Re: OT: Afrikaans

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Afrikaans


> Thomas Leigh scripsit:
>
> > One important consideration in reference to lexicon and idiom is
> > the pervasive influence of English. You find lost of expressions
> > which are more or less translated or calqued right out of
> > English, but put into Afrikaans words.
>
> When I asked the Dutch vs. Afrikaans question on Linguist List many
> years ago (when it was still worth reading), I provoked a wonderful
> anecdote about a Dutch boy whose family moves to S.A. and is put in an
> Afrikaans-speaking class.  He is asked to write a self-introductory essay
> and read it out loud to the class.  It begins "Mij pa fok dieren", meaning
> "My father breeds animals" in Dutch, but having a quite different sense,
> indeed, in Afrikaans!
Are "fok"(in Dutch) and "fuck" cognate?  Oh, and are Dutch "dier", and
German "tier" cognate to "deer"

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