SLAVES, KHOIKHOI AND THE GENESIS OF AFRIKAANS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HISTORIOGRAPHY, ca. 1890s-1990s

Contrary to popular opinion, the recent interest in the role of slaves and Khoikhoi in the genesis of Afrikaans is not merely a reaction to current political realities. Instead, Afrikaans historical linguistics originated at the turn of the 20th century in the very debate about the contribution of slaves and Khoikhoi to the development of Afrikaans. This article traces this history, and demonstrates that considerations of the role of slaves and Khoikhoi in the history of Afrikaans have formed a golden thread in debates about the origins of the language throughout the 20th century until the end of apartheid in 1994. The aims of this article are twofold: to trace how various of the most influential Afrikaans linguists have viewed the role of slaves and Khoikhoi in the genesis of Afrikaans, on the one side; and to investigate how and to what extent they have used external history (as opposed to the internal development of the language) in the construction of their theories, on the other side. The article demonstrates how increasingly Afrikaans linguists have come to realise how and to what an extent history determines the parameters within which linguistic proposals should be sought in the development of Afrikaans.