The Origins of Fanagalo
Rajend Mesthrie | University of Cape Town
This paper examines, and refutes, the currently most popular hypothesis concerning the origin of Fanagalo, namely, that it arose on the plantation fields of Natal among indentured East Indian migrants who arrived there from 1860 onwards. Can a pidgin be initiated by a group of migrants from differing linguistic backgrounds in a plantation situation, and still remain in widespread use without showing any substrate influences? If the Indian origin hypothesis is correct, this would indeed be the case: a "crystallized" southern African Pidgin, stable for about a hundred years, would have been created in the sugar plantations of Natal by migrant indentured Indian workers without any tangible influences from any of the five or so Indic and Dravidian languages involved. However, structural and lexical evidence indicates otherwise. Written sources (a first-hand account by an English settler from about 1905, and two published accounts by an English missionary) suggest that the use of Fanagalo in Natal predated the arrival of Indian immigrants by at least ten years. Regarding the origins of Fanagalo, one other viable alternative is examined — the Eastern Cape in the early 1800s. The conclusion is that the most likely site for Fanagalo's genesis was Natal in the mid-nineteenth century.
Published online: 01 January 1989
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.4.2.04mes
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.4.2.04mes
Cited by
Cited by 33 other publications
Baker, Philip
Ditsele, Thabo & Ellen Hurst
MESTHRIE, RAJEND
MESTHRIE, RAJEND
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Mesthrie, Rajend
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Nancy Niedzielski
Roberts, Sarah J. & Joan Bresnan
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.