92-461: Pinnacle Point a small promontory immediately south of Mossel Bay , a town on the southern coast of South Africa. Excavations since the year 2000 of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point, first recognized and documented in 1997 by South African professional archaeologists, Jonathan Kaplan and Peter Nilssen, have revealed occupation by Middle Stone Age people between 170,000 and 40,000 years ago. The focus of excavations has been at Cave 13B (PP13B), where
184-404: A pigment for body painting. This is similar to more complex ochre utilisation known from Blombos Cave slightly farther to the west at roughly 70,000 years ago. These discoveries contradict the classical hypothesis that the modern behaviour emerged only 40,000 years ago and was reached through a "large cultural leap". The harsh climate and reduced food resources may have been why people moved to
276-461: A decreasing number of first language Afrikaans speakers in South Africa from 13.5% in 2011 to 10.6% in 2022. The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) projects that a growing majority of Afrikaans speakers will be Coloured . Afrikaans speakers experience higher employment rates than other South African language groups, though as of 2012 half a million were unemployed. Despite
368-476: A draught of 6.5m. A ship repair slipway can accommodate vessels of up to 200 tonnes. Ship chandler and stevedore services are available, as are diving services for hull cleaning, underwater inspection, salvage, etc. The harbour has two offshore mooring buoys inside port limits: a catenary buoy mooring that caters for ships of up to 32,000DWT (maximum length 204m, draught 12m); and a single point mooring (SPM) marine tanker terminal that's connected to three hoses for
460-627: A fortress-like granary – was built only in 1787. In July of the following year, the first shipment of wheat grown in the area was shipped from the Bay. Although a British force had invaded the Cape in 1806, and Britain had taken permanent possession of the Colony in 1814, the Mossel Bay area retained its Dutch-given name until its declaration as a magistracy in 1848, when it was renamed Aliwal South, after
552-427: A milkwood tree ( Sideroxylon inerme ) near the spring from which Dias had drawn his water. The report was found by the explorer to whom it was addressed – João da Nova – and the tree served as a sort of post office for decades thereafter. (More recently, a boot-shaped post box has been erected under the now famous Post Office Tree , and letters posted there are franked with a commemorative stamp. This has ensured that
644-575: A national, but not official, language. There is a much smaller number of Afrikaans speakers among Zimbabwe's white minority, as most have left the country since 1980. Afrikaans was also a medium of instruction for schools in Bophuthatswana , an Apartheid-era Bantustan . Eldoret in Kenya was founded by Afrikaners. There are also around 30.000 South-Africans in the Netherlands , of which
736-526: A part of the World Heritage Site of Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa. After the initial recognition and documentation of the sites by Kaplan and Nilssen in 1997, Nilssen from Iziko South African Museum introduced the sites to Curtis Marean in 1999 after which they co-directed excavations for several years. The discoveries at Pinnacle Point have been made by an international team, headed by palaeoanthropologist Curtis Marean from
828-622: A second language. It is widely taught in South African schools, with about 10.3 million second-language students. Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside South Africa, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia and the United States. In Afrikaans grammar, there is no distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs 'to be' and 'to have'. In addition, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on
920-515: Is "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially among the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that previously had been sceptical of a Bible translation that varied from the Dutch version that they were used to. In 1983 a fresh translation marked the 50th anniversary of the 1933 version. The final editing of this edition was done by E. P. Groenewald, A. H. van Zyl, P. A. Verhoef, J. L. Helberg and W. Kempen. This translation
1012-671: Is a West Germanic language , spoken in South Africa , Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana , Zambia and Zimbabwe . It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland ( Hollandic dialect ) spoken by the predominantly Dutch settlers and enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony , where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages, including German and
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#17327811591971104-610: Is a groundswell movement within Afrikaans to be inclusive, and to promote itself along with the indigenous official languages. In Namibia, the percentage of Afrikaans speakers declined from 11.4% (2001 Census) to 10.4% (2011 Census). The major concentrations are in Hardap (41.0%), ǁKaras (36.1%), Erongo (20.5%), Khomas (18.5%), Omaheke (10.0%), Otjozondjupa (9.4%), Kunene (4.2%), and Oshikoto (2.3%). Some native speakers of Bantu languages and English also speak Afrikaans as
