Talk:Afrikaners/Archive 3

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Afrikaner: European or African?

This whole page is ambiguous and subtle in asserting whom this ethnical group is. European or African? If we, wish to be in the middle and therefore non biased about this, since this classification is disputed by individuals, historians, institutions, organs of states or institution of global governances, non governmental organisation, then this page should clearly state either those who classify themselves as White Africa or just White, or European African or African for that matter.

The Republic of South Africa headed by the African National Congress, or former government, the National Party, should not dictate who we are. I know, and thus concede this is a disputed topic throughout digital, public and private sphere. I'm an Afrikaner, and I have proclaimed myself as African. I simply wish to alter how this page reflect among the masses who roam the intranet for information regarding this distinct group on the continent of Africa.

My proposal is to alter the current content from "Afrikaners (including the Boer subgroup) are an ethnic group in Southern Africa whose native tongue is Afrikaans..." to "Afrikaner (including the Boer subgroup) are a distinct African ethnic group in Southern Africa whose native tongue is Afrikaans..."

Please comment on this page. Hendrik Biebouw (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Your proposed text is tautological - it doesn't need to say both "African"and "Southern Africa" as Africa is subsumed in Southern Africa. If the issue really is as contentious as you say then the lead should in any case not come down firmly on one side of the argument as you proposed text does. The core of the debate is basically about the meaning of the word "indigenous". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:32, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Roger. Saying Afrikaners are "an African ethnic group" would be definitely taking one side of the debate. As the text currently stands, it make it quite clear that (Southern) Africa is the home of the Afrikaners, without getting involved in the somewhat political question of whether the adjective "African" can be used. - htonl (talk) 12:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I accede: it being tautological. Nonetheless, as you state it boils down to the "meaning of the word "indigenous"" to really assert if this distinct ethnical group is African or not. The definition around "indigenous" is not absolute. Then answer my question: European or African.

Either one of those, I will choose, and someone who comprehends history, not ahistorical, who is an Afrikaner, never have stepped a foot on the European continent, nor do I see those of the Bantu ilk as indigenous, only the Khoisan mind you, I will choose African. So African or European? Hendrik Biebouw (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

For the text of the article we choose neither, because in answering the question "African or European", some people say one and some people say the other. We do not adopt either position at Wikipedia because we want to reflect a neutral point of view. If you wanted to write a section of the article about the "Africanness" of Afrikaners, that referred to reliable sources and reflected both sides of the argument, that would be a useful addition. - htonl (talk) 12:42, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Having just taken a look at your editing history I'd like to suggest that you might want to take a good hard look at WP:Five pillars and adjust your editing accordingly. The personal opinions of editors have no place at all in Wikipedia articles, only reliable sources determine the content of articles. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, from both Roger and his companion Htonl. I will retain myself from further contributing to this page, as it is "redundant" due to my commentary or alterations are full of my corrupted opinionated senses. I take it sovereignty is a reliable source, I'm referring to the National Party, African National Congress or any other states's government in the continent of Africa is seen as a "credible" source? My government asserts, I'm just a mere White, and other colonial groups, such as the Zulu's (Bantu expansionism) etcetera as Black African, and more prejudicially asserting the indigenous, autochthonous Khoisan as "Coloured." And the debate goes on.

Enough with my ranting, but, I'll leave this mere page with a reminder that those who are in power writes history. Or in this case prejudicially asserts who's what.

The heartbreaking narrative of colonialism power, then Apartheid (Afrikaners are not foreign) plus the nationalistic Black (Not African, since I'm just a mere White) racialist tone asserting the narrative of historical events where ugly vitriol classification, such as "Europeans or Whites only" to systematically and structurally oppress others, which are used today to dictate what is what, without asking those who actually still live, and breed on the only continent, which they call home, when all the superpowers (colonial powers) or minority rule has been dismantled, throughout the colonisation era and for Southern Africa 80's & 90's. But their prejudice mentality has survived, with economical ramifications of course, I can't be myopic on this form mind you. Other wise the stereotypical response will come about because of my ethnicity (that is Afrikaner, if he or she has forgotten.)

But, nevertheless, those who are in power, can assert whom is what.

And I thank Htonl for responding, and I agree with both of you, sorry for this rant, and thus wasting your time here on the mere digital sphere by challenging old colonial, Apartheid plus current organs of numerous governments dogmas, and stigmas. Transformation?

That is in my view therefore opinionated senses materialised by sovereign governments. Hendrik Biebouw (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

As I have pointed out to you before, Wikipedia has policies and guidelines and with very good reason. Without it Wikipedia is nothing more than another soapbox with views varying from day to day depending on who is in control of it. Why not work within those guidelines as we try to, rather than wasting your energy knocking your head against a brick wall? HelenOnline 15:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm just a mere child (Afrikaner) confused with identity. I'm starting African studies next year and would love to adhere "within those guidelines" to contribute constructively to this page and other concerning Southern Africa and its people. Thanks for the responds Helen. Hendrik Biebouw (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, the problem is that you appear to be very resistant to the idea that your personal opinion of the issue is of absolutely no interest or relevance to this article. Wikipedia articles must maintain strictl neutrality and the content must be based on recognised reliable sources. Basically nobody cares what you, I, htonl or HelenOnline thinks about the issue. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

An article about Afrikaner identity politics is probably long overdue - based on the sheer volume of good sources that are available. We can cite people ranging from Hendrik Biebouw up to people of our time such as Breyten Breytenbach, Eugene Terblanche, Hermann Giliomee, Dan Roodt, Max du Preez and even (heaven help us!) Steve Hofmeyr. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I've conceded to the wrongs I've fabricated on this page concerning me. My opinion, yours, is irrelevant. I apologies again for my wrong doings. It's unjust and unbecoming of me. I've, now (first time) read the guidelines of Wikipedia and will from now on act within those guidelines irrespective of my opinion.

Furthermore, your point in writing up an article on Afrikaner identity politics holds merit. There, is indeed good, contemporary, representative references to write a coherent, complete and non ambiguous article on the Afrikaner or Boer identity in contemporary Africa. I might warn that the likes of Dan Roodt and his ilk is toxic. Nevertheless, the sharp contrast of Max du Preez or Eugene Terblanche will provide a good article representing all the views of my ethnicity. Max especially, his books such as Paler Native or Let Afrikaners be African etcetera

Please state, if he or she, is willing to contribute to this page. This is defiantly long overdue.

I'm very interested but unfortunately I'm dealing with university exams for the whole of October. I used Google Scholar and found some really good material. We must be careful not to exclude any voices based on whether we think they are "toxic", Roodt does have a following and he is published and cited by others so should be included. We must try to cover the full history starting from Biebouw up to the present. I've set up a Sandbox where we can work on the draft - all interested editors are invited to participate in User:Dodger67/Sandbox/Afrikaner identity politics. I've also noted a few ideas on the Talk page. I hope we will see a nice article come out of this. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Examination is also where I'm at and my experience is limited.

There is an abundance of representative material indeed. This discourse can only strengthening the role Wikipedia plays in regard to the accessibility of information I suppose.

Roaming the intranet I came across a parody twitter account named after the profound Hendrik Biebouw which roams the twitter sphere in his own opinionated senses, but is not a credible or legitimate source and therefore no help to us.

Good luck with the examination and I personally appreciate for liberating my myopic understanding the role Wikipedia plays and then proposing a solution to this debacle. Hendrik Biebouw (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Draft article about Afrikaner identity politics

I have moved my draft article about identity politics to Draft:Afrikaner identity politics, I don't have the time to really do a good job by myself so please feel free to participate in writing it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Political

There are no scientific grounds for the believe that Afrikaners vote 82% or 85% for the Democratic Alliance (DA). The sources given are one opinion of a writers with no research referenced and the other source does not mention Afrikaners. 85% is also more then usual total participation in elections. From result it may be guessed that the DA is the strongest political party among Whites, but that is were it ends. There is some good reasons to believe that most Afrikaners don't participate in elections at all. --197.229.144.123 (talk) 09:26, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

This issue concerns me greatly, especially if there are grounds that the information is inaccurate. As far as I know we can trust Die Beeld for the purposes of this article, because otherwise most polls undertaken in SA would only calculate the political alignment of white South Africans in general. --Katangais (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Germanic or Southern African?

This is a community project, and I believe major changes to the article should be made by WP:consensus. It has been proposed that the lead be altered as such..."Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group..." to "Afrikaners are a Germanic ethnic group..." by an anonymous contributor. Bear in mind that in the previous revision, it was already noted that Afrikaners were a Germanic people under the first section, paragraph 1, entitled "Nomenclature". The new revision simply edits this information out of this section and moves it to the lead. I have objected on several grounds, namely:

1) The Germanic peoples article to which this links barely mentions Afrikaners, and has no information pertaining to this ethnic group whatsoever. Linking to Southern Africa firstly would be more constructive.

2) The same link is disruptive to the continuity of the paragraph. "Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group...descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries..." Take out all references to Southern Africa, and where would they be arriving?

3) This doesn't boil down to excluding one or the other, simply that only one description belongs in the lead. How do Afrikaners firstly identify? As a Germanic people, or as Africans? I think we can safely argue that it's constructive to begin the lead by introducing them to the reader as an African ethnic group. I'm sure it's what most would appreciate.

--Katangais (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I have reverted it because it's ridiculous and an insult to Afrikaans people. NO Afrikaans person would ever call themselves "Germanic". Afrikaans is an AFRICAN language, it has European origins but that does not mean it's European. Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:38, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The term "Germanic" is relevant to language, not ethnicity. Afrikaans (and Dutch, English, German, Flemish, etc.) is without a shadow of a doubt a Germanic language - to deny it is simply to deny obvious reality. The roots of the Afrikaner ethnicity is however more complex, non-Germanic-speaking peoples had a significant role in the formation of the Afrikaner ethnicity. Linguistics and ethnicity are separate issues, conflating them is not helpful. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:19, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

That's a fair point as Wallonians are ethnically Germanic but linguistically French (Romance). But my point still stands Afrikaans people are not "Germanic" people the same way those English-speaking (a Germanic language) Americans would most definitely not simply be 'Germanic'. Bezuidenhout (talk) 21:34, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

If Germanic is only relevant to language rather than ethnicity, I'm genuinely curious as to why we even have a "Germanic peoples" article on the wiki. --Katangais (talk) 21:38, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I see the disruptive edits are continuing. The same IP I referenced earlier claims that it's improper to introduce Afrikaners as "an African ethnic group" rather than "an ethnic group in Africa", implying that they're of foreign origin. They seem to have a problem accepting that Afrikaners are Africans, and have obviously been trying to push this POV that the people are ethnic Germans from the start.

We have already agreed that Afrikaners should be introduced as an African ethnic group per above: I think we can safely argue that it's constructive to begin the lead by introducing them to the reader as an African ethnic group. I'm sure it's what most would appreciate...

