The Arabic Afrikaans Writing Tradition

Afrikaans developed when slaves in the Cape adapted Dutch – the language of the rulers – for their own use. Many years later Afrikaans was hijacked by some white Afrikaners as ‘their language’, but Davids proved beyond doubt that it was the descendants of the slaves, not their masters, who first wrote Afrikaans.

The focus of this book is the Arabic-Afrikaans literary tradition of the Cape Muslim community. It looks at the emergence of this tradition at the Cape of Good Hope, as well as the social vehicles through which it emerged and through which it was in use. This is done through an examination of the literature, in the form of manuscripts and publications, it generated during the first hundred years of its existence.

Importantly, the book looks at the development of the distinctive Arabic alphabet that local Arabic-Afrikaans authors used to convey accurately this community’s mother tongue.

The history of the Afrikaans language is still very little understood and discussed, and this book illuminates the extraordinary story of its beginnings, with slaves and colonisers, with Xam!, Indonesians, Malaysians, Turks and imams of all stripes. It’s a wonderfully rich story told in detail here, with verve and a keen ear for story.

Jacana Media is delighted to make available again a classic work of South African hidden history, that of the Arabic Afrikaans literary tradition. Previously published in 2010 as The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915, this edition carries a new introduction by Heinrich Willemse.