1196-414: Is a stopping point for all major road transport operators licensed for this region. The Port of Mossel Bay ( 34°10′48″S 22°08′46″E / 34.180047°S 22.146034°E / -34.180047; 22.146034 ) is the smallest commercial harbour on the South African coast. It caters mostly for the oil industry (off-shore gas was discovered in late 1980s), and for a small fishing fleet, and
1288-526: Is absent from the other West Germanic standard languages. For example: Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans. While double negation is still found in Low Franconian dialects in West Flanders and in some "isolated" villages in the centre of the Netherlands (such as Garderen ), it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans. The following
1380-598: Is also credited with having given the Cape the name Cabo das Tormentas (the 'Cape of Storms'), although King John II later changed this to Cabo da Boa Esperança (the Cape of Good Hope). Dias' excursion ashore ended hastily when the local people chased him off in a hail of stones. By the time the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached the area in 1497, the Bay had been marked on the maps as Aguada de São Brás , (the Watering Place of St Blaize - whose feast
1472-475: Is an example: Compare with Ek wil dit nie doen nie , which changes the meaning to 'I want not to do this'. Whereas Ek wil nie dit doen nie emphasizes a lack of desire to act, Ek wil dit nie doen nie emphasizes the act itself. The -ne was the Middle Dutch way to negate but it has been suggested that since -ne became highly non-voiced, nie or niet was needed to complement
1564-689: Is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province . Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres east of the country's seat of parliament, Cape Town (which is also the capital city of the Western Cape), and 400 km west of Port Elizabeth , the largest city in the Eastern Cape . The older parts of the town occupy the north-facing side of the Cape St Blaize Peninsula, whilst the newer suburbs straddle
1656-440: Is celebrated on 3 February). Da Gama bartered successfully for cattle with the local Khoi people in what is generally regarded as the first commercial transaction between Europeans and the indigenous people of South Africa. In 1501, another Portuguese navigator, Pedro d'Ataide , sought shelter in Mossel Bay after losing much of his fleet in a storm. He left an account of the disaster hidden in an old shoe which he suspended from
1748-510: Is located in about 21 metres of water in an unsheltered roadstead at Voorbaai, in the lee of the St Blaize Peninsula. The development of the refinery led to a marked increase in property development in Mossel Bay, with the number of houses growing rapidly to accommodate the workforce during the construction period. Many of the people who came to work on the project remained in the town after commissioning, and it would appear from
1840-569: Is neither a creole nor a direct descendant of Dutch, but a fusion of two transmission pathways. Most of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands), with up to one-sixth of the community of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany. African and Asian workers, Cape Coloured children of European settlers and Khoikhoi women, and slaves contributed to
1932-565: Is owned and managed by the Transnet National Ports Authority, which falls directly under South Africa's Department of Public Enterprises . The depth of the entrance channel is 8 metres, while the maximum permissible draught inside the harbour is 6.5 metres. Pilotage is compulsory from a point 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) northeast of Cape St Blaize. Bunkering is available on the jetty and at quays 2, 3, and 5. Quay 4 can accommodate vessels of up to 130m, with
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#17327811591972024-537: Is seen as the dawn of a new era in Afrikaans cinema. Several short films have been created and more feature-length movies, such as Poena Is Koning and Bakgat (both in 2008) have been produced, besides the 2011 Afrikaans-language film Skoonheid , which was the first Afrikaans film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival . The film Platteland was also released in 2011. The Afrikaans film industry started gaining international recognition via
2116-586: Is situated exactly halfway between Cape Town (and the Cape Winelands ) and Port Elizabeth (with its game reserves ), and is therefore a popular stopping-off and resting point on the itineraries of international visitors to the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces. The Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex is the largest of the museums in Mossel Bay. Originally designed to celebrate the arrival of Bartolomeu Dias and his crew on 3 February 1488, and to protect
