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Afrikaaps
Afrikaaps, also known as Kaaps, is spoken in the Cape flats area in Cape Town and can be considered the 'twin-creole' of Afrikaans. Even though it is lesser known and not often represented, the two creole languages are mostly mutually intelligible, as Riaan Oppelt explained. Yet, their history and their position within South African society are very different. Whereas Afrikaans became standardised as an official language, Afrikaaps was considered not worthy of being taken seriously for a long time. Afrikaaps is mostly used within the Afrikaaps speech community, and people tend to switch to Afrikaans when they talk to people outside of that, Oppelt explains. He further mentions that one of the reasons for this is that Afrikaaps has often been dismissed as not proper enough. Additionally, the Afrikaaps speakers where labelled as "Coloured", a racial category that nowadays is very much criticised. The term originated from the colonial era and is associated with stigmas like impurity. As a consequence of the negative attitudes, speakers of Afrikaaps have been met with prejudices and stereotypes. The sense of shame resulting from this has impacted many speakers, which sometimes makes speakers more hesitant to speak their language. Nevertheless, initiatives like the documentary Afrikaaps and language activism within the community are leaving a positive impact in recent years.
Awê Masekind
When asked what the one thing is that Riaan Oppelt would like people to know about Afrikaaps he answered: "I think if I would sum up Afrikaaps it's conviviality, the feel-at-homeness of it". He explains that the origin of Afrikaaps is very diverse: "The creolised nature of the language came from the many people that came together. They needed to communicate; they needed a common language". Although life was far from perfect for the early Afrikaaps speakers, they took care of each other within the communities. Oppelt shared that it is this sense of social cohesion that is clearly shown by the example from Afrikaaps that he shared Awê Masekind – a common greeting that refers to the greeted person as 'one's mother's child'.
Representation
Currently, Riaan Oppelt is collecting Afrikaaps media at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. He explained that early forms of media representations focussed only on the prejudices and ridiculed Afrikaaps and its speakers. The earliest writings were by white speakers of English and Dutch, who wrote caricatures. Representation, up until this century, remained predominantly negative. However, Oppelt explains that, more recently, the way Afrikaaps is being represented is improving and activism through language and music is doing important work here too.
This event was organized in collaboration with Thomas Hylland Eriksen at SAI (Sosialantropologisk institutt/Department of Social Anthropology, UiO).