Fanagalo
(Redirected from Fanakalo)
Categories: Pidgins and creoles | Languages of Zambia | Languages of Zimbabwe | Languages of South Africa
Fanagalo or Fanakalo is one of a number of African pidgin languages that developed during the colonial period to promote ease of communication. It is the only Zulu-based pidgin language, and is a rare example of a pidgin based on an indigenous language rather than on the language of a colonising or trading power. Fanagalo is from South Africa and is a lingua franca associated particularly with the South African gold and diamond mining industry. The linguist Ralph Adendorff suggests that the language developed in the nineteenth century in Natal as a way for English colonists to communicate with their servants and was also used as a lingua franca between English and Afrikaans-speaking colonists.
The name "Fanagalo" comes from strung-together Nguni forms meaning "liken + it + that" and has the meaning "do it like this", reflecting its use as a language of instruction. It was used extensively in gold and diamond mines because the South African mining industry employed on fixed contracts workers from across southern and central Africa: including Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique. With workers originating from a range of countries and having a vast range of different mother tongues, Fanagalo provided a simple way to communicate and is still used as a training and operating medium. In the mid-20th century there were white efforts in South Africa to promote and standardise Fanagalo as a universal second language, under the name of "Basic Bantu".
Mine Fanagalo is based mostly on Zulu vocabulary, with some words from English, Afrikaans and Portuguese. It does not have the range of Zulu inflections, and it tends to follow English word order.
Adendorff describes Mine Fanagalo and Garden Fanagalo (which used to be known as Kitchen Kaffir - "Kaffir" being an offensive South African term for a black person and a 19th century term for Nguni languages) as being basically the same pidgin. He suggests that Garden Fanagalo should be seen as lying towards the English end of a continuum, and Mine Fanagalo closer to the Zulu end.
Other, similar colonial era pidgins include Chilapalapa (very similar to Fanakalo, with a largely Zulu/Ndebele vocabulary; used in colonial Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe) and ki-Settler (based on Kikuyu and used by European colonists in Kenya).
Mining aside, Fanagalo has unfavourable and negative connotations for many South Africans. However, Adendorff raises the point that Fanagalo is sometimes used between white South Africans, particularly expatriates, as a signal of South African origin and a way of conveying solidarity in an informal manner.
See also
References
- Adendorff, R., 2002. "Fanakalo - a pidgin in South Africa", in Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press 2002