2208-460: The -ne . With time the -ne disappeared in most Dutch dialects. The double negative construction has been fully grammaticalised in standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show: A notable exception to this is the use of the negating grammar form that coincides with negating the English present participle . In this case there is only
2300-605: The Evangelie volgens Markus ( Gospel of Mark , lit. 'Gospel according to Mark'); however, this translation was never published. The manuscript is to be found in the South African National Library, Cape Town. The first official translation of the entire Bible into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit , E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet . This monumental work established Afrikaans as 'n suiwer en ordentlike taal , that
2392-710: The Aloe ferox (also known as the bitter aloe , Cape aloe or red aloe ) from which skin-care products are made locally, and the Chondropetalum tectorum (Cape or thatching reed ) which is used for the roofing of traditional Cape-Dutch buildings . The municipal area's boundaries are the Gouritz River in the west, the Outeniqua Mountains to the north, the Maalgate River in the east, and
2484-645: The Arabic alphabet : see Arabic Afrikaans . Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script , started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850 (alongside the already established Dutch). In 1875 a group of Afrikaans-speakers from the Cape formed the Genootskap vir Regte Afrikaaners ('Society for Real Afrikaners'), and published a number of books in Afrikaans including grammars, dictionaries, religious materials and histories. Until
2576-730: The Battle of Aliwal in India, where the then governor of the British-held Cape Colony, Harry Smith , had won victory over the Sikhs on 8 January 1846. The name Aliwal South never stuck, however – even when the town was officially proclaimed in 1848, and when it became a Municipality in 1852. From the earliest days of the Dutch settlers, Mossel Bay acted as the major port serving the Southern Cape region and its hinterland,
2668-551: The Fischer–Tropsch process of converting natural gas (which is piped from offshore fields via PetroSA's FA Platform). Mossel Bay's GTL plant serves up to 15 percent of South Africa's transport fuels requirements. It produces unleaded gasoline , ultra low sulphur diesel , kerosene , low aromatic distillates , drilling fluids, liquid petroleum gas, low sulphur fuel oil , anhydrous alcohols, liquid oxygen , liquid nitrogen , carbon dioxide , and waxes . Mossel Bay straddles
2760-645: The Institute of Human Origins of the Arizona State University as well as researchers from South Africa ( UCT and Iziko South African Museum ), Australia (Archaeology Program, La Trobe University, UoW ), Israel, and France. After debating for decades, paleoanthropologists now agree there is enough genetic and fossil evidence to suggest that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa c. 200,000 – c. 160,000 years ago. At that time,
2852-535: The Khoisan languages , an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch often lie in the more analytic morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and different spellings. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form . The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans ) meaning 'African'. It
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2944-647: The N2 national highway , which is South Africa's main coastal road from Cape Town in the Western Cape Province , to Durban in KwaZulu-Natal Province . (Using this route, Mossel Bay lies exactly at the midpoint between Cape Town and the Eastern Cape Province's capital of Port Elizabeth – 400 km each way). The Municipality of Mossel Bay maintains 417,9 km of paved and concreted roads, and 24 km of gravel roads. Mossel Bay
3036-733: The Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, were involved. Afrikaans descended from Dutch dialects in the 17th century. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages . Other West Germanic languages related to Afrikaans are German, English, the Frisian languages , Yiddish , and the unstandardised language Low German . Afrikaans is also widely spoken in Namibia. Before independence, Afrikaans had equal status with German as an official language. Since independence in 1990, Afrikaans has had constitutional recognition as
3128-517: The Senate , in which the Afrikaans language was declared a variety of Dutch. The Constitution of 1961 reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch, so that English and Afrikaans were the official languages, and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed any mention of Dutch altogether. The Afrikaans Language Monument is on a hill overlooking Paarl in the Western Cape Province . Officially opened on 10 October 1975, it
3220-538: The Synod of Dordrecht of 1618 and was thus in an archaic form of Dutch. This was hard for Dutch speakers to understand, and increasingly unintelligible for Afrikaans speakers. C. P. Hoogehout, Arnoldus Pannevis [ af ] , and Stephanus Jacobus du Toit were the first Afrikaans Bible translators. Important landmarks in the translation of the Scriptures were in 1878 with C. P. Hoogehout's translation of
