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Part of
Investigating West Germanic Languages: Studies in honor of Robert B. Howell
Edited by Jennifer Hendriks and B. Richard Page
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 8] 2024
► pp. 131–162

Lexicalizing vernacular architecture in the Cape Dutch Vernacular

| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Afrikaans has hybrid compounds that pair Khoekhoe and Dutch roots to denote indigenous flora and cultural items, e.g., ghwarrieboom ‘guarri tree’. Afrikaans hart(e)beeshuis ‘wattle and daub house’ falls within this compound type, even though it looks straightforwardly Dutch hart(e)bees(t) ‘species of African antelope’ + huis ‘house’. Lexicalization of hybrid harbeeshuis took place in the Cape Dutch Pidgin as a term for a shelter or dwelling with water-resistant roof, with a cognate of Nama xaribe ‘wipe away (water)’ as the first term of the compound. White pastoralists adopted this style of vernacular architecture along with the term for it, whence the creation of hart(e)beeshuis by folk etymology.
Keywords: Afrikaans, Cape Dutch Pidgin, lexicalization, vernacular architecture
Article outline
  • 1.The formation of a contact language at the Cape of Good Hope
  • 2.Lexification of the Cape Dutch Pidgin
  • 3.“You may ask yourself: ‘What is that beautiful house?’”
  • 4.“Same as it ever was”
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.8.08rob
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