Misplaced Pages

Transitional Government of National Unity (Namibia)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

The Agreement among the People's Republic of Angola, the Republic of Cuba, and the Republic of South Africa (also known as the Tripartite Accord , Three Powers Accord or New York Accords ) granted independence to Namibia (then known as South West Africa ) from South Africa and ended the direct involvement of foreign troops in the Angolan Civil War . The accords were signed on 22 December 1988 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City by the Foreign Ministers of People's Republic of Angola ( Afonso Van-Dunem ), Republic of Cuba ( Isidoro Malmierca Peoli ) and Republic of South Africa ( Roelof F. Botha ).

#783216

73-401: The Transitional Government of National Unity ( TGNU ) ( Afrikaans : Oorgangsregering van Nasionale Eenheid (ORNE) ), was an interim government for South West Africa ( Namibia ) between June 1985 to February 1989. Following the 1975–1977 Turnhalle Constitutional Conference , the first multiracial elections were held in the occupied territory in 1978, and a National Assembly as well as

146-414: A linkage policy . It tied apartheid South Africa 's agreement to relinquish control of Namibia , in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 , and to retreat from Angola, to Cuba's withdrawing its troops from Angola. On 10 September 1986 Cuban president Fidel Castro accepted Crocker's proposal in principle. The South African government also accepted the principle of linkage; it proposed

219-560: A Ministers' Council was constituted. Dirk Mudge became chairman of the Ministers' Council. Already in 1972 the United Nations had decreed SWAPO to be the "sole legitimate representative" of Namibia's people, but SWAPO was not invited to the Turnhalle conference and boycotted the subsequent elections. The United Nations Security Council consequently declared the election null and void, and

292-724: A Peaceful Settlement in South Western Africa on 20 July. During the negotiations, the South Africans were asked to release imprisoned ANC activist Nelson Mandela as a sign of goodwill, which was denied. A ceasefire was finally agreed upon on August 8, 1988. Mandela remained in prison until 2 February 1990, when South Africa lifted the ban on activities of the African National Congress . The negotiations were finalised in New York with Angola, Cuba and South Africa signing

365-455: A decreasing number of first language Afrikaans speakers in South Africa from 13.5% in 2011 to 10.6% in 2022. The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) projects that a growing majority of Afrikaans speakers will be Coloured . Afrikaans speakers experience higher employment rates than other South African language groups, though as of 2012 half a million were unemployed. Despite

438-476: A high degree of accuracy. The guns were used to halt the Cuban advance to the south and raised the specter of yet another unaffordable arms escalation between two medium-sized military powers. The South Africans assert that the new weapon raised Cuba's fear of more casualties in a war where Cuban fatalities had outnumbered South African fatalities by a factor 10. Conversely, the Cuban air force held air superiority , as

511-558: A national, but not official, language. There is a much smaller number of Afrikaans speakers among Zimbabwe's white minority, as most have left the country since 1980. Afrikaans was also a medium of instruction for schools in Bophuthatswana , an Apartheid-era Bantustan . Eldoret in Kenya was founded by Afrikaners. There are also around 30.000 South-Africans in the Netherlands , of which

584-608: A second language. It is widely taught in South African schools, with about 10.3 million second-language students. Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside South Africa, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia and the United States. In Afrikaans grammar, there is no distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs 'to be' and 'to have'. In addition, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on

657-530: A shift in power) led to the MPLA dropping the one-party state and opening the door to a multi-party democracy, with the inclusion of UNITA as a competing party. After some 18 years of war, that was a tremendous breakthrough. The elections were declared "generally" free and fair by the UN, with the MPLA gaining just under 50% of the vote. However UNITA, along with eight opposition parties and many other election observers, said that

730-649: A single negation. Certain words in Afrikaans would be contracted. For example, moet nie , which literally means 'must not', usually becomes moenie ; although one does not have to write or say it like this, virtually all Afrikaans speakers will change the two words to moenie in the same way as do not is contracted to don't in English. Tripartite Accord (1988) In 1981 Chester Crocker , U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs for newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan , had developed

803-511: Is "a pure and proper language" for religious purposes, especially among the deeply Calvinist Afrikaans religious community that previously had been sceptical of a Bible translation that varied from the Dutch version that they were used to. In 1983 a fresh translation marked the 50th anniversary of the 1933 version. The final editing of this edition was done by E. P. Groenewald, A. H. van Zyl, P. A. Verhoef, J. L. Helberg and W. Kempen. This translation