3312-417: The Western Cape Province ). This was a significant step in the development of the town's tourism economy as it positioned Mossel Bay as a beach holiday destination - and beach tourism remains a major focus for incoming tourism in the 21st century. South Africa installed its first democratically elected government in 1994, which brought about sweeping changes in the structure of local government throughout
3404-564: The constitution of the Western Cape , which went into effect in 1998, declares Afrikaans to be an official language of the province alongside English and Xhosa . The Afrikaans-language general-interest family magazine Huisgenoot has the largest readership of any magazine in the country. When the British design magazine Wallpaper described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages" in its September 2005 article about
3496-526: The monument , South African billionaire Johann Rupert (chairman of the Richemont Group ), responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier , Van Cleef & Arpels , Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine. The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, was an English -speaking South African. An estimated 90 to 95 percent of the Afrikaans lexicon is ultimately of Dutch origin, and there are few lexical differences between
3588-545: The " Post Office Tree ", the Complex now offers a wider look at the history of Mossel Bay from environmental, archaeological, and cultural perspectives. Cape St. Blaize Lighthouse ( 34°11′10″S 22°09′22″E / 34.186028°S 22.156152°E / -34.186028; 22.156152 ) was built in 1864 to designs by the Colonial engineer, R. Robinson. The original light (on a masonry tower 20.5 metres in height)
3680-452: The "language of the white oppressor" by some, pressure has been increased to remove Afrikaans as a teaching language in South African universities, resulting in bloody student protests in 2015. Under South Africa's Constitution of 1996, Afrikaans remains an official language , and has equal status to English and nine other languages. The new policy means that the use of Afrikaans is now often reduced in favour of English, or to accommodate
3772-676: The Arabic script. In 1861, L.H. Meurant published his Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar ( Conversation between Nicholas Truthsayer and John Doubter ), which is considered to be the first book published in Afrikaans. The first grammar book was published in 1876; a bilingual dictionary was later published in 1902. The main modern Afrikaans dictionary in use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT). A new authoritative dictionary, called Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT),
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3864-766: The Boers and their servants." In 1925 Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a distinct language, rather than simply a vernacular of Dutch. On 8 May 1925, that is 23 years after the Second Boer War ended, the Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 was passed—mostly due to the efforts of the Afrikaans-language movement —at a joint sitting of the House of Assembly and
3956-519: The Dutch Cape Colony between 1652 and 1672 had a Dutch father. Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman argue that Afrikaans' development as a separate language was "heavily conditioned by nonwhites who learned Dutch imperfectly as a second language." Beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with
4048-552: The Indian Ocean to the south. According to the South African National Census of 2022 , the population of Mossel Bay (including the adjacent townships ) is 140,075 people. Of this population, 40.9% described themselves as " Coloured ", 40.1% as " Black African " and 17.6% as " White ". 57.4% spoke Afrikaans as their first language, 30.7% spoke Xhosa and 6.9% spoke English . In the 1936 Census
4140-589: The Indian Ocean, eastwards towards the town of George . The Outeniqua Mountains , which form part of the Cape Fold Belt , lie to the north of the municipal area. These mountains of sandstone and shale are characterised by gentle slopes to the seaward side (which are generally covered by montane fynbos and grasslands), and rise to a height of 1,578 m at Cradock Peak, near George (40 km east of Mossel Bay), and 1,675 metres at Formosa Peak near Plettenberg Bay (150 km east of Mossel Bay). To
4232-588: The Peninsula and have spread eastwards along the sandy shore of the Bay. The town's economy relied heavily on farming, fishing and its commercial harbour (the smallest in the Transnet Port Authority 's stable of South African commercial harbours), until the 1969 discovery of natural offshore gas fields led to the development of the gas-to-liquids refinery operated by PetroSA . Tourism is another driver of Mossel Bay's economy. The origin of
4324-509: The Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias landed with his men at a point close to the site of the modern-day Dias Museum Complex. Here they found a spring from which to replenish their water supplies. Dias had been appointed to search for a trading route to India by King John II of Portugal , and, without realising it, actually rounded the Cape of Good Hope before landing at Mossel Bay – which he named Angra dos Vaqueiros (The Bay of Cowherds). Dias