I stand by that statement and hope the rest of you can concur. --Katangais (talk) 22:49, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

not simply "Africans"

we do not need the article introduce that they are african twice! they are a white european africans not "native africans" 120.50.35.122 (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

They are most definitely African. I think 400 years is long enough to be considered "native". Ask any Afrikaans person, right or left wing, and when you find one that calls themself "European" then we can have this conversation again.. Bezuidenhout (talk) 21:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the African label at all, but what is a hatnote for? Wikipedia has policies, so please base your edits on that. Hatnotes should be concise, the only information in them should be to distinguish between other articles with a similar name, so that the reader knows whether or not they are in the right place. Are there non-African ethnic groups labelled Afrikaner? No, there are not. HelenOnline 06:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

they are white african, it is not simply "african" or "southern african" and to say they are olny southern african instead a ethnic group in africa is confusing whenever they are white of black africans

also for example people do not consider white americans as native and they lived there for a similiar long period 120.50.35.122 (talk) 16:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I have reverted edits by the IP to the beginning of this section, as it is misleading to amend the purpose of a section after several other editors have already commented on it. If you would like to start a RFC, please do so in a new section. HelenOnline 16:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, especially the section on editing own comments for further explanation. HelenOnline 16:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I have proposed to the IP in question the label "ethnic group in Africa" rather than "African ethnic group" to solve the problem of redundancy. His response was - and here I quote - "rv no my edit". From the beginning, this contributor has engaged in edit warring - an offence they have already been cautioned against, disruptive behaviour, refusing to discuss issues on the talk page until now (despite objections from four different community members including myself) and has repeatedly tried to push a POV depicting Afrikaners as German diaspora rather than a legitimately African people. This has ranged from replacing "Southern African" with "Germanic" in the lead and adding useless clutter emphasizing links to the Germans and Germanic peoples articles to removing sourced information suggesting that Afrikaners have Hottentot ancestors. I think any attempt to call attention to themselves as the injured party at this point is, in all fairness, quite inappropriate. --Katangais (talk) 18:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

On a related note, I believe the Dutch may have also referenced the Sri Lanka Kaffirs as "Afrikaaners" during their stay in Ceylon. The terminology is archaic everywhere outside SA, though. --Katangais (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

let just change "southern african ethnic group to "ethnic group in southern africa" which was the original 120.50.35.122 (talk) 19:49, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

or if that doesnt work mention in the lead that they are white people 120.50.35.122 (talk) 19:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Wasn't the original revision. It was your revision, and adopted unilaterally at that - despite my appeal for discussion here. --Katangais (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• actually not olny it was the orginal version but it was you who made the current version:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Afrikaner&diff=603950577&oldid=600960556 120.50.35.122 (talk) 20:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Should the intro start with "southern african ethnic group" or the original version of "ethnic group in southern africa" ?

Survey

the original version was used in different but similar wording for a long time and then it was changed [1] by Katangais on 01:00, 13 April 2014, the new version is confusing because it does not say whenever the are white african or black african and it implies that afrikaners are native to south africa 120.50.35.122 (talk) 20:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

This has gone too far, people are having huge surveys and arguments on Wikipedia over real world issues and religions yet you are here having a heated, week-long argument because you have failed to grasp the fact that Afrikaans people ARE indigenous to South Africa. What do you mean to tell me AFRIKAners are indigenous to Europe? You've blown this out of proportion and wasted good wikipedians' time, take time out of your life to improve the world and not impose your ignorant ideas. You are confusing Ethnicity with Skin colour, the two of which are not interchangeable. Bezuidenhout (talk) 21:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

As Helen stated please base your edits on Wikipedia policy, folks. General consensus holds that Afrikaners can and should be identified as an African ethnic group (as in fact they have across the site). Any implication that this label suggests they're "native to South Africa" is irrelevant.

Secondly, I fail to see the importance of using the term "white" anywhere in the lead. If the reader needs assistance identifying their skin colour, he should look at the infobox. Katangais (talk) 21:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason for this RfC, other than trying to push a edit that is clearly not supported by the editors of this page (at least from what I read of the talk page). There is no need to be overly specific as Bezuidenhout and Katangais stated. TheMesquito^buzz 01:38, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually that is one of the main reasons we have RFCs. It invites outside input to an article if an editor feels there is a POV issue or otherwise dominating an article. AIRcorn (talk) 08:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The RFC was a stunt by an IP user who had his own beliefs on classifying Afrikaners as "Germanic people" although the ethnicity of Afrikaners has already been discussed and the IP user has wasted valuable time being a troll and initiating a pointless editing conflict. Look at the conversation he has ignited, what a waste of time, wikipedia is for information not personal beliefs. Bezuidenhout (talk) 14:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Be very careful about labeling someone a troll. Editors have been blocked for much less. We have many waste of time discussions and this is no worse or better than many others. AIRcorn (talk) 07:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I prefer "Southern African ethnic group" over "ethnic group in Southern Africa" because the second wording excludes the Afrikaner diaspora outside Southern Africa. Afrikaners are "native" to Southern Africa because that is where the ethnic group formed, so I don't understand the objection to that implication. HelenOnline 09:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't include "white" in the lead sentence as the situation is fairly complicated, given their ethnic admixture and the existence of "black Afrikaners" both mentioned in the article, and the fact that race has been a matter of self-identification since the Population Registration Act, 1950 was repealed in 1991. HelenOnline 10:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• Southern African ethnic group per HelenOnline above, as there are Afrikaners living outside South Africa. AIRcorn (talk)

• Comment Could someone kindly explain the dispute here? What are the two positions and what is supposedly contentious? --Precision123 (talk) 23:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I agree with User:HelenOnline's point. "Indigenous" can be a curious term when applied to humans, but it is true that the ethnic group was formed in southern Africa, regardless of where some of its members live today. --Precision123 (talk) 23:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell (someone please correct me if I am wrong), the IP does not approve of any implication that Afrikaners are not white, which to their mind includes labels such as "African" and "native". HelenOnline 06:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Looks that way. But as (Helen) noted earlier race is entirely a matter of self-identification in SA now, and Afrikaners are hardly monolithic in their ethnic admixture. --Katangais (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Capitalisation

As stated in my edit summary and on the edit warring IP's talk page, white South African is not a proper noun and should not be capitalised mid-sentence. The article title begins with a capital letter by default. There is nothing "normal" about capitalising a common noun [or adjective] mid-sentence. HelenOnline 14:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

why olny small on the word "White" and not "South African"? 95.199.28.86 (talk) 15:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

South African is a proper noun. HelenOnline 15:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

isnt White also a proper noun?! 95.199.28.86 (talk) 15:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

if you can convince me i will stop doing that edit 95.199.28.86 (talk) 15:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Not in this case (see academic source: "Since the terms black and white are not proper nouns, they are not capitalized."). If it was someone's surname, that is a different story. HelenOnline 15:46, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

"Boer subgroup"?

I am very sceptical that a "Boer subgroup" exists, or has existed. There are Afrikaners of a particular political view and outlook on the world who like to argue that there is difference and who like to identify themselves as "Boere" rather than Afrikaners. "Boere" are considered by them to be better. I'm an Afrikaner myself and like that is what I like to be called.

I think Afrikaners were called "Boers" before 1902 and there is nothing wrong with that. Nowadays if Afrikaners refer to themselves as "Boere" it is generally in jest. Or, rarely, if the modern, conservative, religiously fundamentalist "Boere" refer to one as "Boer" it must be a compliment. However, if anybody who is not an Afrikaner calls one a "Boer" is generally meant in a derogatory sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.78.199.189 (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The Boers were always a "subgroup" from the so called Afrikaners for the simple reason that the Boers come from the Trekboers that emerged on the Cape frontier starting in the late 17th cent just a few decades after the initial arrival of the VOC. The Cape Dutch population has always outnumbered the Boer population thus the term Afrikaner marginalizes the Boers & makes them an artificial "minority" within the ambiguous Afrikaner designation. The term Afrikaner was always a political term that was first used in a political context by some Cape Dutch intellectuals from the western Cape during the late 19th cent at a time when the Boers were mainly independent within their internationally recognized Boer Republics. It was only after the Boers were conquered after the second Anglo-Boer War that the term Afrikaner was imposed en mass to all White Afrikaans speakers, but that was mainly due to indoctrination as society fell under the control of the semi secret society known as the Afrikaner Broederbond which began to rewrite the history & thereby retroactively turned Boers into Afrikaners as well. The reason for the promotion of the term Afrikaner on the part of the Cape Dutch who also insisted that the Boers be called Afrikaners as well came about in the wake of the gold & diamonds that were found in the Boer Republics. It was simply a convenient tool that the Cape Dutch leadership used to colonize the Boers & their Boer Republics. The Afrikaners were still largely rebuffed by the Presidents of the Boer Republics & President Paul Kruger did not want too may Cape Dutch coming to live in the Transvaal Republic as he knew they were too influenced by the British & pro British. Therefore the large scale Afrikaner colonization of the Boer people / nation did not come into full force until the 1930s when the Afrikaner Broederbond began to take more control over the region.

No one is saying that the "Boers are better". The problem is that in our history is was always imposed on us that "the Afrikaner was better" than the Boer as a way to break Boer identity & to lump then in with the Cape Dutch. The term Boer is so abused that it was / is even used to refer to all local White people as a derogatory term.

The Boer people are smaller than the larger Cape Dutch Afrikaners thus they are a so called "subgroup" though I dispute that they even are a "subgroup" of the Afrikaners at all since the Boers never really shared much history with the Cape Dutch as the Boers emerged hundreds of miles away from the Cape Dutch on the Cape frontier. The Cape Rebels of the second Anglo-Boer War were overwhelmingly from the Boer population of the Cape frontier not from the Cape Dutch population.

Ron7 (talk) 07:17, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The IP is right. What Ron7, who is a Canadian and not an Afrikaner/Boer, is proclaiming is what a very small fraction of Afrikaners is sucking out of their thumb. This two-nations-theory has no grounds in historic reality. Both Afrikaners in the Cape or Transvaal were referred to as Boers and Afrikaners, sometimes also spelled Afrikaanders. The term Boer became more popular around the war, but even then the Boer leaders like Genl de Wet, identified as Afrikaners. --197.229.144.123 (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Whether I am a Canadian or not is irrelevant to the facts concerning the topic. I have studied this topic for decades and I am in fact partly from the Boer people BTW at any rate. The Cape Dutch people of the Western Cape regions were never referred to as Boers ever! Therefore the tricky little lie that the terms Boer & Afrikaners are "interchangeable" does a massive disservice to both the Boers AND the Cape Dutch. The term Boer was derived form the term Trekboer which emerged when the Trekboers emerged on the Cape frontier starting in the late 17th century which took them away from the folks who would be referred to as the Cape Dutch. Not only did the Cape Dutch never adopt the term "Boer" to describe themselves, they also NEVER adopted the independence oriented outlook of the Boers of the frontiers and were ALWAYS loyal to the Colonial powers. The Cape Dutch are well documented as having looked down on the Boers and never expressed any interest in them until gold was discovered within the ZAR / Transvaal Republic. At that point the leadership among some of the Cape Dutch [ with involvement from Holland ] started various groups aimed at dispossessing the Boer people of the republics. The most notable being the Afrikaner Bond. The term Afrikaner was APPROPRIATED from the Oorlam who were using it to describe themselves and from the Boers who loosely referred to themselves as Africans in the sense that they belonged to the African continent.