SECTION 10

#1732845294784

876-549: Is a groundswell movement within Afrikaans to be inclusive, and to promote itself along with the indigenous official languages. In Namibia, the percentage of Afrikaans speakers declined from 11.4% (2001 Census) to 10.4% (2011 Census). The major concentrations are in Hardap (41.0%), ǁKaras (36.1%), Erongo (20.5%), Khomas (18.5%), Omaheke (10.0%), Otjozondjupa (9.4%), Kunene (4.2%), and Oshikoto (2.3%). Some native speakers of Bantu languages and English also speak Afrikaans as

949-512: Is absent from the other West Germanic standard languages. For example: Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans. While double negation is still found in Low Franconian dialects in West Flanders and in some "isolated" villages in the centre of the Netherlands (such as Garderen ), it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans. The following

1022-469: Is an example: Compare with Ek wil dit nie doen nie , which changes the meaning to 'I want not to do this'. Whereas Ek wil nie dit doen nie emphasizes a lack of desire to act, Ek wil dit nie doen nie emphasizes the act itself. The -ne was the Middle Dutch way to negate but it has been suggested that since -ne became highly non-voiced, nie or niet was needed to complement

1095-455: Is incompatible with the relevant United Nations resolutions, particularly Security Council resolution 435 (1978);..." The Angolan and United States governments started bilateral talks in June 1987 while the civil war continued. There is disagreement amongst historians on how the various parties agreed to come to the table: In the words of Chester Crocker, "Watching South Africa and Cuba at the table

1168-555: Is neither a creole nor a direct descendant of Dutch, but a fusion of two transmission pathways. Most of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands), with up to one-sixth of the community of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany. African and Asian workers, Cape Coloured children of European settlers and Khoikhoi women, and slaves contributed to

1241-528: Is seen as the dawn of a new era in Afrikaans cinema. Several short films have been created and more feature-length movies, such as Poena Is Koning and Bakgat (both in 2008) have been produced, besides the 2011 Afrikaans-language film Skoonheid , which was the first Afrikaans film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival . The film Platteland was also released in 2011. The Afrikaans film industry started gaining international recognition via

1314-405: The -ne . With time the -ne disappeared in most Dutch dialects. The double negative construction has been fully grammaticalised in standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show: A notable exception to this is the use of the negating grammar form that coincides with negating the English present participle . In this case there is only

1387-588: The Evangelie volgens Markus ( Gospel of Mark , lit. 'Gospel according to Mark'); however, this translation was never published. The manuscript is to be found in the South African National Library, Cape Town. The first official translation of the entire Bible into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit , E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet . This monumental work established Afrikaans as 'n suiwer en ordentlike taal , that

1460-678: The Arabic alphabet : see Arabic Afrikaans . Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script , started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850 (alongside the already established Dutch). In 1875 a group of Afrikaans-speakers from the Cape formed the Genootskap vir Regte Afrikaaners ('Society for Real Afrikaners'), and published a number of books in Afrikaans including grammars, dictionaries, religious materials and histories. Until

1533-554: The Dutch vernacular of South Holland ( Hollandic dialect ) spoken by the predominantly Dutch settlers and enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony , where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages, including German and the Khoisan languages , an estimated 90 to 95% of

SECTION 20

#1732845294784

1606-827: The National Party of South West Africa (NP), the Rehoboth Free Democratic Party , the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), and the SWAPO Democrats (SWAPO-D). Johannes Skrywer of the DTA, who had been Speaker of the previous assembly established in 1978, was elected as the Speaker of the new assembly. The composition of the National Assembly was as follows: The 8 member Council of Ministers of

1679-716: The Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, were involved. Afrikaans descended from Dutch dialects in the 17th century. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages . Other West Germanic languages related to Afrikaans are German, English, the Frisian languages , Yiddish , and the unstandardised language Low German . Afrikaans is also widely spoken in Namibia. Before independence, Afrikaans had equal status with German as an official language. Since independence in 1990, Afrikaans has had constitutional recognition as

1752-576: The Senate , in which the Afrikaans language was declared a variety of Dutch. The Constitution of 1961 reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch, so that English and Afrikaans were the official languages, and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed any mention of Dutch altogether. The Afrikaans Language Monument is on a hill overlooking Paarl in the Western Cape Province . Officially opened on 10 October 1975, it

