sound), they would appear thus: [mār], [hāt], [sām], [nānd], [dārem], [āngel], and [sāns] in Kora. In Pidgin-Kaaps, a separate language from Dutch and Kora, we opted for a double when necessary. We would write maar, saam, and saans. The Pidgin-Kaaps would try to avoid anything like macrons, tildes, and the circumflex, ^, (kappie). Please allow us to ignore the influence of nasalisation (caused by [n] and [m]), to which we will return shortly.&nbsp;The rule of keeping everything short and simple, as we will prove, can sometimes override the elongated sound and return it to the shorter version. Remember, as long as there is a rule, your language remains civilised! When writing in Kaaps, we will not be using the macron. There are enough rules to guide us in our use of ê.Let us add some rules of Kora regarding the vowels with extended length, which have been copied directly from Kora Chapter Three, pp. 64 to 65 in our hard copy:In addition to a contrast between oral and nasal production, some of the vowels in Kora (as in most Khoisan languages) may be lengthened. (In Namibian Khoekhoe, long vowels are indicated by means of the macron, as ‘ā’.) Several of the older authors indicate the long vowels of Kora by means of a colon (as for example, ‘a:’), but since this can lead to confusion with ordinary punctuation marks, we have chosen to follow the Namibian convention and use the macron instead.&nbsp;Nasalised vowels are always long, and because of this predictability, it would be redundant to indicate the feature in the spelling. (Comment: So, this is why [dārem] and [āngel] would be written as [darem] and [angel] if they had to appear in Kora. Some Kaaps writers correctly write gaan as gan. Same rule.)In our reproductions of the heritage texts and in the Dictionary, we have usually preserved any indications of vowel length that may have been given in the original sources. The reality, though, is that such indications were often only sporadically made, and were not always consistent. In the case of transcriptions made by Lucy Lloyd and Carl Wuras, it seems that their occasional use of a doubled consonant (as in the word ‘torro’ recorded by Wuras for thoro ‘scatter, sow, strew’) was intended to reflect a shortened preceding vowel. (Comment: This is useful to remember when words like nie, die, dit are assimilated [absorbed or incorporated into the preceding word]).As a basic rule of thumb, the vowel in a word (other than a grammatical morpheme) that consists of just a consonant followed by a vowel (such as bī &nbsp;‘suckle’) is typically long, while the first vowel in a word that either has a medial consonant (such as koba ‘speak’), or ends in a nasal (such as xon ‘grind’), is most often short. There are many exceptions to this basic principle, though, where these frequently seem to occur in cases where a word is reduplicated or compounded, or where it was perhaps originally so, but has subsequently undergone contraction. (Comment: We have retained Du Plessis’s accents.)We have highlighted and changed the font colour below to help you focus on the important parts.<figure id="figure-i2rig6nuxhmrwdukvk" data-full-width=""><img id="i2rig6nuxhmrwdukvk" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/17uzD6yBWOn9HGTqRRVnGAN5UcgRPtUukTHzamBzqOZ6N9RWIiGgobChXQcHt79z.png" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: 0% 0%;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="0%" data-positiony="0%" data-fullwidth="true" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/17uzD6yBWOn9HGTqRRVnGAN5UcgRPtUukTHzamBzqOZ6N9RWIiGgobChXQcHt79z.png" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: 0% 0%;"></figure>We are not going to comment much on the rules in the above examples because we are progressively going to leave this task to you. If you look at Griekwa-Kaaps and you compare it to the other varieties of Kaaps, you will find many similarities. You will also find some differences. This is because they took the Cape’s Kaaps with them, but, being separated from the source, they adopt their own means for expressing their version of Kaaps.&nbsp;If they came into daily contact with Afrikaans, they may have some Afrikaans in their current language. This does not always seem to be the case because Apartheid did us all a favour and left us to preserve much of our original Kora-influenced Kaaps because separation causes a degree of language change.&nbsp;Coloured people having to live in the onderdorp in the country were also allowed to retain some of the Cape Kaaps (not Afrikaans, because it did not exist yet) with them. Note how the unpopularity of p in Kora is still demonstrated by its omission in skawagter but the medial (middle) vowel of the first syllable remains long according to the rule: the middle (medial) vowel of the first syllable in a word is always long.Apartheid also allowed us to retain many of the older rules. Unfortunately, the third (English-influenced) and fourth (Afrikaans-influenced) phases of Kaaps have forced themselves onto Cape Flats Kaaps. The fifth phase (Modern Kaaps – where the spirit of Kaaps is back in control) is recouping some of its losses. Fortunately, as we can see above, Griekwa has retained much of the old Kora authority. We will confirm this even more when we show examples from Rehoboth-Kaaps and Namakwalands-Kaaps.You should probably find all Menán du Plessis’s Kora rules above, as well as those we discussed earlier in these examples. We are again just pointing to some clues by making some letters bold. Please look for more and different examples in your own writing as well as the writings of other writers. This is a very time-consuming project, so we try to limit the examples to the contributor who displays the best paradigm (list of illustrative examples).We will soon look at e, a shorter form of ê with the sign [ε] (alt + 238).&nbsp;