Professor Wallace Mills notes that the Boers of the frontier were significantly different from and viewed themselves as being significantly different from the Dutch settlers of the Western Cape region. To unthinkingly and erroneously assert that the terms Boer and Afrikaner are synonymous unjustly overlooks the important fact that the Cape Dutch population is totally omitted within the academic purview as though they never existed. The Cape Dutch population is MUCH larger than the Boer population therefore whenever the cavalier notion that the term Boer and Afrikaner refer to the "same" people is uttered, one is committing a grave offense of cultural colonialism because the Boer people are rendered a small minority within the amorphous Afrikaner designation.

The term Afrikaner was used by some Boers as they had historically been calling themselves Africans - mainly to point out their distinctiveness from the Cape Dutch! - as they had viewed Africa as their home and not Europe. The Cape Dutch on the other hand had always viewed Europe as their home thus it is ironic that they were the ones who politicized the term Afrikaner in 1875 when they appropriated it in a political context. The Cape Dutch had strong ties to Europe [ The Afrikaners: an historical interpretation. By Godfrey Hugh Lancelot Le May. ] and never supported the Boer people of the frontier. The Boers on the other hand had cut all ties to Europe [ The Great Trek. Oliver Ransford. Chapter one. Also noted within: The Devil's Annex. Sidney Robbins. Page 59. ] and were self sufficient / fiercely independent & anti-colonial. Another reason why some notable Boers were calling themselves Afrikaners during the late 19th cent. was the salient fact that the propaganda of the Afrikaner Bond was spreading into the areas of the Boer Republics. Former Orange Free State President F W Reitz was one of the few Boers who joined up with the Afrikaner Bond. The vast majority of the Boers wanted nothing to do with the Afrikaner Bond. Both President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic & President Marthinus Steyn of the Orange Free State Republics rebuffed the overtures of the Afrikaner Bond and wanted nothing to do with them. Paul Kruger also did not want too many of the Cape Dutch settling into the Transvaal Republic as he felt that they were too pro British & influenced by the British power.

The erroneous notion that the Boers and Afrikaners [ Cape Dutch ] are the same stems entirely from propaganda of the Afrikaner Broederbond [ which ran South Africa from the late 1940s ] which sought to craft a political language based group for the purposes of wresting South Africa from the direct control of the British. Prime Minister JBM Hertzog referred to ALL White citizens of South Africa as "Afrikaners". He referred to Afrikaans Afrikaners and English Afrikaners. The Afrikaans speaking Afrikaners got stuck with the term Afrikaner as the Anglophones drifted into their own political camp leaving the political notion of an Afrikaner being the descendents of the Cape Dutch & Boers by default. But this massively dispossessed and marginalized the smaller Boer people as they were outnumbered by the larger and more affluent Cape Dutch.

The one nation theory has no grounds in historical reality as the Boers were distinct from the Cape Dutch ever since the Boers emerged from the Trekboers on the Cape frontier by circa 1700 and rarely has any interaction with the Cape Dutch. There are a massive amount of books / articles and documentation expressly demonstrating and noting that the Boers and Cape Dutch are distinct groups. There are TWO White / Caucasian Afrikaans speaking groups in Southern Africa in much the same way that there are at least two main long established White / Caucasian French speaking people within Canada with the Quebecois and the Acadians of the Maritime provinces. The folks who deny the evidence that the Boers are distinct from the Cape Dutch Afrikaners are folks with a political agenda to dispossess the Boer people of their own hard won identity and their long running struggle for self determination.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ron7 (talk • contribs) 08:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Another important point demonstrating that the Boers are clearly distinct from the Cape Dutch is the salient fact that the Boers developed their own Afrikaans dialect on the Cape frontier that historians have classified as Eastern Border Afrikaans. This is noted at the Afrikaans Museum as well. If the Boers are somehow truly part of the Cape Dutch then it would have been impossible for them to have developed their own dialect. The Boer people are from the second colony that was established at the Cape not the first colony where the Cape Dutch coalesced. The Trekboers had moved well beyond Cape Town / Stellenbosch / Franschhoek & Paarl by circa 1700. A lot of further German arrivals settled directly to the northeastern Cape frontier during the 1700s where the semi nomadic Trekboers had settled thus helping to further shape a distinct origin from the Cape Dutch. The Boer people overshadow the history simply because their outlook for wanting independence and their vast migration / trekking movements called a lot of attention and focus to them over the quieter actions of the larger Cape Dutch. This is not surprising as subjects that are loyal to the Colonial power [ like the Cape Dutch ] will not be heard about very much while those who are struggling against the Colonial power [ like the Boers ] will be taken notice of much more. This has caused a lot of people to overlook the Cape Dutch people and erroneously presume that the folks that the 20th cent. establishment called Afrikaners are all from the Boers when in reality the Boer people are the smaller segment of the political based Afrikaner coalition.

Ron7 (talk) 05:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

NB: The sentence above which I marked in bold cannot be upheld.. Linguists have found innumerable exambles (in all parts of the world) of parts of ethno-linguistic groups which have developed their own dialiects. -- Aflis (talk) 16:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Dialects often arise from groups that have moved away from an original group. Often going on to form their own ethnic identity or group. Further: most of those examples are in fact "subgroups" ie: Northern American English / Southern American English / Canadian English. European examples from France include: Occitan / Langue D'Oc & Provencal. The fact of the matter is that the Boer dialect was the result of the group that settled on the Cape frontier from a particular group of impoverished people that was cut off from the Western Cape population by circa 1700. It is not very likely that those people [ the proto Boers ] would have developed their own distinctive dialect had they remained in the Western Cape region.

Ron7 (talk) 05:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Oliver Ransford noted in his book The Great Trek within Chapter One that the Trekboers "formed the nucleus of a new nation". Which was a poetic way of pointing out that the Boers are distinct from the Cape Dutch & are their own nation. Studies on the concentration camps used during the second Anglo-Boer War note that the British almost wiped out an entire nation - which would have been an inaccurate claim if the Boers were part of the Cape Dutch who were not put into any concentration camps seeing as they were often HELPING the British & rounding up Boers into the concentration camps. The fact that the Cape Dutch were pro-British & that many helped the British in their atrocities against the Boers should further demonstrate that the Boers & the Cape Dutch are not the same people / nation.

Ron7 (talk) 05:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

This link at: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/boers.html notes that the British war against the Boers "uprooted a whole nation" thus giving explicit recognition that the Boers were a distinct nation. Otherwise if the one nation theorists were right then it would have been the uprooting of just part of a nation.

Ron7 (talk) 05:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I may be wrong in this but a Boer and a Afrikaner are two different thing. A Afrikaner stayed behind in the cape when the Boere moved (after they had enough of British occupation). Culturally Afrikaners and Boere are as different as black and white, to the point where if you call a person of Boere decent a Afrikaner it would be the equivalent of calling a black person a the n word (wont use the word for obvious reasons). As a person that actually lives in South Africa I may not be 100% incline to accept the fact that the rest of the world would think that the Boer is a branch of the Afrikaner tree when its clear that the Boer and the Afrikaner are two different branches that just happened to come from the same trunk. Think it would be more correct if the page said that both Afrikaners and Boere are sub groups of the Dutch rather then saying the Boere is a sub group of Afrikaners

Sorry if I am typing this incorrectly have no idea how this page work lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.168.3.6 (talk • contribs) 07:04, 12 March 2014‎ (UTC)

That is fairly accurate but it is even more detailed than that. The Cape Dutch did not just stay behind during the Great Trek: they stayed behind during the earlier migrations of the Trekoers during the 1700s. The Trekboers were tired of the oppression they experienced under the rule of the Dutch East India Co. The Trekboers trekked up to hundreds of miles away from the Cape Dutch. Long before the arrival of the British. By the time the British arrived the Trekboers - then known as Boers - had been stopped from their natural migration trekking pattern after coming up against the Xhosa tribe of the far eastern Cape frontier. Further: the Cape Dutch were not calling themselves Afrikaners yet during the era of the Great Trek. It was not a term they started to appropriate for themselves until 1875 when a few intellectuals started a language rights group. Actually the Boers are not even from the Dutch as it was discovered that the vast majority of the so called Dutch that the VOC took to the Cape were in fact from the German minority seeking refuge in Holland [ who were originally from the north west portion of the area that comprises the modern era German state & bordering Holland. ] & also from the Frisian minority the VOC employed throughout Northern Europe. A considerable number were also from the French Huguenots who initially sought refuge in Holland. People tend to forget that the term Afrikaner is simply a political term referring to a political outlook representing a loose coalition of up to 3 different Caucasian groups established in Southern Africa that only caught on during the mid 20th cent. The term Afrikaner was aimed at consolidating at a political level the Cape Dutch with the Boers & the Anglophones. The Anglophones largely - but not entirely - opted out mainly over the stark language difference while the Boers were often susceptible to the Afrikaner Broederbond propaganda [ found within the schools / press & churches ] & distracted by the Afrikaans language they shared with the Cape Dutch albeit having different dialects. Not all the Boers were swayed though as there were always a number who insisted that they were not part of the Afrikaner & often campaigned for Boer self determination.

Ron7 (talk) 05:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry to object here Ron7, but while acknowledging a difference should be made between Cape Dutch and the descendants of those Boers who trekked into the Transvaal/Orange Free State/Natal regions, I think the lead sentence should stay as it is. When I go to South Africa and hear people talk about "Boers" - yes, one hears it in the Western Cape area, even Nyanga if you want to get technical - they're talking about the Afrikaans whites. The vast majority of people in the world are talking about white Afrikaans speakers in general if they refer to the "Boers". That's why the lead specifically states: "colloquially referred to as Boers..."

I know you've studied the subject extensively and would jump here saying, "Wait a minute! The so-called Afrikaners don't get to be called Boers, that name only goes to those who went on the Trek..." Yes, I get what you're saying. Yes, the article does differentiate. But the lead is merely noting that white Afrikaans people in general are informally known as "Boers". Not that all of them are Boers. No need to bash it like you did.

--Katangais (talk) 07:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Now you are confusing the manner in how the terms Boer & "boer" are used. The derogatory term "boer" was coined in the 20th cent. & referred to White South Africans in general & to the police & government in particular. Therefore: to many peoples mind's, a Cape Dutch can be a "boer" as much as a Boer or even an Anglophone for that mater. The point I was making was that it is only the descendents of the Trekboers who were called Boers [ capital B ] as various sources [ one of which I linked to in the article ] expressly noted that the term Trekboer was shortened to Boer. The Boers are not just the people who trekked into the Boer Republics. A lot of Boers did not go on the Great Trek. As many remained in the northern & eastern Cape whose descendents went on to become the bulk of the later Cape Rebels during the second Anglo-Boer War. The Boers are the descendents of the Trekboers. The Trekboers were the folks who trekked out of the Western Cape region one hundred & fifty years before the Great Trek. I am talking about the ethno cultural people that were called Boers... not the derogatory use of the term in lower case which is applied to all local White people in general & since the mid 20th cent. to Afrikaans speakers in particular. The Afrikaner establishment even goes so far as to suppress the use of the term Boer with a an upper case B as they do not want to lose their traditional control over that segment of the macro Afrikaans population.