4416-547: The UNESCO list of tentative sites as a potential future 'serial nomination' together with Blombos Cave , Sibudu Cave , Klasies River Caves , Border Cave , and Diepkloof Rock Shelter . Three of the sites gained the World Heritage Status in 2024. Mossel Bay Mossel Bay ( Afrikaans : Mosselbaai ) is a harbour town of about 120,000 people on the Southern Cape (or Garden Route ) of South Africa . It
4508-629: The area where the winter rainfall and all-year rainfall regions of the Western Cape Province meet. Its weather is influenced by the Agulhas Current of the Indian Ocean to the south, and by the presence of the Outeniqua Mountains to the north. Mossel Bay receives 80% of its rainfall at night. Frost is rare or almost absent and snow has never been recorded on the coastal platform. Snow does, however, occasionally fall on
4600-403: The arid Klein (or Little) Karoo , and during the ostrich feather boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 800,000 kg of feathers were exported through the port every year – which may have been the impetus that led to the construction of the first breakwater in 1912. Fishing and farming remained the main activities of the area during the early years of the 20th Century, and
4692-451: The challenges of demotion and emigration that it faces in South Africa, the Afrikaans vernacular remains competitive, being popular in DSTV pay channels and several internet sites, while generating high newspaper and music CD sales. A resurgence in Afrikaans popular music since the late 1990s has invigorated the language, especially among a younger generation of South Africans. A recent trend is
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#17327811591974784-527: The changing economy of the town that they found work in tourism, light industry or commerce. Whilst the Port and the Refinery have, of course, had a major influence on the development of Mossel Bay, they have always worked in tandem with the growth of tourism and general commerce so that the town now boasts a balanced and vibrant economy. Tourism in particular has influenced much of the growth since 1994, although
4876-463: The country - one of the results of which was that Mossel Bay merged with the smaller, neighbouring villages of Friemersheim, Great Brak River and Herbertsdale to form the present-day Municipality of Mossel Bay in December 2000. Mossel Bay has an ocean-moderated semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification : BSh ). Mossel Bay's climate is mild throughout the year as the town is situated in
4968-762: The course of the 18th century. As early as the mid-18th century and as recently as the mid-20th century, Afrikaans was known in standard Dutch as a 'kitchen language' (Dutch: kombuistaal ), lacking the prestige accorded, for example, even by the educational system in Africa, to languages spoken outside Africa. Other early epithets setting apart Kaaps Hollands (' Cape Dutch ', i.e. Afrikaans) as putatively beneath official Dutch standards included geradbraakt , gebroken and onbeschaafd Hollands ('mutilated, broken, or uncivilised Dutch'), as well as verkeerd Nederlands ('incorrect Dutch'). Historical linguist Hans den Besten theorises that modern Standard Afrikaans derives from two sources: So Afrikaans, in his view,
5060-512: The development of Afrikaans. The slave population was made up of people from East Africa, West Africa, Mughal India , Madagascar , and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia). A number were also indigenous Khoisan people, who were valued as interpreters, domestic servants, and labourers. Many free and enslaved women married or cohabited with the male Dutch settlers. M. F. Valkhoff argued that 75% of children born to female slaves in
5152-514: The earliest evidence for the systematic exploitation of marine resources (shellfish) and symbolic behaviour has been documented, and at Pinnacle Point Cave 5–6 (PP5–6), where the oldest evidence for the heat treatment of rock to make stone tools has been documented. The only human remains have been recovered from younger deposits at PP13B which are c. 100,000 years old. In 2024, the Pinnacle Point Site Complex became
5244-459: The early 20th century Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect , alongside Standard Dutch , which it eventually replaced as an official language. Before the Boer wars , "and indeed for some time afterwards, Afrikaans was regarded as inappropriate for educated discourse. Rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as 'a kitchen language' or 'a bastard jargon', suitable for communication mainly between
5336-489: The east, the land slopes upwards towards the wave-cut platform (average elevation 245 metres) that characterises the more lush all-year-round rainfall area of the Garden Route. Here the land is mostly covered by grass and farmlands. The deep sandy soils of the western portion of the municipal area also give way to grass and farm-lands, with large stands of typically dry fynbos which are characterised by, amongst others,
