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Inventories of the Orphan Chamber
of the Cape of Good Hope


Dutch, Afrikaans and the Inventories

by Helena Liebenberg, TEPC editor

Present day Dutch and Afrikaans are sister languages which developed from 17th century Dutch. Although the speakers of these two languages have been separated for more than 350 years, the languages still share about 90% of their vocabulary. Apart from the fact that a few but important grammatical changes took place in Afrikaans over three centuries, it is still closely related to modern Standard Dutch. Numerous examples of some of these changes are evident in the language used in the inventories, especially in those documents that were compiled by ordinary people.

A very good, if not excellent, knowledge of Afrikaans and/or Dutch is needed when transcribing these 17th century documents. Even though so many words are familiar to Afrikaans-speakers, it is sometimes quite difficult to find a meaningful way out of a jungle of obsolete words, or words written as they were heard by the scribes in the service of the VOC at the Cape. The important role played by scribes coming from all over the then Low Countries, including the adjacent German-speaking regions, is evident from the type of spelling and other linguistic errors they made when recording household goods in the inventories. The writing and spelling abilities of the scribes and of ordinary people living in remote areas of the Cape colony come under the spotlight when one has to establish the correct spelling of a word to determine its meaning. Folk etymology is sometimes quite amusing: a burgher of Swellendam wrote rysdaadels (literally meaning rice dates) instead of ryksdaalders (rixdollars), while another addressed an official of the Orphan Chamber as Cekkertarel Remkam instead of Secretaris Rönnenkamp.

Many of the Dutch words appearing in the inventories either became obsolete in Afrikaans or were never part of its vocabulary. Through the years many household items were replaced by other objects with different functions. The Dutch word hakmes  (chopping knife) was replaced in Afrikaans by kapmes, and the verb hak is seldom heard or used, except in the idiomatic expression die knoop deurhak (cut the knot). The Dutch living in the East Indies used a boekeknaap (literally meaning a young boy carrying books), which was a small table or similar piece of furniture for holding books. In the Cape the Staten-Bijbel (large family Bible) or Bijbel in folio (folio-sized Bible) was often placed on the boekeknaap. The Dutch compounds beugeltas (bag with a metal ring carried by women), glazenspuit (water hose to clean the windows) and vuurmand (drying frame for nappies), which appeared in many inventories during the earlier years of the settlement, were eventually replaced by new names for new objects.

Not so long ago, the following items were in use, while in some instances their modern counterparts can still be found in our households: komfoor (Afrikaans konfoor, English dish-warmer, an old-fashioned hotplate!), naaimachine (sewing-machine), wastafel (washing-stand), tondeldoos (Afrikaans tonteldoos, English tinderbox with flint and lighter), vliegenkastje (Afrikaans vlieëkas, English fly-box, a small box with wire-gauze to protect  food from flies), klaptafel (drop-table, Pembroke table) and stoof met test (stove with fire-pan or chafing dish).

Many dialect words that are now obsolete or archaic in Dutch found a safe haven in Afrikaans, for example speek (spoke), vleijs (meat) and blom (flower). Some grammatical processes may also be attributed to the influence of Dutch dialects, such as the derivation of Afrikaans diminutives, for example glaase peerties (small glass pears), rakkie (small shelf) and pompies (small pumps) which may apparently be ascribed to a dialect spoken near Amsterdam.

The VOC ships and their crews also made a special contribution to Afrikaans by coming ashore with words such as combuijs (a ship’s galley), combaars (blanket) and kooij (bed). The combuijs was a very small area on deck where the cook and his mate had to prepare meals. It was the only word used by Jan Van Riebeeck in his Daghregister (diary) to refer to a kitchen in general, and it even appeared in the predesigned plan of the Fort of Good Hope, built in 1652. Combuijs was used in nearly all the inventories where the rooms were listed, and today it is still the only word in Afrikaans to name that very special place where the family may gather at the combuijs tavel.

When Dutch speakers arrived at the Cape they had to create new words to answer to the needs of their new environment with its indigenous peoples, animals, plants and places. Words such as tijgerboscat (serval) and hartebeest originated in Afrikaans. During the early years of the settlement wooden furniture was either imported from Europe or the East and words such as mahonij (mahogony), jatij (Afrikaans kiaat, English teak), slangenhout (serpentine wood) and amboyna (a derivation of the place-name Ambon/Amboina in the Far East, perhaps English imbuia?) found their way into the households at the Cape and therefore also into the inventories of the deceased. After a few years newly created words, mainly compounds, depicting an exciting variety of indigenous wood species crop up in the lists of inventoried items: geelhout (yellow-wood), stinkhout (stinkwood), swarthout (blackwood), (wit)elsehout (white alder), wageboomshout (waboom, Protea Nitida) and ijserhout (ironwood/wild-olive).