Ron7 (talk) 07:57, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, fine. I did notice that the "Amaboere" heard so frequently on the streets of Joburg today is still capitalised in most written contexts, so that may have attributed to the confusion. I'm trying to keep the intro intentionally short, leaving the real meat on the Cape Dutch/Boer issue for the article itself - given the fact that it can get complicated for first time readers. --Katangais (talk) 08:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I stand by what I said above - I want the intro intentionally kept brief. However, I have removed the link to the Boer subgroup so readers can't confuse general usage of the term with the distinct people. Leaving it as "boer" is probably quite offensive. --Katangais (talk) 08:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The biggest problem with your obtuse conflation of the Afrikaners with the Boers is the salient fact that the Boers were not the ones who were in power during the 20th cent. in the same numbers as the Cape Dutch were. Your inaccurate opening paragraph gives people the erroneous impression that the downtrodden Boer people were the ones in power during the 20th cent. which would be numerically impossible along with the fact of the matter that their Boer Republics were conquered & subjugated by the British & the Cape Dutch. Which were then arbitrarily made into provinces of a united South African macro State created by a British law in the British Parliament. A lot of the Cape Dutch fought on the side of the British & helped to round Boer civilians up into the British concentration camps. To then flippantly assert that the Afrikaners who were in power were also "Boers" is obviously a huge inaccuracy & calumniates the Boer people who were lower on the political / socio economic rung.

Ron7 (talk) 06:20, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I removed the link to the "Boer" subgroup, so I'm obviously not talking about Boer people in that context. I'm referring to the general usage of the terminology. Furthermore, I have provided sources which explicitly back up the statement. For a period of history, it was culturally acceptable for many people used to call all Afrikaners "Boers". Both terms "Burgher" and "Boer" were still acceptable in reference to Afrikaners as a whole in the 1960s, according to Irving Kaplan's South Africa: A Country Study.

Furthermore, even more "flippant" than this properly sourced information is your biased and ignorant assertion that many Cape Dutch fought on the side of the British and helped round Boer civilians up into British concentration camps. Do I need to point out to you that many Cape Dutch also fought on the side of the Boers? --Katangais (talk) 08:21, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

This is what I mean when I note or point out your ignorance as you do not even know that the Cape Dutch were on the side of the British & it was only the Cape Boers of the frontier who were fighting on the side of the Boers of the Republics. The founder of Randburg Robert van Tonder noted in Chapter 13 of his 1977 book Boerestaat that many of the Cape Dutch were assisting the British war effort & helping to round up Boer civilians into concentrations camps. Quote from Chapter 13: "The Afrikaners of the Cape also supported the British war effort logistically by allowing them the use of their railways to transport troops and equipment to the north. Eventually they volunteered and fought on the British side against the Boere in the colony." End of quote. The Cape Dutch were historically pro British [ as well as anti-Boer ] & this was pointed out in depth within the book: Cecil Rhodes and The Cape Afrikaners by Mordechai Tamarkin. The problem with your use of the term Boer is that you are using it in the derogatory context in stead of the cultural context. The cultural context is much older than the derogatory context thus when you use it in the derogatory context that you do: people will presume that you are talking about the actual Boer people. No. That is a blatant lie! All Afrikaners were NEVER all called Boers! Only the folks of Trekboer descent were ever called Boers & this was even documented by Professor Hermann Gilimoee when he noted that is was only the folks of the frontier / interior who were called Boers. The Cape Dutch people were never called Boers for the simple reason that they were not descended from the Trekboers. Once again you do not use much discernment because the the government of the 1960s was in the process of stamping out the term Boer & was teaching children that everyone was an "Afrikaner". Which is another problem. There is no such thing as an "Afrikaner" in an ethnic context since this was a POLITICAL term that was used to describe all White South Africans [ this was pointed out in The White Tribe of Africa by David Harrison - though he too confuses the Cape Dutch with the Boers early on in his book mainly due to the Afrikaner Broederbond propaganda he was exposed to via the various people he interviewed ] regardless of language. Even Jan Hofmeyr of the Afrikaner Bond of the Cape during the 19th cent. used the term Afrikaner to describe all local White inhabitants of the region. Prime Minister JBM Hertzog coined the terms: "Afrikaans Afrikaner" & "English Afrikaner" to describe them but the terms were further shortened to English & Afrikaner thereby leaving the false impression that the Cape Dutch & Boers were part of the same ethnic / cultural group.

Ron7 (talk) 03:50, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

You assume that I have been brainwashed by the Nats' propaganda into labeling all Afrikaners as Boers. Spare me the knee-jerk reaction. My argument is not "all Afrikaners be identified as Boers!", but "all Afrikaners have been known in some circles [erroneous, according to you] as Boers". Hence, the wording "colloquially known as Boers..." You yourself have admitted that during apartheid the Nats used the terms Boer and Afrikaner interchangeably. I know they did, at least during the first reenactment of the Great Trek.

If people of the Boer subgroup have never held political power in South Africa, who is P.W. Botha?

--Katangais (talk) 19:26, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I never said that people from the Boer ethnic group never held power in South Africa - BUT they clearly did so as part of the Afrikaner political group. Other examples would have been Louis Botha / Hans Strijdom & possibly John Vorster & perhaps also F W de Klerk. There were very few Boers who held power under the Boer name or were acting as representatives for the Boer people. Unfortunately due to the significant influence of the old Broederbond [ which controlled so much ] it is hard to find someone who was not brainwashed by their propaganda. I pointed out that even British authors like David Harrison was certainly influenced by this skewed perspective as he sought out a lot of Broederbond members. The whole point of the first reenactment of the Great Trek [ which was a word that the Broederbond / National Party actually coined along with Voortrekker ] was specifically to co-opt the Boer people into the fold of the Afrikaner Nationalist [ which was actually much more socialist then true nationalist as a matter of fact ] political program because they did not want a rerun of the Maritz Rebellion of 1914 which was largely a Boer rebellion against the Afrikaner & British controlled government of South Africa & an attempt at restoring the Boer Republics. The Afrikaners under Malan did not want the Boer Republics to be restored or to loose control over the Boer population group so they used a notable episode of Boer history to graft the Boer people onto the Afrikaner project in the public consciousness as the centenary of the Great Trek fell right into their laps ripe for just such a project.

Ron7 (talk) 05:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, I apologise to all those of Afrikaans heritage I may have offended when I used the term "boer" (lowercase) in an edit summary. I had no idea it was a slur. Secondly, I have decided, after some deliberation, that it's best if we drop any references to Boers in the intro - given the sensitivity of this issue. The Cape Dutch/Boer discussion needs its own section and the opening (which I've been trying to keep brief and to the point) simply does not do it justice. --Katangais (talk) 19:41, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ron7 "The folks who deny the evidence that the Boers are distinct from the Cape Dutch Afrikaners are folks with a political agenda to dispossess the Boer people of their own hard won identity and their long running struggle for self determination." I think that it is important here to remember that the true issue at hand is not and never has been the Boer Peoples struggle for self determination. The Boer are slavist thieves as were all the other european whites who turned up. The issue as to the injury to the feelings of a righteous thief must of course remain forever mute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.148.163 (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

That is hateful & despicable nonsense & total slander & distortion. The issue has always' been over the Boer people's struggle to self determination. From the time they emerged on the Cape frontier through the various treks & liberation wars / their struggle against Dutch colonialism then later British colonialism which cost the Boer people over half of their child population within the British created concentration camps & their hard won internationally recognized Boer Republics which the British conquered at the conclusion of the second Anglo-Boer War & a struggle which continued throughout the 20th cent with the Maritz Rebellion of 1914 & other failed self determination movements which followed. To call the Boers "slavist" [ which is not a proper word ] is very one dimensional considering the fact that most of the Boers of the frontiers did not own slaves as noted by Professor Wallace Mills among other sources - & respected the independence of the local groups. The Boers are not "European White [ people ] who turned up"! The Boer people are an African people who emerged on African soil LONG BEFORE THE ARRIVAL of the European powers who oppressed & later conquered the Boer people as well. The Boers were not given any special consideration by the European powers when the latter came to Africa despite having a significant Caucasian heritage & origin. The Boers were treated as just badly as any other African people & were seen as such by the British. Asserting that the Boers are "thieves" is ridiculous when they purposely settled into depopulated lands & specifically skirted the densely populated region. The Bantu population groups who entered southern Africa could certainly be described as "slavist thieves" seeing as how they displaced & massacred the indigenous Khoisan population groups & took their land yet I doubt that you would use this as a pretext to dispossess them of their rights to inhabit the region. The Boer people treded much lighter yet they are routinely singled out for opprobrium by those who cannot see past their paler skin color. The Boer people are not related to the European Colonial Powers which came & Colonized / killed / dispossessed & conquered them as well. The Boer people emerged on the Cape frontier from the various groups the VOC dumped at the Cape & cannot be blamed for being a people within Africa since it was a heritage forced upon them centuries ago by a corporation.

Ron7 (talk) 07:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Australia + New Zealand

The population stats in the infobox need to be changed. Australia's 5000 and NZ's 1000 are based on census results where people identified as "Afrikaner". However, we all know these figures are tiny and wrong especially when you see that Afrikaans speakers (who are very likely the majority white) are numbering in the tens of thousands. I don't think we should put down Afrikaans speakers as the infobox figures but simply find another source or simply a question mark. Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

You know as well as I do that most whites in SA are bilingual, regardless of their ancestry. It's been that way since the '30s. We can't use fluency in Afrikaans alone to determine which ones are Afrikaners and which ones aren't. --Katangais (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

According to NZ census 2013, there are 27 000+ Afrikaans speakers in NZ. This number does not include the many of Afrikaners who did not participate in the census or did not fill in Afrikaans as a language, nor those of Afrikaans decent who no longer speak the language. The actual number is still higher, at least 40 000 and maybe as high as 60 000. Just search Afrikaans surnames in NZ on Linked in... more than a 100 van der Merwe professionals and large numbers for every Afrikaner surname you can think of. Afrikaner and South African immigration to NZ in general are being underestimated for political reasons. The total number of South Africans in NZ must be approaching 100 000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.175.137.147 (talk) 21:14, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but as I understand it that census you had to put down your native tongue right? Anyway, my point is that we shouldn't put the tiny figures in the infobox as they are midleading unless there's a genuine source out there Bezuidenhout (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Until a more credible source emerges, we work with what we have. This isn't exactly a well-documented topic. BTW the census in Oz only asks if another language other than English is spoken, and if so to please clarify. They make no attempt to differentiate between which one is the mother tongue. --Katangais (talk) 23:15, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

No: they are not descended "predominantly" of Dutch origins.