5428-532: The export of products from PetroSA's gas-to-fuel refinery, which is situated inland (about 13 km) and directly west of Mossel Bay. The SPM is located off Voorbaai in an open, unsheltered roadstead in about 21 metres of water. During the 2008/09 financial year Mossel Bay served 1,567 vessels (mostly South African trawlers) with a combined gross tonnage of 3,317,364-gt, and handled a total of 2,014,185 tonnes of cargo (1,940,310t of bulk cargo – mostly oil products – and 73,875t of break-bulk). 773,267 tonnes of cargo
5520-400: The farm Hartenbos in the 1930s, and began developing it as a holiday resort for its members. The major attractions were then, and (to a large extent) still are, the dry, warm and stable weather, and the Indian Ocean and its beaches. However, with good roads, modern vehicles and the development of inland accommodation, the broader environment of the area (including the Outeniqua Mountains to
5612-473: The government for Afrikaans, in terms of education, social events, media (TV and radio), and general status throughout the country, given that it now shares its place as official language with ten other languages. Nevertheless, Afrikaans remains more prevalent in the media – radio, newspapers and television – than any of the other official languages, except English. More than 300 book titles in Afrikaans are published annually. South African census figures suggest
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#17327811591975704-801: The growth of the port reflected this. The discovery of natural gas fields offshore in 1969, of the FA gas field in the Bredasdorp Basin (also off the Southern Cape coast) in 1980, and of the nearby EM field in 1983, led to the development of the Mossgas gas-to-liquids refinery (commissioned in 1987 and renamed the PetroSA Refinery in 2002). This changed the nature of the port so that its major business now comes from serving supply ships for PetroSA's offshore platforms, and from export via its offshore single point (or single buoy) mooring , which
5796-406: The increased availability of pre-school educational CDs and DVDs. Such media also prove popular with the extensive Afrikaans-speaking emigrant communities who seek to retain language proficiency in a household context. Afrikaans-language cinema showed signs of new vigour in the early 21st century. The 2007 film Ouma se slim kind , the first full-length Afrikaans movie since Paljas in 1998,
5888-414: The language distance for Anglophones once remarked that the differences between (Standard) Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English . Afrikaans is an official language of the Republic of South Africa and a recognised national language of the Republic of Namibia. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a loss of preferential treatment by
5980-525: The language of instruction for half the subjects taught in non-White schools (with English continuing for the other half). Although English is the mother tongue of only 8.2% of the population, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of a majority of South Africans. Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto. The Black community's opposition to Afrikaans and preference for continuing English instruction
6072-513: The likes of big Afrikaans Hollywood film stars, like Charlize Theron ( Monster ) and Sharlto Copley ( District 9 ) promoting their mother tongue. SABC 3 announced early in 2009 that it would increase Afrikaans programming due to the "growing Afrikaans-language market and [their] need for working capital as Afrikaans advertising is the only advertising that sells in the current South African television market". In April 2009, SABC3 started screening several Afrikaans-language programmes. There
6164-425: The majority are of Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaner and Coloured South-African descent. A much smaller and unknown number of speakers also reside in the Dutch Caribbean . Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Afrikaans speakers today are not Afrikaners or Boers , but Coloureds . In 1976, secondary-school pupils in Soweto began a rebellion in response to the government's decision that Afrikaans be used as
6256-411: The mountain peaks and can be seen from the town on rare occasions. Prevailing winds are westerly in winter (May - August) and easterly in summer (September - April), and rarely reach storm- or gale-force strength. The average days of sunshine are 320 days per year. Mossel Bay straddles the Cape St Blaize peninsula (which rises to an average height of 96 metres), and spreads out along the sandy shores of
6348-421: The name Mossel Bay (the Bay of Mussels) has to do with the ascendancy of the Dutch shipping merchants in the late 16th and the early 17th Centuries. In one account, the explorer Cornelis de Houtman named the place Mosselbaai when he stopped there in 1595, whilst in another, the Dutch Admiral Paulus van Caerden named it when he came ashore on 8 July 1601. Whatever the case, though, the mussels and oysters on
