“Why do South African English-speakers say...

“Why do South African English-speakers say “now-now”, or “rock up”, or the ubiquitous “shame”? Rajend Mesthrie has the answers in Eish, but is it English?”

I just read a review of this book and I was tickled by the following:

We learn that “now-now” as a marker of time was likely borrowed from Malay; that “gogga” and “quagga” come to us via Khoisan languages; and that “neh”, as a sentence-ender (“You’re coming, neh?”) is a probable import from Tamil. “Mealie” comes from the Afrikaans “mielie”, which in turn comes from the Portuguese “milho”; “braai” from the Dutch “braden”, to roast; and the “bunny” in “bunny chow” is courtesy of the Gujarati word “banya”, meaning merchant or trader. “Y’all”, favoured by Indian English speakers, owes its origin not to the US but to Mauritius, via French Creole workers on the Natal sugar plantations…

The borrowing hasn’t all been one-sided – South Africa has supplied English with words like “apartheid”, “laager”, “veld”, “trek”, and “commando”. Interestingly, South African Indian usage also produced the term “satyagraha”, or “peaceful resistance”, which Gandhi brought back with him to India in 1914 after his years in South Africa. There are also some terms which you might be surprised to hear are uniquely South African – “bottle store”, for one.

I like stuff like this, it looks good.