Author & researcher J A Heese who authored the book: Herkoms van die Afrikaner noted & documented that the origins were: Dutch 34.8%, German 33.7%, French 13.2%, Non White 6.9%, British 5.2%, Other European nations 2.7%, Unknown 3.5%. GFC de Bruyn used a different form of calculation and his results were: Dutch 34.1%, German 29.2%, French 24.7%, British 0.3%, Other European nations 2.4%, Non European 5.4%, Unknown 3.9% Both of these calculations demonstrate that the Dutch origins were not the predominate group as it was nowhere near the 51% threshold. Furthermore Dutch based journalist Adriana Struijt found that most of the so called Dutch arrivals were in fact taken from the Frisian ethnic minority group not the Dutch. Canadian Professor Wallace Mills noted that the VOC in fact took mostly folks from the German ethnic group to the Cape. The Huguenot Society of South Africa noted that the French Huguenot roots account for close to 25% of the White Afrikaans roots. I noticed in your terse & obtuse comment that you failed to factor in the salient fact that a large amount of German & French names were RESPELLED to conform to a Dutch spelling!!! The book: Les Huguenots qui fait l'Arfrique du Sud by Bernard Lugan pointed out how many of the Huguenot names were respelled to conform to a Dutch spelling ie: Lombard was changed to Lombaar / Guillaumé was changed to Giliomee / Jourdan was changed to Jordaan / Cronier was changed to Cronje / Pinard was changed to Pienaar etc. The fact of the matter is that the cavalier assertion that their roots were "predominantly" of Dutch origins: is quite viably demonstrated to be quite contested.

Ron7 (talk) 07:39, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not uneducated on the history of Afrikaners, Ron. I've read all those studies you mentioned above. Heese was only estimating, based on the educated guess that most of the employees of the Dutch East India Company at the time were Germans, specifically those of the Low German linguistic group. He's right - but as I stated in the edit summary, most of them were male. Same with the Huguenots. If you read the list of Huguenot names on the same Huguenot Society of South Africa you mentioned, you'll find most of them took wives with Dutch-sounding surnames. Ever wondered why the Germans/Huguenots adopted the Dutch language and religion so quickly, in less than three generations? Most of them were single men. The VOC wanted them assimilated to the Dutch community, so they made sure 90% of the white women in the Cape were Hollanders - a number of them orphan girls.

So, we're looking at a combination of Dutch families (Van der Merwe, etc), Dutch-German families (Botha, Vosloo, etc), and Dutch-Huguenot families (Viljoen, etc), not three separate communities. The fact that so many (with a few very rare exceptions, such as the Pienaars) took Dutch wives is a matter of public record. You can see an extensive list here if you don't believe me: http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/index.htm

The reason the Huguenot Society of South Africa claims that Afrikaners up to 25% Huguenot is because at least 25% have French-origin surnames. Has nothing whatsoever to do with their pedigree. As you very well know, the male surname is always the one carried on. All the Dutch females who intermarried with French or Germans lost their maiden names in the process.

Look at the chart provided under "1691 Estimates". Roughly two-thirds of the Afrikaans parent stock came from the Netherlands. Due to the fact that so much intermixture has gone on since then, the people can no longer be identified as a monolithic Dutch group; that does not mean that most of their ancestors weren't Dutch. --Katangais (talk) 07:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Once again you display a frightening level of ignorance here. The vast majority of the French Huguenot refugees were married or often married other Huguenots. Read more here at this link: http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/first-large-group-french-huguenots-arrive-cape-0 It is well documented that the French Huguenots stuck to themselves for quite a while & even had a French preacher until the VOC decided to intersperse the Huguenot population with the others long after they had already bore full ethnic French Huguenot descents. The first Huguenot who came to the Cape in 1671: Francois Villion married a Dutch girl in Holland just before arriving at the Cape but the vast majority of the Huguenots came as established families during the largest wave from 1687 to 1690. A few families came up to 1707 & one came in 1726. Then you expose how you cannot even use basic logic. If the macro White Afrikaans population has 25% surnames of French Huguenot origin... then that would mean that their roots are upwards of 50% French as they had girls not just boys. No you are wrong once again. The Huguenot society states quote: [ Research has shown that the contribution of the Huguenot genes to the Afrikaner people amounts to some 24%. ] Click the following for the source: http://www.hugenoot.org.za/huguenots.htm They are not talking about just NAME contribution but rather the contribution of their GENES!!!!! The Huguenot families contributed a lot more GENES to than they did names as names are only carried on by the male members. I respectfully ask that you to stop contributing uninformed text here until you have at least studied this topic further.

I just told you from before: coming from the Netherlands does not necessarily mean that the progenitors were Dutch!!!!! Damn it man - once again you demonstrate that you are incapable of using basic logic. Dutch are not the only people found in the Netherlands. There is a strong Frisian minority & as I pointed out: a reporter accessed the DOCUMENTS pertaining to the people that the VOC pulled out of the Netherlands & she found that they were overwhelmingly from the Frisian minority not the Dutch. Just about all of the various groups the Boers & Cape Dutch are from were mostly all taken out of the Netherlands. But to myopically presume that this then means that they were all Dutch is the height of ignorance. This is because a lot of Germans were seeking refuge in Holland from Catholic persecution. The French Huguenots first fled to Holland before being sent to the Cape. Many Huguenots remained in Holland. So for you come come here with this snide & naively obtuse: "look at the cart" nonsense does not prove your erroneous assertion at all!!!!! It would be tantamount to asserting that all Quebecers are Occitan because they were taken from France. "Look at the chart" you might aver. Which is pure nonsense since the vast majority of the ancestors of the Quebecers were taken from the Nomandy region to the north.

I should also remind you that the term Dutch often pertained to a whole host of Germanic [ no not just German ... Germanic ] peoples back in the era in question & is why to this day the German origin Amish communities of the USA are still referred to as the Pennsylvania Dutch. The term Dutch does not apply to just the ethnic Dutch of Holland. It was & is used to describe Germanic peoples in general with the general exception of the British. The Boers & Afrikaners are mostly of Germanic origin but not Dutch in the Netherlands ethnic sense. To erroneously assert that they are "predominately" of Dutch origin is a gross inaccuracy as it wrongly implies that they are of Holland Dutch roots. The term Dutch could only be accurate under an archaic definition as today we tend to use the term Germanic.

Ron7 (talk) 06:04, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Christ, calm down. It's not the end of the world and you don't need to add six exclamation points to back up your point. Furthermore, there's no need to use THIS kind of language. If we can't be civil and open-minded, no point in even discussing this further.

First off - I'm not talking about Germans or Huguenots who were born in the Netherlands. I'm only talking about the ethnic group covered in the article Dutch people.

The number of genes from the Low German and Huguenot subgroups has increased over time due to the level of intermarriage. Are you really so uninformed that you believe that Germans, Huguenots, and Dutchmen lived at the Cape in equal numbers? I've compiled a list of all the progenitors of the most common surnames among Afrikaners today, according to the 1964 population register of South Africa. So far 86 ancestors are Dutch, 4 Belgian, 41 German, and 50 French. You do the math - plus this supports the chart of nationalities from 1691. Examples of families with prominent French/German surnames and Dutch progenitors (meaning they married in the first or second generation) include the Labuschagnes, Breytenbachs, Dreyers, Booysens, Groenewalds, Badenhorsts, Visagies, du Plessis', du Plooys', Coetzees, and Krugers. You see those three big surnames in the article - Pretorius, Botha, and van der Merwe? Those families also had at least one Dutch progenitor as well.

Now for the last time, listen to me: I'm not trying to imply that Afrikaner people are Holland Dutch. I'm trying to note that most of the parent stock were Dutch, nothing more. The intro is supposed to be brief, so the smaller contribution of Huguenots, Low Germans, Danes, Belgians, and others is simply covered in greater detail later on the article. --Katangais (talk) 08:49, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Once again you deliberately miss the point that many of the so called "Dutch" were in fact not Dutch. Another thing you forget is that many of the boys & young men that the VOC pulled out of northern Europe did not even have formal surnames & were often named after the towns that the VOC took them from. Examples like Van Vuuren [ named after & taken form the town of Vuuren / Van Rensburg [ named after & taken from the own of Rijnburg ] Van Tonder [ named after & taken from the town of Tonder within Denmark ] Just about anyone whose surname starts with van [ which means "from" or "of" ] were among those who were GIVEN surnames by the VOC thus further obscuring their true ethnic origins. This is the crux of the problem because you uncritically presume that all those folks are of Dutch origin when it is impossible to tell by simply looking at the FABRICATED surnames whether they are actually ethnic Dutch or not. A very important point to remember is that the VOC was in the process of trying to get rid of the ethnic minorities of Holland & would not likely be getting rid of too many actual ethnic Dutch. Van Riebeeck's diary reveals the DISDAIN that he had for the folks he pulled out of Europe & dumped at the Cape which went beyond a simple class or economic station animosity as it was revealed that they could not even speak "proper Dutch" which was a big clue that they could not have been ethnic Dutch. Asserting that I must "calm down" is rich coming from someone who employs the derogatory use of the term "boer" which will only confuse people into thinking that you are talking about the actual Boer people & who asserts that most of the progenitors were Dutch when in reality the Dutch were the original oppressors of the ancestors of the Boers & Cape Dutch population.

Ron7 (talk) 04:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I did my research very thoroughly. When I say, "Predominantly Dutch" I mean "Predominantly South Hollanders" because it's true. I didn't just naively assume that any Afrikaans ancestor with a Dutch-sounding surname belonged to that ethnic group. You made an excellent example of the van Tonders, who are from Denmark or the van Rensburgs who came from Germany, and I could give you others: the Potgieters, van Niekerks, van Collers, Swarts, van Eedens, Vorsters, and the du Plooys all had Low German progenitors.

Here's what I did. About 1,626,000 Afrikaans-speaking whites participated in the SA Population Register of 1964. I compiled a list of their surnames and looked up the ancestors for each family on http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/index.htm. Those 1,626,000 people descended from about 86 persons who were born in the present day Netherlands with established Dutch surnames. They were also descended from 50 French Huguenots, 41 Low Germans mostly from the Rhine-Westphalia region, 5 European unknowns, 4 Belgians, 4 Indian/Angolan slaves, 2 Danes, 1 Swede, 1 Coloured of slave descent, 1 Swiss, and 1 Luxembourger. According to the 1960 Census, there were roughly 1.6 million "Afrikaners" in the Republic - so that's about right.

If you wish, I can give a list of the surnames, matched to each progenitor. You could tell at a glance that they represent the bulk of Afrikaans-speaking whites even today.