6440-519: The north, and large stands of fynbos , or Cape macchia , to the west) is now vital to the tourism economy. The town is a major attraction for adventure tourism , and offers deep sea fishing , SCUBA diving , white shark cage diving , whale watching , sky diving , and the longest over the ocean zipline . In addition, the history of the town (Mossel Bay was the site of the first contact between European explorers and indigenous people), and its cultural attractions are important features. Mossel Bay
6532-434: The other official languages. In 1996, for example, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reduced the amount of television airtime in Afrikaans, while South African Airways dropped its Afrikaans name Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens from its livery . Similarly, South Africa's diplomatic missions overseas now display the name of the country only in English and their host country's language, and not in Afrikaans. Meanwhile,
6624-410: The other way round. Mutual intelligibility thus tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. In general, mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is far better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish . The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach , attempting to visualise
6716-411: The past tense is also often replaced with the perfect.) When telling a longer story, Afrikaans speakers usually avoid the perfect and simply use the present tense, or historical present tense instead (as is possible, but less common, in English as well). A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative ; it is classified in Afrikaans as ontkennende vorm and is something that
6808-791: The presently accepted theory of the Recent African Origin of Modern Humans , all people alive today evolved from a core population of about 600 individuals who lived on the African Continent between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. The Mossel Bay Archaeology Project (MAP) has shown that the Southern Cape Coast was most probably the point where modern behaviour first emerged about 164,000 years ago. Afrikaans language Afrikaans ( / ˌ æ f r ɪ ˈ k ɑː n s / AF -rih- KAHNSS , / ˌ ɑː f -, - ˈ k ɑː n z / AHF -, - KAHNZ )
6900-507: The provincial heritage resources authority Heritage Western Cape declared Pinnacle Point a provincial heritage site in the terms of Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Act. This provides the site with the highest form of protection under South African heritage law. In 2015, the South African government submitted a proposal to add the cave to the list of World Heritage Sites and it has been placed on
6992-454: The shore at Pinnacle Point, where they could eat marine creatures like shellfish, whale, and seal. Also at PP13B are an anomalous quantity of dicotyledonous tree leaf phytoliths in sediments that are roughly 90,000 years old. Though alteration of phytoliths introduce uncertainty to these findings, the quantity of tree phytoliths relative to grass phytoliths has been suggested to indicate a history of wood burning in hearths. On 14 December 2012,
7084-480: The shore would have been a welcome addition to the limited diet on which ship's crews were expected to survive in those days. Although it is today best known as the place at which the first Europeans landed on South African soil ( Bartolomeu Dias and his crew arrived on 3 February 1488), Mossel Bay's human history can – as local archaeological deposits have revealed – be traced back more than 164,000 years. The modern history of Mossel Bay began on 3 February 1488, when
7176-442: The subject. For example, Only a handful of Afrikaans verbs have a preterite , namely the auxiliary wees ('to be'), the modal verbs , and the verb dink ('to think'). The preterite of mag ('may') is rare in contemporary Afrikaans. All other verbs use the perfect tense, het + past participle (ge-), for the past. Therefore, there is no distinction in Afrikaans between I drank and I have drunk . (In colloquial German,
7268-506: The town had a total population of 7,227 people making it the 39th largest settlement in South Africa; 3,782 of whom were recorded as "Coloured," 3,260 as "European," 93 as "Asiatic," and 92 of whom were recorded as "Native" or "Bantu". Mossel Bay has been a beach holiday destination for South Africans for more than a century – a situation that received a particular boost after the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereniging (ATKV) bought
7360-553: The town has been a popular resort destination for South Africans since as early as the late 1800s. The Afrikaans Language and Cultural Society ( Afrikaans : Taal en Kultuurvereniging ), also known as the ATKV, bought the farm Hartenbos , east of what was then the town of Mossel Bay, in 1936, and developed it as a holiday resort (now known as the ATKV Hartenbos Resort, and considered the biggest self-catering resort in
7452-547: The tree has remained one of the town's biggest tourist attractions.) João da Nova erected a small shrine near the Post Office Tree, and although no traces of it remain, it is considered the first place of Christian worship in South Africa. Although the Dutch governor of the Cape Colony, Jan de la Fontaine , visited Mossel Bay and erected a possession stone here in 1734, the first permanent European building –
