| IDIOOM : Rooinek [boodskap #9052] |
Di, 08 April 1997 00:00 |
Izak Bouwer
Boodskappe: 465
Geregistreer: Januarie 1996
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Idioom: Hy is 'n Rooinek.
"Hy is 'n Rooinek. Snaaks, ek dink nie dat 'n
mens in Afrikaans 'n Engelse vrou 'n Rooinek
sal noem nie."
In North America the term "redneck" is used
disparagingly of an inexperienced person, " one
of the white rural laboring class in the southern
United Statesê (American Heritage Dictionary.)
In South Africa it has a very specific meaning.
The "red" and "neck" in the expression "Rooinek"
refer to the red necks that the British developed
when exposed to the South African sun. It became
a term of derision especially at the end of the nine-
teenth century when Britain very aggressively tried
to bring the whole of Southern Africa under her
domination, starting wars to bring the independent
Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics to their
knees ( The First and Second Wars of Independence)
using a quite large army to fight a traditional war
against a much smaller Boer force who engaged the
English in quite a successful guerilla war. They were
brought to their knees eventually, but only after women
and children were confined to concentration camps and
a scorched earth policy was followed to prevent them
from getting food from the farms.
England of course had already for about a hundred
years before that ruled the western part of the country.
England had captured the Cape Colony during the
Napoleonic Wars, since the Dutch "Batavian Republic"
was an ally of the French. It had to give the Cape back
to the Dutch briefly in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, but nearly immediately captured it again. It
followed a policy of anglicization in the Cape, bringing
in Scottish ministers of religion to preach to the colonists
in English. (Some of these ministers actually assimilated
with the Dutch speakers, so that you find McDonalds and
McGregors in SA that have Afrikaans as their mother
tongue.) It is however safe to say that the nearly two hundred
years of English cultural contact that the inhabitants of
Southern Africa have been subjected to has had a crucial
influence on the residents of South Africa. Even Afrikaners
will, when they go to Europe, feel frequently more at home
in England than in the Netherlands, where their efforts to
make themselves understood in Afrikaans will quite often
be met with a blank stare. Most Afrikaners will also quite
frequently interlace their Afrikaans with English words
and phrases, a habit that I notice is increasing not only
in the Afrikaans of the writers on this newsgroup, but also
in written Afrikaans. Would this be part of the picture in
the New South Africa?
Gloudina Bouwer
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