Now, regarding the statement you made that the Dutch abused the Boer/Cape Dutch peoples, I'm not denying that. I also agree with you that Boer/Cape Dutch are not (European) Dutch, nor should they be identified as Hollanders. These people are a distinctly African ethnic group, originated in Africa, made up of Africans. And yes, they were all mistreated by the VOC. But to state that most of their ancestors weren't Dutch, merely oppressed by Dutch, is simply an erroneous statement. --Katangais (talk) 20:15, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I just wish the opening paragraph could be as clear as you were in your latest post. But I still maintain that it is very unclear whether the so called Dutch progenitors were really all Dutch in light of the findings of journalist Adriana Struijt who obtained documents in & from Holland which noted that they were mostly from the Frisian minority group & not from the Dutch majority group. Canadian Professor Wallace Mills noted that the VOC actually took a lot of folks from the German ethnic group out to the Cape. That statistic looks a little low because it was reported that there were a total of 1.5 million "Afrikaners" during the 1930s. Then by 1990 there was about 3.5 million. I find it strange they they only grew about 100 000 from 1930 to 1960 yet were documented to have grown almost two million from 1960 to 1990. Something does not add up literally. Considering also that immigration to South Africa from 1960 to 1990 declined & comparatively fewer would have been absorbed into the Afrikaans speaking population.

Ron7 (talk) 04:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about the importance of the Frisian component. Many of the so-called "Dutch" erroneously identified as such among early Afrikaners were actually Frisians. Furthermore, as I've already stated, it's a myth that Afrikaners are a monolithic people of Dutch origin when they were in fact a very diverse mixture of Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, Huguenot, Low Saxon, etc with some contribution from slaves and Scandinavians. While the VOC seems to have made it intentionally difficult to separate the Dutch arrivals from the Frisians (ie sending them on the same ships, etc) in most cases these individuals were part of the Frisian minorities in Lower Saxony where the VOC drew most of her German vrijburghers. Granted, there were exceptions, but many were also the first- or second-generation children of German born immigrants in the Netherlands, so this matches up with your theory that the Dutch were trying to get rid of minorities (especially German ones). These families were classified with the Low Germans for my research, and they're still outnumbered by the South Hollanders.

While Frisians today represent a huge part of Afrikaner bloodlines (ie the Botha clan), and many were incorrectly referenced as Dutch, they still weren't a majority among the original colonists. Listen, I know that an over-identification with the Netherlands and her symbolism on the part of some Afrikaans people is absurd, but that's no reason to downplay the importance of South Hollanders in their overall bloodline. But listen to what else I discovered:

Interestingly enough, Germans did form an ethnic majority among the trekboers. It's only when the Boer/Cape Dutch segments are combined that the Dutch DNA dominates. Who knows? Maybe that's why the latter are called "Cape Dutch" and their ventures (such as the Afrikaner Bond) received so much backing from Amsterdam. I would also point out that the southwestern Cape dialects are much closer to South Holland Dutch than those spoken further east. --Katangais (talk) 19:30, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I have long since known that the Trekboers were mostly of German origin since many of the Germans who came out in the 1700s settled directly in the northeastern Cape frontier where the Trekboers had emerged & who already had significant German roots. That is why some people today assert that the Boer people are mostly of German origin, but of course they are descended also from the other groups that settled as well. Whenever the Boer & Cape Dutch segments are combined - it will always be the Cape Dutch DNA that will dominate for the simple reason that the Cape Dutch outnumber the Boers by a wide margin. From what I read the Cape Dutch were called Cape Dutch by the trekking Trekboers over the Cape Dutch's loyalty to Holland while the Trekboers were rather anti-colonial & had cut all ties to Europe. [ the latter point of cutting ties to Europe noted by authors Oliver Ransford in The Great Trek & by Sidney Robbins in The Devil's Annexe: A Continent in Agony on page 59. ] It is quite plausible that the Cape Dutch do indeed have more Dutch genes than the Boers as the loyalty that the Cape Dutch had to Holland seemed quite natural to them. The Cape Dutch were perplexed as to why the Boers were so adamant in wanting independence & did not relate to the Boers' harsher frontier experiences & dissatisfaction with the Dutch administrative regimes. The Boers were descended from the poorest members of Cape society as the Trekboers also often remained & it also appears the Boers were descended from a collection of the ethnic groups which were most outside of the Dutch collection. Historians have classified the dialect of the Boers as Eastern Border Afrikaans [ also as: Eastern Cape Afrikaans ] since that was the region where that specific dialect developed. The so called Afrikaners are not even a monolithic people of Cape Dutch & Boer origin as those are simply two distinct cultural groups [ like the Quebecois & Acadians who might both speak French & live in eastern Canada but have different histories ] with different histories who were lumped together in the 20th cent. for political purposes: mainly to create an artificial Afrikaans language voting block which was used to outmaneuver the local Anglophones at the polls. Since much of the history of the macro White Afrikaans speaking population [ particularly ever since the aftermath of the second Anglo-Boer War ] was often written by British & Afrikaner sources: getting to the truth concerning matters related specifically to just the Boer population is often difficult. I think it would be interesting to know how much the Boers' ethnic roots differ to that of the Cape Dutch.

Ron7 (talk) 04:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't really understand this discussion, or rather: the need for this discussion. It would seem like someone (Ron7) wants to push an ideological POV to separate Afrikaners from Dutch people as much as at all possible, for a narrative painting them as an oppressed people of the latter. Then there's a lot of talk of how much of the settlers were actually "Frisian", "Flemish", "(Low) German", "Danish" and whatnot, as to prove they were not "really" Dutch after all? This is wholly nonsensical to me, and to anyone who understands the historical composition of the Dutch people or any people in general. Who is to be called "Dutch" anyways? Those living within Dutch borders? Those with a Dutch nationality or even passport, which is a recent convention? Frisians are then Dutch too according to those definitions. Or you could say just 1600s "South Holland Dutch" is "originally Dutch", but many of those are descended from Flemish refugees after the Spanish took hold of the Southern Netherlands. Many North-Hollanders are in some sense naturalized Frisians, who had colonized the area earlier. Are Low Germans not Dutch in some sense? Many people in the North and East of the Netherlands traditionally speak dialects that are Low Saxon just like those across the border. Actually the word "Dutch" and "Deutsch" are cognates meaning "(of the) common people". Do we really need to go into these complexities when just giving a general impression in the introduction? Is there any reason for not saying "predominantly Dutch" other than essentially ideological ones? I mean, as soon as the Huguenots, (Low) Germans or any other immigrants adopted Dutch language and general culture, then surely they are to be regarded as Dutch in a socio-cultural, when not genetic, sense? Just like the Flemish and other refugees shortly after the creation of the Dutch Republic? Fedor (talk) 11:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

As an interesting side-note: I am Dutch and my paternal Grandmother is of French Huguenot origins. Many French refugees went to the Netherlands and stayed there. So this artificial differentiation between the Dutch and Afrikaner nations at that early stage is really quite absurd. Again: Much more than one's genetic heritage, it is one's adoption of and assimilation into Dutch culture and language that that makes one 'Dutch'. Fedor (talk) 13:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Questions regarding the Afrikaner population during Dutch colonial rule in the Cape Colony: 1652 - 1806

I have read on different Wikipedia articles as well on different paragraphs in this subject, that the Afrikaner or European population in the Dutch Cape Colony (DCP) has been numbered and estimated quite differently a lot on the same historical occasions. For example: in the year 1695 it ranged from 16.000 up to more than 60.000, while in the year 1806 or 1814 it shared that same range. It's also for some reason unclear, as it seems from the lack of population information on this page, as to what the historical population of the Afrikaners actually were during the inception of the Dutch Cape Colony at Cape Town in 1652 all the way up to 1814. Is there a reason for this? Is it because there are no clear sources at hand, as to what the definite population was at that time? Didn't the VOC government in the DCP hold a census every year or decade? This would sound strange to me. Because firstly, I would assume that it would be a casual thing for a multinational enterprise to keep track of their business right? Secondly, that even though the VOC was declared bankrupt in 1795 and the DCP was formally ceded to the British Empire in 1814, the VOC would still hold these kind of census records and otherwise some government. If there is a place where you would be able to find this information on the exact number of Europeans or Afrikaners in the DCP between 1652 and 1806??--Vicaussie94 (talk) 13:24, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The VOC didn't pay much attention to the Cape Colony, and certainly even less to the settlers. As far as I can tell, it was up to the individual governor when he wanted to number his subjects, hence the inconsistency. Some placed a higher degree of emphasis on it than others. The British were better at maintaining statistics.

BTW it's a serious overestimation to suggest that over 16,000 Afrikaners lived in the territory during the seventeenth century. According to the first British records, the original colonists only numbered about 26,720 when they arrived - and that was circa 1806. --Katangais (talk) 19:44, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I have both read and heard that the VOC indeed didn´t paid much attention towards their Colony. It´s a real shame though. It does explain though why the VOC finally went bankrupt in 1795, because of heavy corruption like that. They were more interested in making money than the human toll it would take, and also blind for the fact of creating and building a great free settler colony, like the British with Australia did for example, which would have been a lot better for them and for their profit. So it´s understandable with that mentality and attitude they were unwilling to invest a lot in a so called ´´refreshment station´´. It also makes sense as to why it took 13 years to complete the Castle Of Good Hope btw. It´s a nice piece of work though.

BTW, by a serious overestimation that 16.000 Afrikaners lived in the DCP, you meant the 17th or 18th century? Because you said the 17th, I thought you were talking about the 1600´s and there was never that amount of Afrikaners counted at that time. I read somewhere that the number of Afrikaners in the year 1706 was counted as between 1700 and 2500. And between 4000 and 5500 in 1740. I guess from these samples, you could count your source population of 26,720 as true, but I estimate it not to be in the year 1806 and I could be right. Because you pointed out the British arrived and took over the Cape Colony in 1806, while that happened much earlier in 1795: after the Dutch Republic became a French satellite state under Napoleon in that same year. Hence the British invaded this strategically important Colony with the goal of securing their trading interests. So through the use of interpolating from those samples and the fact I just told, I estimate the Afrikaner population to be 27.000 in 1795 instead. Although I have no source for this except myself, it would be most logic to ask if you would know where I could find the DCP and British Cape Colony Afrikaner population census records and can put the information right on this page and put all the doubt behind us?--Vicaussie94 (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The raw VOC archive at the Cape has been reproduced in book form, but I haven't the slightest inkling as to where you might find a copy. I've only seen in referenced in second-hand sources, such as the first volume of Afrikaner political thought: Analysis and Documents by du Toit and Giliomee, which cites the following figures:

• 1690 - 788 Vrijburghers, 381 Slaves
• 1770 - 7,736 Vrijburghers, 8,220 Slaves
• 1798 - 20,350 Vrijburghers, 25,754 Slaves

If you want to try looking them up yourself, some of the most significant records were reproduced in Theal's Belangrijke Historische Dokumenten over Zuid-Afrika, which you can find here. No idea if that book also included the census information but I reckon it's a warm possibility. Can't read Netherlands Dutch though. --Katangais (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the link and the information. I will try what I can. Lucky that I can read Dutch though, as I have been studying it for the last 8 years. You will hear from me as soon as I have figured it all out.--Vicaussie94 (talk) 09:39, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

1691 estimates

I take issue with the way the new chart is worded. For one, it describes "European families" when in fact most of these individuals had been born in Africa by the time it ends (1795) and the first expression of Afrikaner identity had already occurred. Secondly, by using the terminology "that have settled...in different periods" the chart suggests that we are denoting immigration figures, rather than the number of residents - both new arrivals and the settled who have lived there for generations. Thirdly, the figure of "1,526" is equally misleading, since it is calculated by adding together all the figures cited for each given era. That means some families are counted twice, others thrice, and so on. It almost reads like a deliberate attempt to inflate what was (then) actually an incredibly small population group. There weren't 1,526 white families in the Cape until well into the nineteenth century. --Katangais (talk) 02:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

External links

The WP:Linkfarm in the external links section should be trimmed. Some of the entries are simply linkspam, others represent fringe POVs and some are simply not specifically relevant. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:34, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Origins of Afrikaans

Author, your article refers to Afrikaans as a "dialect which evolved from the Dutch vernacular of medieval Brabant".

