Fanagalo

Fanakalo (also Fanagalo ) is a lingua franca, a kind of pidgin English, which is from the late 19th century in the gold, diamond and copper mines of South Africa - partly also in the mines of Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Congo - has developed as a lingua franca between the whites and their workers, but also the workers themselves. However, some use it also use the whites of South Africa - the Afrikaans -speaking Boers and the English-speaking groups with one another - not just to get by, but to stand out on their South African background. Since workers were virtually ceased from all over the southern and central Africa in the South African mines, was a lingua franca particularly needed in order to communicate at all. These workers brought the language then turn in their countries back.

The word Fanakalo is the combination of " equal to it the " meaning the command: "Do it as well! " Thus the name already reflected the importance of Fanakalo as the rule language. It comes from the Nguni language, are essentially the Bantu languages ​​Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele.

But unlike the pidgin English is not the colonial language is the main language, but the indigenous Zulu and the other Nguni languages. Other factors of influence have English, Afrikaans and Portuguese.

The linguist Ralph Adendorff distinguishes between the mine and the Fanakalo Garden Fanakalo. The Garden Fanakalo (or kitchen kaffir ) was the language of the kitchen maids and domestic workers. Kaffer was initially naming the Nguni languages ​​, the disparaging term of every black person and therefore long been a hurtful insult. The mining Fanakalo is more oriented with 70% vocabulary at Zulu, as the Garden Fanakalo, the more prone to the English.

The experiments mid-20th century, the Fanakalo - similar to the Swahili - to revive through standardization as a "base - Bantu ", but failed. There is very little spoken today and was also in 1975 for only a few hundred thousand a means of communication.

Comparable African languages ​​were in Zimbabwe ( the colonial Rhodesia ) the Chilapalapa, with large Ndebele vocabulary. From the Kenya -based Swahili ki -settler is known. The prefix " ki" is in the Bantu language of " language" here means therefore " language of the settlers ."