Thoughts on language

South Africa has 11 national languages. Most people here speak at least two languages fluently, but often more. The most common are English, and Afrikaans. The most common other language spoken around here (Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital) is Xosha. Xosha is a fascinating language that my American tongue may never be able to master, but I’d love to learn it. Afrikaans is a newer language, influenced largely by the Dutch and English speaking white settlers here. It is a much more familiar sounding language, and one that I will attempt to learn to be conversational in while I’m here.

So, in theory one should be able to get by just fine here knowing and understanding English. That’s only kind of true. Around town, for the most part, it really is true. In the hospital, it’s a different story. Many of my patients speak only Xosha, or also Afrikaans, but understand only a smattering of English. More on that later. As far as English goes, everyone talks about the “South African accent.” Being here for a couple weeks, I’m now convinced that no such thing exists. There are SO many accents around here, I really can’t identify the classic SA accent. The accent is influenced by whatever native language(s) is/are spoken where the person learns English, then additionally influence by whether they speak it natively or have learned it later in life. Then, a lot of people around the hospital speak a mix of English and Afrikaans, switching back and forth between the two, talking so fast that sometimes you can’t even tell what’s accented English and what’s a whole other language. I’m following it better now, but my first few days here there was a lot of “just smile and nod” going on.

I’ve learned a lot about language in general here, being exposed to so many. Here are a few South African colloquialisms that I find fun:
Just now: can mean anything from “now” to “sometime in the next few days/months/years.” If someone says they are going to do something “just now,” don’t hold your breath.
Now now: the slightly more expeditious form of “just now.”
Just now now: I’ll let you know if I ever figure out how to translate that one.
Robots = traffic lights
Mmmmmm: yes. Not to be confused with mmm-mmm (no) or hmmmm (hmmmm).
Quite: this may be a british thing, but they use the word “quite” quite a lot. Rarely do they use “very” or “really.”
African time: very similar to “island time.” Corresponds quite nicely with “Kim time.”
Is it: this one's a bit confusing. can be an appropriate response to just about any comment. If I say "I love chocolate," they'll say "is it."