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Help[Opinions] Re: Cateau
in reply to a message by Mar
Cato is used in Afrikaans as well; unlike Dutch though, the o sound is a diphthong, long o with a neutral vowel at the end. Rather like English people saying "Ooh-er".
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Something similar could be said for some more rural Dutch areas ooah would be their way of saying it.
Is in Afrikaans the stress also on the 2nd syllable? (For the feminine version at least?)
Is in Afrikaans the stress also on the 2nd syllable? (For the feminine version at least?)
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Yes, it is. When I was about 10, we had neighbours whose daughter and I used to play together. Her mother was Catherina, and I called her Tannie Cato, which did indeed sound like cahTOOah. The Latin author is CAHtooah.
It's impossible to tell, but Afrikaans seems to have originated from as many Dutch dialects as there were Dutch settlers/sailors who lived here from 1652 onwards. There was a mixture of dialectal forms, and also a lot of simplification (we only have die as the definite article; het disappeared) to make communication with each other and with imported slaves and local indigenous people easier.
It's impossible to tell, but Afrikaans seems to have originated from as many Dutch dialects as there were Dutch settlers/sailors who lived here from 1652 onwards. There was a mixture of dialectal forms, and also a lot of simplification (we only have die as the definite article; het disappeared) to make communication with each other and with imported slaves and local indigenous people easier.
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Yes, the language development makes sense. It's a very interesting subject. I can read Afrikaans still and get most of what's meant. I suspect in time Dutch will drop Het as well. Lots of younger people have trouble sorting out the correct use of Het, mainly due to immigration. Even my daughter (6) uses De by default even though my husband and I use Het correctly. She uses English in school and very often literally translates. I wish Dutch would get simplified a bit. Any foreigners who try to learn in never seem to really fully manages it. I've known people who immigrated 20 years ago and I can still easily hear from word usage and grammatical errors that they're not natives (and that's not mentioning the various sounds that are quite difficult to master).
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I took a short course - just a couple of months - in Middel-Nederlandse Po"esie once, which I loved, but I've never learnt modern Dutch. I find that I can read, say, a Dutch newspaper quite confidently for a few paragraphs, and then suddenly I might as well be reading Guarani or Sanskrit! Interesting, but frustrating too. And speaking Dutch or even understanding spoken Dutch is beyond me. I do sympathise with your immigrants.
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