6 Kaaps

<h3>4.2 Kaaps</h3>(© 4th September 2020 by Peter Snyders) In Kora, we find [a] ≈ a appearing in such words as:<figure id="figure-2h0cqqjd2mrweumss"data-full-width><img id="2h0cqqjd2mrweumss" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/8TfyfjmHM4OGUAdStlPCcgGWLyPUMK65JjqRA0sN5BLzxeV30meqb5TZHkCfgSS2.png" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 3/2; object-position: 100% 0%;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="3:2" data-caption="" data-positionX="100%" data-positionY="0%" data-fullWidth="true"/></figure>Since all the phonemes in Kora are in bold, i.e., [a] = a, we have taken the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. While showing where a appears in Kora, we have included the other phonemes. So now you know the other diacritical signs used in Kora; they all sound the same in all languages. Note that there are two pronunciations for the letter g so we have two signs, g and x ([g] and [x]).&nbsp;The j sound in Jan, which Kora changed to Dj or dz, has the universal phonetic sign [ʤ] (alt + 0676), but for convenience it is written in Kora as dz. The [n] in Kora seldom appears at the end of a word. If a letter before n is nasalised (spoken partly through the nose), it gets a tilde (~) on top, like ã in [ʤãn] (or dzãn in Kora). If ã is followed by a nasal sound/letter like n, m, ng, these sounds are absorbed into the preceding vowel and are therefore omitted. Which means that the Kaaps pronunciation of Jan was no doubt without the n part of the a, i.e., [ʤã].&nbsp;Always remember that we are only concerned (as far as we can infer) with the origin of Kaaps as a pidgin from 1652 and later until the slaves arrived in large numbers. So, over time, as Kaaps started denasalising sounds (sometimes completely), the [n] phoneme returned so that today we say [ʤan] and write Djan. To prove this rule of changing j to dj in Kaaps and Kora, we draw up a list of similar appearances (called a paradigm) and so prove the rule. We will be using this linguistic method on a variety of cases.Also note (please refer to the Kora-English dictionary) that the letters C, F, J/Y, L, P, Q, V, W, and the schwa (the e [ə] sound as in English the) sounds either do not appear or are very rare. We will go into these later.Kaaps did not come from Afrikaans, so Afrikaans is not a reference. We have given Afrikaans a column for any of you who may have problems with Dutch.&nbsp;More importantly, though, it also allows us to demonstrate how Kaaps has its own words, spirit, and rules which it uses to make foreign words conform to its own inventory (collection of sounds). Our tables also show that Afrikaans is much closer to Dutch than to Kaaps. The English column gives readers who are not very well conversant with the other three languages a good opportunity to see how Kaaps relates to the other two languages. Also, it illustrates why English is the best choice for a metalanguage. It has nearly nothing in common with the three other languages.In our next letter, we will deal with the longer letter ā as in maar, raam, naat, taamlik, and laat, and how Kaaps modifies the sound with its own rules. We will also show the reason some rules are in a pidgin language. Then we will go into the other vowels, and if the letter is not too long, see what Kaaps does with vowels that are not in its inventory.

4.2 Kaaps

<h3>Biased Textbooks: The System That Manufactured Lies</h3>Bias #5 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias, p.3What the Textbooks Taught The potential for prejudice to be fostered in pupils is very real due to biased interpretations of South African history being found in both English and Afrikaans textbooks. And this bias is amplified by the way these textbooks are handled by the teachers.The Evidence from the Original Document The original document notes that biased interpretations of South African history appear in both English and Afrikaans textbooks. This means the bias was not limited to one language group or one political faction - it was systemic across the entire education system.The document also highlights that teachers play a critical role in how these textbooks are used. Even a biased textbook can be challenged by a critical teacher. But when teachers themselves accept the textbook narrative without question, the bias is reinforced and passed on to the next generation.The Bias Exposed This is structural bias. The problem is not one bad textbook or one bad teacher. The problem is a system that produces biased textbooks, approves them for use in schools, trains teachers to teach from them without question, and examines students on their ability to reproduce the biased narrative.Textbooks were written by white historians, approved by white education officials, published by white-owned companies, and taught by teachers trained in the same system. The Khoi had no representation at any stage. Their oral histories were dismissed as unreliable. Their languages were excluded from the curriculum. And their descendants were not consulted about how their history should be taught.Even well-meaning teachers were trapped in this system. They had limited time, limited resources, and examination pressure. A teacher who challenged the textbook risked their students failing exams. The system was designed to produce a specific historical consciousness, and it worked.Why It Matters This structural bias means the problem cannot be solved by simply writing one new textbook. It requires transforming the entire architecture of historical knowledge production - new authors, new publishers, new curricula, new examinations, and new relationships between schools and indigenous communities. The machine that manufactured lies must be dismantled and rebuilt.<figure id="figure-q0tkxwo41nmrtha1f7"><img id="q0tkxwo41nmrtha1f7" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/d8cqZQR0aM9GVCNdcILp0duk13yeQv6RCme8CkXCBmlWvrQBavwd5qBDaezxBfdx.png" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="Jacqueline Aird: Investigation of the Nature of Bias p.2 " data-positionX="undefined" data-positionY="undefined" data-fullWidth="false"/><figcaption class="body-normal text-gray-500 mt-2">Jacqueline Aird: Investigation of the Nature of Bias p.2 </figcaption></figure>About This PostThis is the fifth and final post in a series on biases against the Khoi in South African history textbooks, based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias.

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3 Email Tabs

3.1 God Makes Heaven and Earth

3 Brief History of Kaaps

6 Kaaps

4.2 Kaaps

Bias #5 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the...