PROFESSIONAL AFRIKAANS TRANSLATION SERVICE

Afrikaans belongs to the Indo-European group of languages. It is classified as Low Franconian West Germanic as it was derived from Dutch. Novatia has providing professional Afrikaans translation services to a number of organizations and individuals. We continue to receive and work on Afrikaans translation projects including but not limited Afrikaans to English, and English to Afrikaans translation.

The following information compiled by our professional Afrikaans translators would help lay people associated with the translation industry; form an initial idea about the Afrikaans language.

  • Afrikaans is primarily spoken in South Africa and Namibia. In fact it is the major language of the western portion of South Africa that includes Northern and Western Cape. Even in Namibia it is the most widely used first language.
  • Apart from these, one can also relatively small groups of Afrikaans speakers in Angola, Australia, Argentina, Botswana, Lesotho, New Zealand, Swaziland, Taiwan, USA, Zimbabwe and Zambia. United Kingdom over 100 000 emigrant Afrikaans speakers.
  • It is the primary language of two ethnic groups found in South Africa. They are the Afrikaners or Afrikaans people and the Coloureds which include Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua.
  • Since Afrikaans was derived Dutch, the two languages are mutually intelligible. However Afrikaans speakers understand Dutch more easily compared to Dutch speakers.
  • The grammar of Afrikaans language does not prescribe any distinction between present and infinitive forms of verbs.
  • All letters present of the Latin alphabet are accepted in Afrikaans.
  • Three dialectical variations of Afrikaans existed before the 1830s. These were Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape dialects. However the growing influence of Standard Afrikaans eliminated most of the dialectical differences. This has also led Afrikaans to develop  into a highly centralized language. Most vowels are pronounced in a schwa-like way and though the transcriptions even in the case of different dialects and accents are mostly standard.