A few words were borrowed from the Khoi, for example dagha (wild hemp) and buchu. In 1658 Jan van Riebeeck mentioned dacha in his Daghregister. The Khoi compound daxa-b ‘green tobacco’ was derived from a word borrowed from Arabic, which is an indication of contact between groups. The word boegoe recorded by Wikar in 1779 is the first spelling form that corresponds with Afrikaans. The following Khoi variants were also recorded: boggoa, puchu, bouchou, bochu, pucku, bugga, buku and buchu.

A small number of words borrowed from languages spoken in the Far East became part and parcel of Afrikaans, such as atchar (Afrikaans atjar, English achar), baatje (jacket), blatjang (chutney), bobotij, bori-borie, borrie (turmeric, Indian saffron), piering (saucer) and piesang (banana).

After the English took power in the late 18th century a few English words entered the inventories, for example spencer, podding (pudding), dissert leepels (dessert spoons) and zet blaauw thégoed (blue tea-set).

Many place names appear in the inventories. Nearly every document contains an estate name (house, homestead or farm) and the district where it was situated. Most of the place names are of Dutch and Khoi origin, for example Tijgerbergen, Wagenmakersvalleij, Roode Sand and Cango, Namakwa, Outenikwa respectively. Since it was customary to name a slave according to his or her presumed place of origin (usually the place where the slave was last shipped from), there are also a large number of place names mainly from the Far East (for example, Ternate, Boegies and Java) and Africa (Rio de la Goa, Angola and Guinea). One of the slaves was called Piet van Tarrentaal, the latter being a corruption of Terra de Natalia, a Portuguese place-name that was eventually shortened to Natal. Afrikaans tarentaal (guinea-fowl) is a derivation of this Portuguese place name.

Many household items were imported from the East or Europe. Adjectives derived from place names indicated the places where the objects came from, for example Sinees (Chinese) and Indiase (Indian), Lijdse (from Leiden), Keulse (from Cologne) and IJslandse (Icelandic). Large quantities of beautiful textiles were imported from the Far East. Armosijn was a type of textile originating from Ormuz, Persia; it was also the name of one of the best-known slave women, Armosijn van de Caab. While the entry Persiaensse rosewater flessen (Persian rose water flasks) speaks for itself, Eau de la Reine (water of the Rhine), and its many spelling variations, needs some explanation. Reine was spelt incorrectly by most of the scribes, perhaps because it is similar to French reine (queen).

The inventories were signed by many people: Orphan Chamber officials, witnesses, and family or friends of the deceased. The signatures are of great importance for genealogical research. Sometimes the original pronunciation is reflected in the way the people spelt their forename(s) and surnames. In the case of French and German forenames and surnames there is often a discrepancy between the signature by the person him/herself and the spelling used by the official in the introductory paragraph of the inventory or somewhere else in the document. For example, Beatrix Olivier signed her name as Beijatrix Olivier (1740), which corresponds quite well with the spelling of Beatrix Rust’s name as Beyaderiks (1830) nearly a century later: both forms resemble the Dutch/French pronunciation pattern. (At present the English pronunciation seems to be our norm.) Something similar happened to surnames, for instance where Estreaux was turned into Esterhuisen while Lécrivain/Lecrivent was changed by folk etymology to Lekkerwyn. In a number of German surnames minor phonetic changes took place, for example Roest became Roets. In other cases the difference is quite remarkable, for example Johann Heinrich Bebler becoming Jan Hendrik Pepler and Wilhelm Holtzhausen changed to Willem Houthuis. Only a few nicknames were recorded, for instance, a farmer who probably had a rather dark complexion was called swarte Prinsloo and farmer Jan Muller who was actually Johannes Müller of German descent was also known as Jan de Moff. To this day the Dutch call a German a mof.

From a linguistic perspective the inventories are a gem of great value. The evidence revealed by the contents of these documents should shed some new light on the development of Afrikaans from 17th century Dutch.

 

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