7544-537: The two languages. Afrikaans has a considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. Afrikaans acquired some lexical and syntactical borrowings from other languages such as Malay , Khoisan languages , Portuguese, and Bantu languages , and Afrikaans has also been significantly influenced by South African English . Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than
7636-475: The world was in an ice age , and Africa was dry and arid. As archaeological sites dating to that time period are rare in Africa, palaeontologist Curtis Marean analysed geologic formations , sea currents , and climate data to pinpoint likely archaeological sites; one such was Pinnacle Point. At PP13B, the evidence for symbolic behaviour comes in the form of scraped and ground ochre (usually referred to as limonite bearing powders) that may have been used to form
7728-455: Was commissioned as Mossgas in 1987 – is situated about 13 km to the west of the town's central business district. This is one of the world's largest Gas to liquids (GTL) refineries, and has always been a leader in the challenge of commercialising the GTL processes. It produces 36,000 barrels (5,700 m ) per day (bbl/d) – a crude oil equivalent of 45,000 bbl/d (7,200 m /d) – using
7820-589: Was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Real Afrikaners , and the 50th anniversary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa in distinction to Dutch. The earliest Afrikaans texts were some doggerel verse from 1795 and a dialogue transcribed by a Dutch traveller in 1825. Afrikaans used the Latin alphabet around this time, although the Cape Muslim community used
7912-572: Was influenced by Eugene Nida 's theory of dynamic equivalence which focused on finding the nearest equivalent in the receptor language to the idea that the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic wanted to convey. A new translation, Die Bybel: 'n Direkte Vertaling was released in November 2020. It is the first truly ecumenical translation of the Bible in Afrikaans as translators from various churches, including
8004-462: Was landed, and 1,240,918t was shipped. 15000 people worked on the synthol & refinery plant in Mossel Bay from 1998 to 2002 from all over the world - changing the landscape of the perception of South Africa Garden Route & giving major credence to South Africa & multi-relations to the world. Mossel Bay is connected to the national rail network via a branch line to George. The line celebrated its centenary on 25 September 2007. According to
8096-399: Was previously referred to as 'Cape Dutch' ( Kaap-Hollands or Kaap-Nederlands ), a term also used to refer to the early Cape settlers collectively, or the derogatory 'kitchen Dutch' ( kombuistaal ) from its use by slaves of colonial settlers "in the kitchen". The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony , through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects , during
8188-655: Was stationary, but in 1897 a revolving, clock-work light, which required winding every three hours, was fitted. This was used until the late 1970s. The light is now fully automated. Mossel Bay has a strong tourism economy. The summer holiday season (from about mid-December to mid-January) is the busiest time of the year, and, in December 2010, the Municipality estimated that the town provided accommodation for between 50,000 and 60,000 holidaymakers per night during this period. The PetroSA (Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa Pty Limited) Refinery – which
8280-679: Was the translation of the whole Bible into Afrikaans. While significant advances had been made in the textual criticism of the Bible, especially the Greek New Testament , the 1933 translation followed the Textus Receptus and was closely akin to the Statenbijbel . Before this, most Cape Dutch-Afrikaans speakers had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel . This Statenvertaling had its origins with
8372-549: Was under development As of 2018. The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls , compiled by Die Taalkommissie . The Afrikaners primarily were Protestants, of the Dutch Reformed Church of the 17th century. Their religious practices were later influenced in South Africa by British ministries during the 1800s. A landmark in the development of the language
8464-622: Was underlined when the government rescinded the policy one month after the uprising: 96% of Black schools chose English (over Afrikaans or native languages) as the language of instruction. Afrikaans-medium schools were also accused of using language policy to deter Black African parents. Some of these parents, in part supported by provincial departments of education, initiated litigation which enabled enrolment with English as language of instruction. By 2006 there were 300 single-medium Afrikaans schools, compared to 2,500 in 1994, after most converted to dual-medium education. Due to Afrikaans being viewed as
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