Why was the first Afrikaans written in Arabic Letters?

Comments · 1.3K

• JA

  @jasoncreamer5747 · 3 years ago

  As a South African I had no idea about the Islamic/ Malaysian influence on the society even though I was surrounded by muslims and Cape Malay in Cape Town. I did always wonder why the racial slur for black people was so similar to the arabic word for "non believer" now I know why. Also what is the Dutch word for banana because I assumed piesang was Dutch.

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• NA

  @naboegrainger1132 · 3 years ago

  I'm a Cape Malay Muslim and can say that I had only a vague idea of Afrikaans in the context of my Cape Malay heritage. Because of course, during Apartheid we weren't thought anything about our history and heritage. Sadly, even in a post-Apartheid South Africa, this remains to be the case in schools. Thank you for doing this video. It means more than you can know.

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• FE

  @Fenditokesdialect · 3 years ago

  Kind of the reverse of the situation in Malta with Maltese, an Arabic derived language with a ton of Romance influence, written in the Latin alphabet, and spoken by a Christian population.

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• AR

  @Artur_M. · 3 years ago

  Really cool! This reminds me of Arabitsa (Arabica, Арабіца), known today as the Belarusian Arabic alphabet - a modified form of the Arabic script, developed by the Muslim Tatar community of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, or Lipka Tatars, to write primarily in the form of Ruthenian from which modern Belarusian developed (later also in Polish).

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• ZE

  @ZemanTheMighty · 3 years ago

  As a South African I would like to say that “Cape Malay” (a catch all phrase for the mixed group of people descending from Muslim countries and South Asia) history and culture is very interesting.<br>I look forward to the video

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• SA

  @savgy17 · 3 years ago (edited)

  Im Cape Malay. Thanks so much for bringing part of our history to light. My grandfather still has some Afrikaans manuscripts/books on islam written in the arabic script. I also think there might be a lot more of these manuscripts/books around today.

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• WO

  @Wolf-hh4rv · 3 years ago (edited)

  My grandfather (born 1903) schooled in the Cape was educated in Dutch, which he found quite foreign as a young child. For me the most interesting thing is the lack of French and German influence given that I believe they made up 35% of European immigrants to the Cape up to 1805.

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• CR

  @crankedbaconjumps1786 · 3 years ago

  As a Cape Coloured, it brings a smile to my face to see someone from overseas notice and spread info about my people&apos;s contributions to our beautiful language. It would be amazing if you made a video going deeper into Afrikaans&apos; development.

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• RY

  @ryanmchristison · 3 years ago

  “ilms” comes from the Arabic “ilm (علم)” meaning knowledge and “dalil” comes from the Arabic “dalīl (دليل)” meaning evidence.

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• TH

  @TheJohnnyJohnny · 3 years ago

  I&apos;m from Malaysia 🇲🇾 and the fact &nbsp;we have this kind of influence in other country is utterly mind blowing🤯. I never knew we have ever adopt Arabic script(Jawi as we called it) in another language that is not us 😂.

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• WO

  @Woobeewuu · 3 years ago

  The Middle East’s influence on the west is so cool and interesting imo.

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• SA

  @saskloppers1 · 3 years ago

  Dit is van kardinale belang dat hierdie tipe kultuur-historiese inligting vir die nageslagte bewaar word. Ek is seker dat baie van die Afrikaners van sowel Maleisiese asook Europese afkoms hierdie inligting behoort te sien. Dankie dat dit met ons gedeel is!

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