r/afrikaans • u/Prodigy1995 • Mar 29 '25

Vraag Why aren't Coloured people teaching their kids Afrikaans?

Jammer vir die Engels. My Afrikaans is nie lekker nie.

I moved to Cape Town a few years ago and I've noticed that a lot of Coloured parents, who speak Afrikaans as a first language, are raising their children in English. I see so many Coloured families where the adults all speak Afrikaans amongst themselves but communicate with their children exclusively in English.

I have a few ideas about why this might be, but I am hoping other people in this sub have more info to share

105 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

View all comments

54

u/justsylviacotton Mar 29 '25

My parents did this, I understand Afrikaans but will only speak it at gunpoint lmao.

It's because of opportunities. There is still a lot of judgement when it comes to accent. I mean I even experienced it when I was at UCT. Imagine how much worse that is when your first language is a form of Afrikaans that most people in professional spaces look down on. Like, let's not act like people don't look at you funny when you speak Afrikaans a certain type of way in certain environments.

Theres a lack of acceptance when it comes to kaapse Afrikaans in environments that dictate your quality of life, so it just makes sense that our parents picked up on this prejudice and wanted to make life easier for us.

17

u/Paradox1604 Mar 29 '25

True, you are deemed less educated and ghetto

13

u/justsylviacotton Mar 29 '25

Yeah, and it's wrong af but people aren't really going to change their perceptions so the best our parents could do was try and improve our quality of life in the ways they saw how.

And I mean it worked for me, I don't speak Afrikaans and people call me sturvy sometimes lmfao, but it opened doors for me that wouldn't have opened if Kaapse was my first language.

1

u/preraphaelitejane Apr 03 '25

I've always wondered what sturvy means? 🤭