In a chapter from SOUTH AFRICAN DISPATCHES is the title of this post. I was interested specifically because it was very important that I do learn more of the language before making prejudiced statements. Here's what I found out... There is a monument-AFRIKAANS LANGUAGE MONUMENT NEAR PAARL erected specifically to salute the language and a festival celebrated in its honor. Woods writes: "Once sneered at by superior English-speaking South Africans as a kitchen dialect derived from low Dutch." Futher says: The basic origins of Afrikaans can be traced to India, as can those of most European languages. Of all Indo-European language groups, the direct ancestor of Afrikaans is the indo-Germaic group later fragmented into German, Dutch, and Flemish. From North Germanic came the Scandinavian languages; from East Germanic the Gothic languages, which died out in the seventeenth century; and from West Germanic came Franconian and Anglo-Frisian. From Franconian came Dutch and Flemish, and from Anglo-Frisian came English. From Dutch and Flemish came AFRIKAANS, the adaptation over two hundred years of the original Dutch spoken in 1652 by the settlers who came from southern Holland and what is today northern Belgium. As the Dutch settlers lost touch over several generations with the culture of Holland and were joined by settlers from Germany and France, on the African veld they evolved their own language, which developed a practical vigor of its own. So as a language its qualities are undoubted. But it has an image problem among most South Africans. Millions of Blacks regard it as the language of oppression, the language of aparthied, and this is conveyed int he perjorative term "isi-Bhulu" (the boer language). Too many Afrikaans give the impression that although they are of Africa they won't face up to the fact and are obsessed with creating a small EUROPEAN (white) enclave. People obsessed with whiteness of skin don't really belong in Africa. They should emigrate to northern Europe, where skin tends to be very white indeed. Their departure would leave the field to those REALLYcommitted to South Africa as an AFRICAN country, and to Afrikaans as an African language ACCEPTED by all here... And if those obsessed with whiteness can't bear the thought of nothern Europe, they should head south to ANTARCTICA. Down there practically EVERYTHING is white...Donald Woods ThotmesIII Thotm...@aol.com