South African Accent

What about moving to Africa? It's a beautiful continent. I've decided to continue my research and... Here we go, with South African English.

In some way, South African English is similar to Australian English because of social variation within it has been classified. As we can see, there are three main categories:  Cultivated, closely approximating RP and associated with upper class; General, a social indicator of the middle class, and Broad, associated with the working class and/or Afrikaans descent, and closely approximating the second-language Afrikaans-English variety.

English has been both a highly influential language in South Africa, and a language influenced, in turn, by adaptation in the country's different communities. Estimates based on the 1991 census suggest that some 45% of the population have a speaking knowledge of English.

The term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans also spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians being recognized as offshoots.

Today, English is the country's lingua franca, and the primary language of government, business, and commerce. It is a compulsory subject in all schools, and the medium of instruction in most schools and tertiary institutions.

According to the 2001 census, English is spoken as a home language by 8.2% of the population (3 673 206 people) one in three of whom are not white. South Africa's Asian people, most of whom are Indian in origin, are largely English-speaking, although many also retain their languages of origin. There is also a significant group of Chinese South Africans, also largely English-speaking but who also retain their languages of origin as well.

South African English is an established and unique dialect, with strong influences from Afrikaans and the country's many African languages. For example: "The old lady has been tuning me grief all avie, coz I bust her tjor going yooees with the okes in Bez Valley" would translate as: "My mother has been shouting at me all afternoon because I crashed her car doing U-turns with my friends in Bez Valley."

As a home language, English is most common in KwaZulu-Natal, where over a third of all English-speaking South Africans are found. Another third of English speakers live in Gauteng, where it is the language of 12.5% of the population, and 23.8% in the Western Cape, where it is spoken by 19.3% of the population.

Important numbers, uh? Now, let’s see something about pronunciation.

We have got to distinguish the so-called "Conservative South African" (close to RP) and "Respectable South African" from a broad "Extreme South African". They are all said to be non-rhotic.

Not only words, also a lot of SAE phonetic peculiarities are derived from Afrikaans: Unlike Southern English dialects and Broad Australian no h-dropping occurs; instead, the [h] may be used in its voiced variety. Before a fricative, in a vowel-plus-nasal consonant combination, the vowel will be nasalized. SAE r tends to be a flap rather than an approximant, if linked to another consonant. This is typical for U-RP too, but is probably rather due to Afrikaans influence here. In Extreme South African, voiceless plosives are unaspirated. The diphthong [Ɛɪ] becomes [əi].

South African English has a total of 29 different vowels. For all except lax vowels, a longer duration counterpart is included; for example, for the phone [i] in the Afrikaans word siek (‘ill’), there is a phone [i..], as found in vier (‘four’). Both lax and tense vowels are included in the phone set because lax vowels occur frequently in English, but not at all in Afrikaans or the African languages. Lax vowels in English are typically shorter, lower and slightly more centralized than the corresponding tense vowels. Examples are found in the words ‘him’ and ‘put’. Let’s see this scheme:

                                                       

We can explain some examples of difference between vowels.

/ɪ/ as in kit is split between the realizations [ɪ] and [ɪ̈] in General, and [i] and [ɪ̈~ə] in Broad. The split is an allophonic variation, with the fronter realization occurring near velar and palatal consonants, and the more central one occurring elsewhere. Cultivated SAE lacks this split, but this feature regarding /ɪ/ is a reliable sociolinguistic marker for South African English in general. Before [ɫ], the vowel may be further back [ɯ̈].

/ɛ/ as in dress is usually realized as [e], though it is lower ([ɛ]) in Broad, sometimes approaching [æ], especially before [ɫ]. Some varieties of Broad and General SAE place this vowel higher, around raised [e] or lowered [ɪ].

A slightly raised [æ] is the usual realization for /æ/ (as in trap) in Cultivated and General. In Broad varieties, it is often raised to [ɛ], so that /æ/ encroaches on /ɛ/ for some speakers. A good example of this is South Africa sounds more like South Efrica.

/ɒ/ (as in lot) ranges from [ɒ̈] to [ɔ] notes a tendency towards [ʌ̈] in younger Cape Town and Natal speakers of General SAE.

/ʌ/ (as in strut) typically ranges from a low to mid centralised vowel ([ä] to [ɐ]) in SAE.

A total of 30 unique diphthongs has been identified. The English and Afrikaans diphthongs are similar, but no diphthongs are shared between the two languages, mainly due to the use of lax vowels in English. In the African languages, diphthongs occur only during code-switching 1 and are not intrinsic to the languages themselves. A number of diphthongs which occur across word boundaries in spontaneous speech are also included in our phone set, for example in the Afrikaans words drie-en-twintig (‘twentythree ’). Examples include the Afrikaans words hy is (‘he is’) or the Afrikaans mother tongue pronunciation of the English word ‘about’.

The norm for /eɪ/ (as in face) in Cultivated and General varieties is [eɪ] notes a tendency for the onset to be opener the further one deviates from the standard, even to[æɪ]. Broad South African English is characterized by the onset being both open and back, [ʌɪ].

The Cultivated SAE realization of /aɪ/ (as in price) is close to RP [aɪ]. In General and Broad, the articulation of the first element is often monophthongized to [aː]. In Broad, the first element is somewhat back, but more forward and higher than /ɑː/.

Cultivated SAE usually realizes /aʊ/ (as in mouth) as [ɑ̈ʊ], while General again follows the tendency to monophthongize diphthongs, and often has [ɑː]. Broad has a much fronter onset.

In all varieties, /ɔɪ/ (as in choice) is usually [ɔɪ]; the onset can be as low as /ɒ/ for older Cultivated SAE speakers.

Consonants: Plosives

/p, b, t, d, k, ɡ/ The voiced and voiceless plosives are distinctive in South African English, and voiceless plosives are generally unaspirated in all positions in Broad South African English. Other varieties aspirate a voiceless plosive before a stressed syllable. The contrast is neutralized in Broad.

Broad speakers tend to pronounce /t, d/ with some dentition.

Fricatives and Affricates /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, x, h/ South African English is one of the very few varieties to have a velar fricative phoneme /x/, but this is only in words borrowed from Afrikaans (e.g. gogga [xoxə] 'insect').

The tendency for /θ/ to be realized as [f]  is a stereotypical Broad feature, but is more accurately associated with Afrikaans English.

As in many varieties of English, word-final /v, ð, z, ʒ/ are usually voiceless, and are distinguished only by the length of the preceding vowel.

The nasals /m, n, ŋ/ are not distinctive markers for any variety of South African English; though /n/ may be dental [n̪] before dental consonants.

Of course, there is a South African vocabulary. Some words peculiar to South African English include 'takkies', 'tackie' or 'tekkie' for sneakers (American) or trainers (British), 'bakkie' for a pick-up truck, 'lekker' for nice and 'jol' for party.

Several South African words, usually from Afrikaans or other indigenous languages of the region, have entered world English: apartheid, commando and mamba.

Let's watch another video, this is Siboniso Gaxa a  Bafana football player.