{"id":775,"date":"2010-06-10T08:57:37","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T08:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=775"},"modified":"2014-11-11T20:49:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T20:49:29","slug":"world-cup-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/10\/world-cup-language\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the football World Cup starting tomorrow, it\u2019s time to take a look at some South African slang.<\/p>\n

The slang is taken from South Africa\u2019s 11 different languages<\/a>, which all have constitutionally guaranteed equal status. These languages reflect the diversity of the country, and are:<\/p>\n

Afrikaans<\/a>
\nEnglish<\/a>
\nIsiNdebele<\/a>
\nIsiXhosa<\/a>
\nIsiZulu<\/a>
\nSepedi<\/a>
\nSesotho<\/a>
\nSetswana<\/a>
\nSiSwati<\/a>
\nTshivenda<\/a>
\nXitsonga<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition a number of other languages are spoken including Khoi, Nama and San languages, sign language, and some indigenous creoles and pidgins.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of slang \u2013 I particularly like \u2018chips! Chips!\u2019:<\/p>\n

Babbelas (bub-a-lars)<\/strong>. Hangover – usually rather a bad one. From the isiZulu word for hangover isibhabhalazi. “Hello, hello. Great party last night. How’s your head? Are you a bit babbelas?”<\/p>\n

Bra (brah) or bru<\/strong>. Nothing to do with underwear at all, but an informal term for “my friend” or “mate”, deriving from “brother”. ‘He’s my bra but that team he supports is rubbish.” Bru stems from the Afrikaans for brother, broer.<\/p>\n

Chips! Chips!<\/strong>. Nothing you’ll find in the kebab shop around the corner but an expression of alarm or warning. “Chips! Chips! He’s off-side”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Source: The Guardian<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the football World Cup starting tomorrow, it\u2019s time to take a look at some South African slang. The slang is taken from South Africa\u2019s 11 different languages, which all have constitutionally guaranteed equal status. These languages reflect the diversity of the country, and are: Afrikaans English IsiNdebele IsiXhosa IsiZulu Sepedi Sesotho Setswana SiSwati Tshivenda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,3,27,57],"tags":[336,3,61,761,762,763,25,764,765,766,767,758,760,759,768,757,769],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afrikaans","category-english","category-hints-and-tips","category-slang","tag-afrikaans","tag-english","tag-football","tag-isindebele","tag-isixhosa","tag-isizulu","tag-languages","tag-sepedi","tag-sesotho","tag-setswana","tag-siswati","tag-south-africa","tag-south-african-languages","tag-south-african-slang","tag-tshivenda","tag-world-cup","tag-xitsonga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}