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Further to immediately previous post…

In light of the first comment in response to it, you may like to explore the following – all apropos, in various ways, whether directly so, or indirectly.

 

Click here to see a painting by Breyten Breytenbach.

Although poorly shot, this 2016 video will enable you to see and hear Breytenbach deliver some of his poems in Afrikaans, with mostly-legible English translations visible.

Hear Skelmbos – a composition by Paul Hanmer; it is the 7th piece, as you scan down this page.

The title is a punning Afrikaans nickname for Stellenbosch. Once “the Oxford of Afrikanerdom”, Stellenbosch is much older than any Australian city.

Once “whiter than white” in more than one sense, Stellenbosch’s University is now attended by students from all over Africa.

The status/role of Afrikaans there is now much-debated/contested.

Both noun and verb, skelm is a difficult word to translate – it generally signifies a rogue, a shifty, or “very enterprising” individual, a rascal ; it can be deployed humorously/at-least-half-admiringly, or with unmitigated disdain/disapproval.

One of South Africa’s leading jazz pianists, Hanmer is also a classical composer.

From Cape Town, he is a Coloured person, in South African parlance; in that parlance, Coloured is no more an intrinsically racist term than are black, white or Yolngu.

Afrikaans is Hanmer’s first language, although he is also eloquent in English.

Describing his beautiful piano solo The Loss , Hanmer said this:

I wrote this simple sea-in-the-shell song as a comfort to my loneliness in this big place full of busy people. The piano should smell of fish.

(on his album Playola, this wordless song was written in London, when Hanmer was very homesick for Cape Town. The Loss does exist online, but not as a free download)

This month, explaining why he chose a particular singer for his Mass for the 1st Peoples, Hanmer said this:

I loved the way he talked to the audience in English, Italian, Afrikaans and Setswana.

Read an article about Coloured people reclaiming Afrikaans.

Also apropos, as an Australian point of reference, are two wonderful songs from Big Name No Blankets, the debut album from the Warumpi Band.

In 1984, its Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out from Jail) was the first song delivered entirely in an Aboriginal language to gain widespread mainstream Australian radio airplay.

The same album includes a song with co-authorship as per its title, and a lyric full of plainspeaking good sense, and generosity.

 

 

Published in opinions and journalism word power