The main article on Afrikaans says otherwise(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans). So does that of Dutch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language). Take the time and check the citations; I am sure you will find them more, uhm, relevant.197.76.145.11 (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree, this claim about "medieval Brabant" makes no sense at all. The Dutch settle in the Cape during the second half of the 17th century (a long time after the "medieval" era) and most of them spoke various South Hollandic dialects. The paragraph also omits the French contribution from Huguenot settlers. (BTW IP 197.76.145.11, there is no single "Author", that's just not how a wiki works.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

That is in fact what the given citation claims word for word. I'll review my sources and replace the particular phrase with something more relevant if indeed this violated WP:Fringe as far as consensus on the origins of Afrikaans are concerned. @Dodge I've always understood that the French contribution to Afrikaans was relatively minor and survives only in a handful of surnames, place names, etc. Though present in French, the curious double negations and Latin-esque loanwords in Afrikaans have also been attributed to English and the Khoisan languages, respectively. --Katangais (talk) 17:29, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Fedor, there is an ongoing discussion pertaining to the disputed text here. I would appreciate if you would make your comments known to everybody else before removing cited statements without doing your research. I have looked at Nelson's work cited in the text again and located the information with relative ease. Your claims to the contrary are simply not holding up.

Pg. 121 of the given source states, "Afrikaans is a form of Dutch derived from Middle Netherlandic, the spoken language of seventeenth -century Brabant, in an area overlapping the boundary of modern Holland and Belgium."

I have confirmed it is available at the link you posted here.--Katangais (talk) 18:23, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, for (momentarily?) reverting to my original changes; I overlooked the discussion here and thought that my corrections were reversed by mistake, because it happened in tandem with the reversal of changes by an anonymous IP. I will look at the mentioned source and report back asap. Fedor (talk) 22:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I looked at it and still stand by my position. I can see how you can base this on that particular quote, but it is muddled and ambiguous, which is why you have interpreted it wrongly. "Middle Netherlandic" or Middle Dutch was spoken between roughly 1100 and 1500, as you can read up on yourself, long before 1634. So therefore alone it does not make sense to state that Afrikaans is based on a particular dialect of Medieval Dutch. So why would the writers phrase it like that? I think this is because Standard Dutch itself has been largely based on medieval Brabantian, and thus, by extension, Afrikaans too. This happened during the split of the Netherlands after the Dutch Revolt in 1566, where the southern lands, amongst wich the chief part of the duchy of Brabant, remained occupied by the Catholic Spanish. This triggered a huge immigration of Protestant Southern Dutch (mainly Brabantian) refugees who settled in Holland and subsequently influenced the main form of the Dutch language, which was later exported to South Africa. This is also stated here: Dutch_language#Development_phases That is probably the reason for that particular phrasing, but it is still poorly formulated, I think. In any case, one would need a little more than a single ambiguous quote from a non-scientific source to base one's case on. How about a more thorough analysis of linguistic characteristics? No matter what, however, such details are more appropriate on the actual page on the Afrikaans language itself. Fedor (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

"Scientific sources" and "Non-scientific sources" are some terribly vague terms. I would assume you're referring to a study that focuses specifically on the linguistics of the language, but could you define them for me in this context please?

Harold Nelson is hardly an obscure fringe; he's well regarded in the US academic community for his work on Southern Africa and has published a number of books pertaining to both South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). If he doesn't count as a "scientific" source I'm genuinely at a loss as to what does. --Katangais (talk) 22:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I never claimed that the author was fringe or non-scientistific, but the source used is a military handbook, not a linguistic study. I am confused as to why "scientific" versus "non-scientific" would be vague. A "handbook", or encyclopedia for that matter, may base itself to varying degrees on scientific consensus, but is not a scientific source in itself; it is merely a summary as assessed by the author. A scientific source would be something that is the result of scientific analyses in the relevant fields and peer-reviewed. I have done some searching and found some more relevant sources, that hit the point home. Fedor (talk) 06:08, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Dutch linguist G.G. Kloeke did a comprehensive study on the origin of Afrikaans, comparing it to different Dutch dialects, and concludes that the original language, as formed by around 1700, would be largely based on South Holland dialects, although slight influences from -amongst others- Brabantian cannot be ruled out. Herkomst en groei van het Afrikaans - G.G. Kloeke (1950) English summary See also: Roots of Afrikaans - Hans den Besten (2012) Fedor (talk) 06:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

This more recent study also confirms the findings of Kloeke (1950) that "The two chief sources of Afrikaans, the old dialects of South Holland on the one hand and the High Dutch on the other, are reflected in the vocal system. In some respect Afrikaans is of a pronounced conservative “Holland” dialectal character": The origin of Afrikaans pronunciation: a comparison to west Germanic languages and Dutch dialects - Wilbert Heeringa, Febe de Wet (2007) Fedor (talk) 06:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Nomenclature

So, I have some running commentary relating to this section in the article: "Boers" is an anglicisation of "Boere"; which is Afrikaans (and Dutch) for "farmers" (singular would be "boer"). And then, "burghers" is another anglicisation ("burgers"); which is Afikaans (and Dutch) for "citizens", which I would imagine is how one would've distinguished oneself from a slave, during that period?

In the second paragraph, Hendrik Briebouw (1707) referred to being "African" not an Afrikaner. In other words, reference to his heritage as apposed to race and language. So I think the article can go without this section. Comments? ruan (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The section was more to introduce the distinct Boer and Cape Dutch subgroups of the Afrikaner population, as well as introduce the first instance widely cited by historians as a Dutch colonist identifying as an "African". Giving a run-down on both of these are essential for the audience to understand the article later on. Keep in mind that "Afrikaner" and its variations ("Afrikander", "Afrikaaner", "Afrikaander", etc) simply means "African" so there's no reason to differentiate. --Katangais (talk) 23:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

No, I disagree: "African" refers to anything relating to Africa (the continent) - in the case of Briebouw, a native African. In 1707 saying to a magistrate (i.e. the authorities) that you are not European would land you in trouble, as African natives were associated with the Khoisan and Black populace (also slaves). Nothing to do with the Afrikaans language. ruan (talk) 19:24, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, in his context "Afrikaander" was used to refer to Coloureds and the slaves they brought over from the colony in Mauritius, including Biebouw's stepmother (who had also adopted the Dutch language). As noted in the text, his Coloured siblings were probably identified as such. The Khoisan and other groups like the Xhosa were at first - when contact was quite limited - simply designated "non-Christians" to separate them from the slave/burgher populace that were, and later "Hottentot" and "Kaffir", respectively. BTW this is a unique case of an ethnic community hijacking a term to the point that it exits its mainstream usage in Dutch.

The fact remains that most historians have accepted Biebouw and his declaration, whether indeed it was a drunken slip of tongue or just a rebellious teenager being brash, as that defining point of the nomenclature; therefore it passes WP:Fringe. Your opinion unfortunately does not. --Katangais (talk) 20:23, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I have read your source material (Kaplan et al), quite an interesting read. However, it was most certainly not penned with only history in mind - check the introduction. Secondly it was produced in the 70's - since then there has been several watershed events. When I read your post above, I get the impression that you (and some other users) are giving history way too much weight. At the end of the day, when "defining" myself as an Afrikaner, any historian's point of view is ultimately irrelevant. The same applies to when referring to my mother-tongue, Afrikaans. and BTW, there are no sub-groups in the Afrikaner populace. Complete nonsense. ruan (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Afrikaner not equal to Dutch

It is baffling that somebody seems to have proposed replacing "Afrikaner" by "Dutch" throughout the article - after all that is said in the artice itself about the origin of the Afrikaner not only from the Netherlands, but also from France and Germany, and about their social identity that is clearly distinct from that of the Dutch. --Aflis (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Certainly that would be an erroneous assertion to make, but to my knowledge no such proposal has been introduced. If we're discussing the edit by the anonymous IP that was clearly an act of vandalism that has been dealt with. --Katangais (talk) 15:41, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Seeing as how we need to seemingly return to this discussion: I don't believe the article underplays the role of German VOC employees and French Huguenots in the formation of the Afrikaner community. However, some editors in the past have used their contribution to overplay their role thereof, such as an undue emphasis on Afrikaners being a German or Allemannic people, or even a significant cultural French diaspora, of which it is not. There have also been moved in the past to cram a number of other related nationalities in that lead-in line ("But Afrikaners do have some Walloon/Swiss/Luxembourgish/Danish ancestry...!") and it has never been in the article's best interest. --Katangais (talk) 13:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, well, well. Apparently, this kind of exchanging arguments could go on endlessly. As I have only a side interest in this article, I am opting out. "Let us agree not to agree"..Aflis (talk) 16:04, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand what's to disagree about. Nobody claims in the article that modern day Afrikaners are Dutch. The only thing is that Afrikaner roots are predominantly Dutch as is the origin of their language of Afrikaans. Modern day Australians aren't British either (apart from being in the UK Commonwealth), but their ethnic roots are definitely British. Amphioxys (talk) 05:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Afrikaans speakers do not equal Afrikaners

Hi all,

As some of you may have noticed, the population figures for Oz and NZ in the infobox have recently been updated to include all Afrikaans speakers. I feel this has partly been my fault as I started the practice of adding figures based solely on the use of Afrikaans. However, I feel this needs to come to an end. Wikipedia typically classifies people according to self-identification; therefore, those who choose not to identify explicitly as Afrikaners but rather simply as Afrikaans speakers should be excluded from our tallies.

Why? Well, the more I interact with white South Africans the more I realise most of them speak both English and Afrikaans, regardless of which one is their first language. The Australian census simply asks if another language is spoken, and if so to specify. Well, the majority of white SA English speakers in Oz (native Durbanites probably being an exception in general) can also truthfully answer Afrikaans. Therefore, it's erroneous to assume that all white Saffies in the diaspora who are also fluent in Afrikaans are Afrikaners. The growing intermarriage with English speakers has also produced any number of 100% bilingual households where the children speak flawless Afrikaans but do not call themselves Afrikaners.

