[MarkJerling]

Afrikaans is an interesting language. I don't think there is another language, save for English, that is as much of a conglomeration of languages.
If you have a knack for language, and you hear something being spoken with a Britishesque (is that a word?) accent that is totally unidentifiable, think Afrikaans.

Yes, it's a bit of a mix. Mainly Dutch, with bits of German, French, Malay and Portugese thrown in. Afrikaners sometimes get a bit precious about Afrikaans, but it's interesting to note that the first use of it was really amongst the slaves and freed slaves. The very first recorded use of written Afrikaans was a Muslim prayer book published in the 1840's, written using the Arabic alphabet. Afrikaans was recognised as an official language in South Africa in 1925. It's spoken throughout South Africa (along with 10 other official languanges) and also used in Namibia, Botswana and to a lesser extent in Zimbabwe. A dialect is used in a small part of Argentina. Like many other languages, it has several different regional dialects with quite different pronunciations, although the spelling is generally standardised.

Many nouns are the same a those used in Dutch, but there are some interesting differences. For instance, where a Dutch person will say "Ik ben" for "I am" an Afrikaans speaker will say "Ek is".
Also, in Dutch a "chicken farm" will be a "hoender fokkerij" or "kip fokkerij" but in Afrikaans it's a "hoender boerdery" and the word "fokkery" (because "ij" in Dutch is "y" in Afrikaans) won't be used in polite conversation.

The swear words, certainly, is much more interesting than in English!

[Racer X 69]

We had a lovely bottle of 2002 Barossa Valley Shiraz last night. The cork was completely stuffed but the wine was surprisingly good considering the state of the cork. That washed down a bit of (Weber) bbq'd rare rump steak and, together with a green salad and garlic infused fried mushrooms and baby baked potatos and sour cream it really did go down nicely.

Mmmmm . . . . sounds tasty!

We finished with a bit of home grown peach cobler and icecream.

Again, tasty!


It is harvest time there, isn't it? Lots of fresh and tasty bounty from summer's toil.

Sorry - I did not take any photos!

And I bet you don't have any leftovers to share either, do you?

[Racer X 69]

That all sounds delicious......I am craving some fresh fried oysters, but none are close.

Regards!

How does one get fresh oysters so far from the ocean?


Are they Rocky Mountain oysters?

[Racer X 69]

That is some view!

Here is a pano I made of the upper portion of the property about 10 years ago. I had rented a aerial work platform to install a chimney in my workshop, and afterward thought it would make a great place to shoot from. This scene is from before we built the house, notice the trailer house (hiding behind the two small trees) we lived in.





The river is to the left (West), behind the trees.

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Last edited by Racer X 69; 04-04-2016 at 08:15 AM.

[Racer X 69]

I've heard Norwegian spoken only a few times.
If I hear Spanish, or Italian I can pick up a few words here and there, and with French I can usually understand enough to get the gist of the conversation.
With Norwegian I'm at a total loss to pick up anything I can recognize, but it has a cadence that makes it a very melodic language.

Oui! Oui! I speak French, cul de sac, filet minion, soufle.

[Racer X 69]

This guy??
That's my brother, the cave dweller.
Mom always liked him best.

Hey!


That guy's dog got loose and wandered by my place today.

[savoche]

A Slovakian friend of mine share with me, years ago, this one: Strč prst skrz krk.
You will note it contains no vowels at all. Supposedly it's an insult meaning "Stick your fingers down your throat."

Best I can manage is some Afrikaans or Dutch.

Useful phrase, thanks. You never know when you need to get some teeth knocked loose.

Speaking Afrikaans you should be able to understand, at least in part, written Norwegian - with a bit of effort.

Not saying it would be worth the effort, just that you probably could

[Rupert]

I was on Mrs Rupert's computer again last night and walked away with it open to this thread. This morning when she went to check her mail and read the news/weather she must have spent a little time looking at this thread. She asked me if this was a thread where the site requires "weirdos" to congregate or if we just flow here by our nature? She also asked if anyone had jobs or actually did anything productive in life?

I won't make that mistake again. It makes me look like an idiot...and my friends too. She probably isn't surprised by me, but finding that I have friends just as insane was sort of shocking to her.

[FantasticMrFox]

She also asked if anyone had jobs ...

No?

[robtcorl]

She asked me if this was a thread where the site requires "weirdos" to congregate

[THoog]

She also asked if anyone had jobs or actually did anything productive in life?

No?

Yes, and hundreds of people can do their jobs if I do mine - without them ever knowing what I do - but it's the kind of job that has hours of boredom punctuated by moments of pure panic, and I have to stay parked at a desk waiting for those moments. The Thread helps relieve the boring parts.

[Parallax]

I speak French, cul de sac, filet minion, soufle.

You forgot Chevrolet Coupé.

[bertwert]

Here is a piano

Piano?

[WPRESTO]

Being retired, the only useful job I perform now is spending a bit of money to keep the economy in motion (and trying my best to single-handedly keep Ricoh-Pentax solvent). Was a teacher, which by some reckoning means I did nothing. "Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach" an insult I had flung at me several times, my equally unfair and insulting counter would be: Those who care, teach, those who don't are avaricious. However, my secret ambition when I grew up was the same as a Peanuts character (Linus as I remember): I wanted to be a great philanthropist. (When Lucy told him he needed be immensely wealthy first, Linus replied that he wanted to be a great philanthropist with someone else's money.)

---------- Post added 04-04-16 at 09:57 AM ----------

Oui! Oui! I speak French, cul de sac, filet minion, soufle.

Almost like Miss Piggy who commented she had learned all her French from perfume bottles (better than Fozzy Bear learning how drive by taking a correspondence course).

[normhead]

Being retired, the only useful job I perform now is spending a bit of money to keep the economy in motion (and trying my best to single-handedly keep Ricoh-Pentax solvent). Was a teacher, which by some reckoning means I did nothing. "Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach" an insult I had flung at me several times

My answer to hat was " Before I was a teacher, I went from being the son of academic parents with virtually no trade skills, to a raw apprentice who had to be shown how to hold a hammer, to a journeyman to a foreman to a plant manager, in 6 years." How is your "doing" going?"

What got me into teaching, was, I missed my days training shop apprentices as a 3rd and 4th year apprentice, there was nothing in managing the shop, that for me made up for missing that part of the work. Teachers are people who like to teach, there's no other side to that equation.