{"id":229322,"date":"2026-07-27T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T09:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T09:08:53","slug":"the-european-ties-of-afrikaans-celebrated-in-a-greek-afrikaans-glossary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/the-european-ties-of-afrikaans-celebrated-in-a-greek-afrikaans-glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"The European ties of Afrikaans celebrated in a Greek-Afrikaans glossary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By Alana Bailey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Afrikaans Language Monument celebrates the language\u2019s origins rooted in three continents \u2013 Africa, Europe and Asia. More specifically, there is a 13.5-metre column that commemorates the European contribution and refers, amongst others, to the role of Dutch, German, English and Portuguese in this regard. However, a recent publication, <em>Greek-Afrikaans wordlist<\/em>, reminds us of one of the deeper classical sources of Afrikaans that can still be found in modern Greek today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Antonis Mandritis was appointed High Commissioner of Cyprus in Southern Africa in 2021. The large number of Afrikaans words that show a remarkable similarity to Greek immediately fascinated him and he began to record them. With the help of Dirk Taljard, who was a teacher at the Afrikaanse Ho\u00ebr Seunskool in Pretoria for many years, he eventually compiled a specialised glossary. Including information from the most reputable Afrikaans dictionaries, verified by VivA and with the support of the FAK, the list was finalised and published virtually. It can be downloaded at <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/za\/app\/viva-woordeboekapp\/id6471499921\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/za\/app\/viva-woordeboekapp\/id6471499921<\/a> or from VivA\u2019s Woordeboek App. A small number were also printed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The list is arranged alphabetically according to the Afrikaans words. The English version of each word appears below it and then the Greek word. The etymological origin of the words is also investigated and indicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Greek origin of some of the words is probably known to most people, for example \u201cacademy\u201d, \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201cphilosophy\u201d. Others such as \u201chorizon\u201d, \u201cmusique\u201d and \u201ctiger\u201d may surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Afrikaans words are easily labelled as Anglicisms, but when you trace their origins, you may find that they have much older roots in classical languages \u200b\u200bsuch as Greek and Latin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The High Commissioner\u2019s appreciation for Afrikaans is commendable. At a time when Afrikaans speakers so easily write off the language as supposedly being without international significance, his work proves the opposite \u2013 that it is a young language, but standardised, with many direct links to other international languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the foreword, he also elaborates on the traces of Greek culture found in South Africa, including in our architecture, and on the large Greek community in South Africa. South Africans who visit Greece or Cyprus sometimes encounter residents there who can speak Afrikaans. Descendants of the community here settle there again and so the interaction between the two communities and languages \u200b\u200bremains alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you had such an experience, or do you live in Greece or Cyprus? Let us know at AfriForum Worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alana Bailey The Afrikaans Language Monument celebrates the language\u2019s origins rooted in three continents \u2013 Africa, Europe and Asia&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":229323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"The European ties of Afrikaans celebrated in a Greek-Afrikaans glossary","_seopress_titles_desc":"The Afrikaans Language Monument celebrates the language\u2019s origins rooted in three continents \u2013 Africa, Europe and Asia. More specifically, there is a 13.5-metre column that commemorates the European contribution and refers, amongst others, to the role of Dutch, German, English and Portuguese in this regard. However, a recent publication, Greek-Afrikaans wordlist, reminds us of one of the deeper classical sources of Afrikaans that can still be found in modern Greek today.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1114],"tags":[1126],"class_list":["post-229322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","tag-alana-bailey-2"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1114,"label":"Blog"}],"post_tag":[{"value":1126,"label":"Alana Bailey"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Viva-App.jpg",565,509,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Alana Bailey","author_link":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/author\/alanabailey\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1114,"name":"Blog","slug":"blog-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1114,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1122,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","cat_ID":1114,"category_count":1122,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Blog","category_nicename":"blog-en","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":1126,"name":"Alana Bailey","slug":"alana-bailey-2","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1126,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":27,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Viva-App.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Viva-App.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229325,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229322\/revisions\/229325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wereldwyd.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}