And it's not just Australia. I propose that the Swazi and Zambian figures also be struck from the infobox, as they also ignore this fact and the former in particular also has quite a few Coloureds who are predominantly Afrikaans speakers.

Language fluency alone does not correspond to ethnicity.

Let's stop unilaterally assigning people an ethnic group based on their Afrikaans fluency alone, and stick to self-identification for the infobox figures.

--Katangais (talk) 16:32, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

"The ANC favours the majority blacks"

I have twice removed this segment for a number of reasons. Firstly, the built-in ambiguity of the sentence (what that sentence actually says is that because only approximately 2% of Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans vote for the ruling ANC, this favours the majority blacks). But that's a minor. So, let's focus on substance. What is that segment actually saying? That its policies are geared towards favouring blacks? So, is the FF+ not geared towards favouring whites? That its policies are geared towards improving the lives of the underprivileged/ marginalised etc? It so happens that these are overwhelmingly black, so in essence we are saying that the ANC favours the underprivileged. Or is that segment saying that the ANC pure and simply favours blacks? Well, blacks are its constituency - is it not the nature of political parties to favour their constituencies? I believe that that is the very nature of political parties - "vote for me, I will fight for your causes (favour you)". So, if it really means something, there must be a better — and clearer — way of saying it. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 15:07, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Afrikaners. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

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Separate Article on Afrikaner-Americans?

I was thinking about it, and, what would people think about an article on Afrikaner-Americans? It would make more sense as they are an ethnic group just like any other American ethnic group (English, German, Italian, etc.)?Nickeleh (talk) 00:47, 3 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickeleh (talk • contribs) 04:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

There already is an article for South Africans who are also Americans, and I'd point out that the number of white South Africans who have either acquired American citizenship or have descendants living in the US is skewed towards English speakers. Although Afrikaners in the US do include some prominent figures such as Charlize Theron, they are an extremely small minority among the Saffie and even white Saffie diaspora in the states. Canada (which is, like SA, another Commonwealth country) seems to be the more popular destination. --Katangais (talk) 07:29, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of observation by Mahmood Mamdani

Dear coleagues. I have now for the second time removed this section, which Discott (talk · contribs) insists on including. It says:

"According to Mahmood Mamdani the Afrikaans community has dealt with their diminished profile, feelings of social insecurity, and lack of 'ethic rights' in South Africa by taking a dual approach that combines the approach taken by the Ugandan Asians and the Zanzibar Arabs. With mostly poor Afrikaner's agitating for an ethnic homeland -most actively with the establishment of the Afrikaans settlement at Orania- with its own native authority that can enforce its own customary laws, whilst wealthier Afrikaners have embraced privatization and liberalization of the economy as a means to secure their position in society."

I originally removed it, leaving the following edit summary: Meaningless addition. A one-liner tangential reference to Afrikaners in a 17-page paper hardly counts as evidence of anything. Not to mention the starting error of "mixed approach" entirely different from "dual approach")

So, in terms of Discott's text:

• Mamdani does not say that. Saying that he does is abuse of sources to justify a point, or just plain lying.
• He says nothing about how the Afrikaans community "dealt with their diminished profile, feelings of social insecurity, and lack of "ethic rights" (sic), which he linked to "Customary law".
• I fail to see why the user would make reference to customary law in relation to Afrikaners/ white South Africa, which have followed Roman-Dutch Law for centuries.
• Including references to Ugandan Asians and the Zanzibar Arabs in connetion with the dual approach and linking to those articles is pointless and ridiculous, as there is nothing in those articles that will enlighten the reader about which approach each of these two communities took. In fact, the article on Zanzibar does not even mention "Zanzibar Arabs" one single time.
• The Wikipedia article is supposed to be self-contained, therefore we cannot allude to things that are not found here and are discussed at length in the souces, as readers are not expected to click on every source to make sense of what they are reading here. Therefore, bringing in the fact that the Afrikaners (or any other community) took this or that approach makes no sense as those approaces are discussed in Mamdani's paper, not here.
• As per my previous edit summary ("A one-liner tangential reference to Afrikaners in a 17-page paper"), quoting Mamdani on this is like quoting from a 17-page report on apples, where the author, briefly and once only, mentions that oranges are sometimes also the victim of the same contitions.
• Alluding to a so-called "dual approach" (originally "mixed approached" in Mamdani's work) in referring to Afrikaners choosing between Option 1 and Option 2 is unthinkable, if you take into account that Orania has one thousand people (Afrikaners), while 2,7 million Afrikaners remained in South Africa - that is a ratio of 1:2700.
• Finally, after my revert, Discott and I engaged on the issue at the time and the article was left with the text in question removed. The user has been active throughout the time since the initial deletion. To come now and put the text back - three months later - is questionable. Naturally it would be perfectly fine to do so, had he in the interim come to new facts and information to justify the re-inclusion. I would also imagine that a re-inclusion on that ground should be accompanied by a note on the discussion page (and even to me).

Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia, I am sorry you feel this way but here are my reasons for reverting your deletion of Mamdani's reference to the Afrikaner situation that is, I feel, is indeed relevant to the article. It is something I would still like to see added to the article. I would like to point out that you did not, and until now and here on this page, still have not given any retort to my replay to your comment on my talk page. Therefore leading me to conclude, reasonably I feel, that you were satisfied with my reasons for adding this section. That is why I am surprised to find your comment here. Here is my response in order of the points you have raised:

• Mumdani does indeed state this in the source quoted when he says: "the mainly Afrikaner poor have agitated for an ethnic homeland, complete with a customary home, and their own native authority that can enforce its own customary law, while the rich have pinned their hopes on liberalization and privatization as their salvation from majority demands for justice."
• If you read the context of the article and in particular the section of it from which this quote was taken it becomes clear that he is indeed referring to "customary law" which in Mamdani's analysis is not mutually exclusive with Roman Dutch Law as you seem to believe it is. I also addressed this on my talk page when you first mentioned it.
• I disagree, adding references to Ugandan Asians and the Zanzibar Arabs helps contextualize Mamdani's analysis as well as highlights the uniquely African context of this social experience that Afrikaners are adjusting to in Mandami's eyes.
• Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be "self-contained." A good article, as outlined in the Perfect Article writing guide, is supposed to be "nearly self-contained; it includes essential information and terminology, and is comprehensible by itself, without requiring significant reading of other articles." The addition of references to Ugandan Asians and Zanzibar Arabs dones not entail adding "requiring significant reading of other articles" which is what, I assume, you are so concerned about. These two references could be dropped and the section would still remain relevant and understandable.
• A par the criticism that it is simply "A one-liner tangential reference to Afrikaners in a 17-page paper." I responded to this on my talk page when I stated " 1) It is true that the author's paper is about some thing else, however that does not disqualify it in any way from being a useful and informative source on another matter. A great many references that make important contributions to subjects on Wikipedia are from sources that are not directly about that subject but mention it in passing. A nice example is on the History of the Jews of Brazil, where a quote from Adam Smiths the Wealth of Nations is used to give greater historical context on their history in the country."
• As for the "dual approach" (originally "mixed approached") issue. I felt you raised a good criticism here with my use of the term "mixed approach" implying a board generalisation that was not my intent. I therefore changed to "daul approach" but accept that this might still not be satisfactory in addressing the generalising tone it implies. However I did also mention in my reply to you that "as a statement about what Mamdani has observed as to the political constituency within the Afrikaans community that tends to support the idea of a homeland it remains true and so should be included." But I accept that this is only one constituency within a much larger and diverse community of opinion within the Afrikaans community and that this needs to be reflected if the paragraph is to remain in the article.
• As I stated before. After giving my reply to your comment on my talk page and not hearing back from you for three months I felt it was reasonable to assume that you were satisfied with my reply and reasons for adding it in, given some minor adjustments like changing mixed to dual approach, and so there fore could proceed with re-adding the text. I felt, and still do, that I did not need to "come with new facts" to justify re-inclusion.

Regards, Discott (talk) 11:35, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Hopefully other editors will come along and add their views. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Having just read the disputed study in full, I feel there are several points which need to be addressed: firstly, there is no question (at least in my mind) that Dr. Mamdani is qualified to speak on the subject matter. Regardless of my opinion on his study, he has published a number of prior publications dealing on the topic of Africans of Asian and European descent, as well as the unique character of their cultural and political identities in postcolonial states. This is a researcher whose specialty is non-indigenous minority groups in Africa, and has undertaken several prior studies concerning the difference between colonials, their African descendants, and the continuing exodus of modern expats on and off the continent.

Now, that being said, Dr. Mamdani is not an expert on Afrikaners in particular and the primary area of focus for his field studies have been Indians, Arabs, and English-speaking whites in East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya). This helps explain the unique analogy to Zanzibar Arabs and Ugandan Indians, as it is a topic with which the author is far more intimately familiar. I'd point out that Mamdani himself is a Ugandan of Indian descent and is thus writing from the perspective of one. Unfortunately, he paints the Afrikaners with a rather broad brush - sweeping generalisations such as the poor support for the volkstaat, and the rich support for economic liberalisation really have no place on Wikipedia. If there's one thing I learned from my sojourn in the very Afrikaans areas of South Africa (rural Free State, anyone?) it's that Afrikaners are no monolith. It would be easier to speak of attitudes among the Indians in Uganda or the Zanzibari Arabs, because we're talking about much smaller population groups of less than 10,000. They're closer knit and would be more monolithic in their views. It would also be comparatively simple to gauge their attitudes and business practices due to the size of the control group.

Afrikaners number anywhere from 2.5 to 3 million people, and among them you'll never find a more diverse group of political, social, and economic attitudes and factors. I'd go so far as to say more so than any other South African ethnic group. Not all poor Afrikaners are concerned with an ethnic homeland/volkstaat. Not all rich Afrikaners are concerned with throwing open the doors to economic liberalisation; as an ethnic group they are in fact relatively new to capitalist principles and during apartheid many supported tighter regulation of the economy as a way to safeguard white labour rights.

Here's what I think about the section: it says Afrikaans-speaking whites suffer from "feelings of social insecurity" among other things. That has OR written all over it, and there's nothing in Mamdani's paper to suggest it. It claims poor Afrikaners support the volkstaat and rich Afrikaners are whole-hearted capitalists. Mamdani does say that, and I just explained why I think this is an example of tunnel vision on his part, while acknowledging his credentials and academic track record with regard to East African minorities - which are again different when it comes to sociological analysis for the reasons already listed above. Saying "Mahmood Mamdani drew a comparison" between Afrikaners and minorities in Uganda and Zanzibar is OK, but please list his reasons why in the same sentence and leave out the second sentence which presents his fallacious generalisations as fact.

Thanks, --Katangais (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Katangais. Thanks for your input. It says it all in an uninvolved, dispassionate way. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 09:57, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

References

External links modified

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Afrikaners/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

*Very full coverage of topic. Long stretches of text without verifiable references. Looking at the talk page, see possibility of POV disputes.

Substituted at 20:12, 26 September 2016 (UTC)