PHONOLOGY

The South African English of English-speakers is often confused with Australian or New
Zealand English. There are some common characteristics: New Zealand English and South
African English both centralize the /I/ vowel, saying ‘pin’ as what sounds like ‘pun’ (while
Australians tend towards ‘peen’). All three varieties pronounce other vowels further forward
in the mouth than British speakers, so ‘penny’ sounds like ‘pinny’, ‘bad’ like ‘bed’, and ‘bed’
like ‘bid’. Unlike in British English, South African English consonants are pronounced crisply
with glottal stops as in ‘bu’er’ for ‘butter’.
South African English is non-rhotic, which means that the “r” at the end of words is not
pronounced and is open. The vowel “i” as in “sit” is pronounced like the phonetic symbol
/ə/, instead of the /ɪ/ sound we hear in British English. So we find “məlk” instead of
“mɪlk”, for example.

Kit-bit split: South African English has a “kit-bit split” which can be considered as the most
distinctive feature of SAE. It means that the words kit [kɪt] and bit [bət] do not rhyme. The
sound [ɪ] is used when it occurs next to velars, as in the words kiss, gift, lick, big, sing and kit,
after /h/ as in hit, at the beginning of a word as in inn, and before /ʃ/ as in fish. The sound,
[ə] is used elsewhere. 2- Raised /æ/: In Cultivated and General SAE varieties the
pronunciation of /æ/ is slightly raised as in trap. In Broad varieties, on the other hand, it is
often raised to [ɛ]. A good example of this is South Africa sounds more like South Efrica. 3-
High, back centralised [ʊ]: The /ʊ/ sound in the word foot is generally pronounced as high,
back centralised [ʊ]. There is very little lip rounding in comparison to other varieties of
English worldwide. The pronunciation of [ʊ] with added lip-rounding is associated with
Broad SAE and with Afrikaans English. 4- Low and fully back [ɑː]: The /ɑː/ vowel sound in
words such as bath is usually a low and fully back [ɑː] in General and Broad SAE. This sound
distinguishes SAE from other varieties like Australian English and New Zealand English.

Lexicon
Nouns - Nouns have been used with inflections for both English speech and South African
speech. Proper Nouns for both English and South African haven’t featured the inflection of
‘s’ with the exception of “General motors'” which is said singularly on its own. However,
common nouns are varied in both English and in Southern African. Concrete nouns such as
“Takkies” or Pants” both feature the inflection of ‘s’, yet concrete nouns like “Lappie” haven’t
featured an inflection. This feature of spoken language is seen in Standard English with
concrete nouns such as “apples” “crackers”.

Adjectives - Adjectives don’t tend to have inflections such as suffixes added to them in either
dialects. Both dialects lack suffixes such as ‘-en’ to give adjectives a regional placer which
helps to determine the area or social class from which the subjects of the sentence are in or
reside from. South African English transcript uses adjectives such as “slow” pre-modifying
nouns like any normal application of adjectives. Whereas, Standard English also applies
adjectives for e.g. “…well ridiculously cheap”.
Adverbs- Adverbs are pretty common in terms of its characteristics in both Standard English
and South African English. Adverbs have been used in both dialects to intensify or portray
manner, place or time, for example “well ridiculously cheap” is commonly heard among
South African English speakers

Pronouns – There is a small difference in the use of pronouns between Standard English
and South African English. Standard English focuses on object personal pronouns e.g. “i
didn’t know this”, whereas South African English mainly uses subject personal pronouns (I)
(we).

Verbs - South African English speech shows dynamic verbs used with past tense inflections
of ‘-ed’ as well as present tense inflections of ‘-e’: “i lagged…” Whereas Standard English
also shows the use of dynamic verbs, but only in the past tense. Like the South African
Dynamic verbs, it portrays the action having already occurred.

SYNTAX

SAE has become a regional version of English, firmly rooted in South Africa by
the influence of the languages surrounding it. South Africans are often
unaware of just how different SAE is from other Englishes in both vocabulary
and pronunciation.

Initial borrowings were introduced in the journals of visiting explorers and

travellers describing the local peoples and their cultures, the animals, plants,
and geographical features of the country. Some of the earliest SAE words
(mainly from Dutch and the Khoi languages), such as kloof, krantz, dagga,
buchu, Boer, kraal, springbuck, and quagga (all 18th-century borrowings) are
still used in SAE. Others, such as Hottentot (a name given to the Khoi peoples
in an attempt to imitate their click languages), and Kaffir ( a name given to the
black peoples of South Africa) are now considered deeply offensive and are no
longer in use.

Dutch, and Afrikaans, has had the most powerful influence on SAE. Veld, vlei,
pan, koppie, nek, rand are words used to describe the country’s natural
features. Deurmekaar or in a dwaal is how a state of confusion is described. .

Many SAE words have also been borrowed from the African languages of the
region: for example bonsella, indaba, donga, impala, mamba from the Nguni
languages, and tsetse, tsotsi, kgotla, marula from the Sotho languages.

Malay words such as atchar, bobotie, sosatie, kaparrang, and kramat came
into SAE during the 19th century (via Afrikaans), originating in the community
of slaves and political exiles at the Cape, who were sent from what are now
Indonesia and Malaysia during the 17th and 18th centuries.

But borrowings are not the full story. Some very well-known words, such
as tackie, tickey, rondavel, and bundu have mysterious origins. Some
specifically SAE words are examples of words once current in British English,
but now out of use there: geyser (a water-heater or boiler), robot (a traffic light)
and until the 1960s, bioscope (a cinema), are examples. Some English words
mean something different in SAE: a bond is a mortgage, a dam refers to the
stretch of water rather than to the wall, just now means ‘in a little while’,
a packet is a plastic shopping bag, a café is a convenience store or corner
shop, and (in the context of traffic) a circle is a roundabout. Non-lexical
features of other South African languages have also made their way into SAE,
as in two ways of indicating emphasis — by reduplication (from Afrikaans), as
in now-now, soon-soon, and (from the African languages) by the use of falling
pitch, from high to low, as in ‘fa-a–a-ar away’.