1825-528: The Synod of Dordrecht of 1618 and was thus in an archaic form of Dutch. This was hard for Dutch speakers to understand, and increasingly unintelligible for Afrikaans speakers. C. P. Hoogehout, Arnoldus Pannevis  [ af ] , and Stephanus Jacobus du Toit were the first Afrikaans Bible translators. Important landmarks in the translation of the Scriptures were in 1878 with C. P. Hoogehout's translation of

1898-984: The Windhoek Declaration of Basic Principles in 1984 and the Bill of Fundamental Rights and Objectives , wherein the establishment of a Transitional Government of National Unity is requested from the South African administration, in 1985. On 17 June 1985, the Transitional Government of National Unity was established by the South African Administrator-General through the promulgation of "the South West Africa Legislative and Executive Authority Establishment Proclamation, 1985" (Proclamation R.101 of 1985). Its legislative and executive actions were subject to South African approval, with newly appointed administrator-general Louis Pienaar having

1971-553: The constitution of the Western Cape , which went into effect in 1998, declares Afrikaans to be an official language of the province alongside English and Xhosa . The Afrikaans-language general-interest family magazine Huisgenoot has the largest readership of any magazine in the country. When the British design magazine Wallpaper described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages" in its September 2005 article about

2044-519: The monument , South African billionaire Johann Rupert (chairman of the Richemont Group ), responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier , Van Cleef & Arpels , Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine. The author of the article, Bronwyn Davies, was an English -speaking South African. An estimated 90 to 95 percent of the Afrikaans lexicon is ultimately of Dutch origin, and there are few lexical differences between

2117-572: The veto right on all legislation to be passed. The TGNU was perceived as a client government of South Africa that sought moderate reform but was unable to secure recognition by the United Nations. The interim government consisted of a 62-seat National Assembly and an 8-seat Council of Ministers. The assembly was dominated by the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), then an alliance of ethnically based political parties. However,

2190-452: The "language of the white oppressor" by some, pressure has been increased to remove Afrikaans as a teaching language in South African universities, resulting in bloody student protests in 2015. Under South Africa's Constitution of 1996, Afrikaans remains an official language , and has equal status to English and nine other languages. The new policy means that the use of Afrikaans is now often reduced in favour of English, or to accommodate

2263-661: The Arabic script. In 1861, L.H. Meurant published his Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar ( Conversation between Nicholas Truthsayer and John Doubter ), which is considered to be the first book published in Afrikaans. The first grammar book was published in 1876; a bilingual dictionary was later published in 1902. The main modern Afrikaans dictionary in use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT). A new authoritative dictionary, called Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT),

Transitional Government of National Unity (Namibia) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2336-730: The Boers and their servants." In 1925 Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a distinct language, rather than simply a vernacular of Dutch. On 8 May 1925, that is 23 years after the Second Boer War ended, the Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 was passed—mostly due to the efforts of the Afrikaans-language movement —at a joint sitting of the House of Assembly and

2409-472: The Cuban delegation, rejected the South African demands, noting that "South Africa must face the fact that it will not obtain at the negotiating table what it could not achieve on the battlefield." According to the book 32 Battalion by Piet Nortje, during this campaign South Africa introduced its new secret weapons, the G5 and G6 howitzer guns. The cannons can fire a projectile over 40 kilometres (25 mi) with

2482-507: The Dutch Cape Colony between 1652 and 1672 had a Dutch father. Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman argue that Afrikaans' development as a separate language was "heavily conditioned by nonwhites who learned Dutch imperfectly as a second language." Beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with

2555-540: The South Africans were linking Namibian independence with Cuban withdrawal. The Cuban negotiator, Jorge Risquet, announced that Cuba would stay in Angola until the end of apartheid, probably also as a negotiation ploy. (Apartheid did not end until more than 4 years after Cuba left Angola). The Cubans suggested that the U.S. was worried whether the Cuban forces would stop their advance at the Namibian border. Jorge Risquet, head of

2628-535: The TGNU was chaired on a three-month rotational basis by its members. The Transitional Government of National Unity was suspended on 28 February 1989 following the signing of a peace agreement the previous year. As stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 , a United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) was deployed on 1 April 1989. Elections to a Constituent Assembly were held in November 1989 and

2701-502: The accord on 22 December 1988. It provided for the retreat of South African forces from Angola, which had already taken place by 30 August; the withdrawal of South Africa from Namibia; and Namibia's independence and the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola within 30 months. The agreement followed the American linkage proposal which had also been pushed by South Africa on numerous occasions in 1984 and in 1986 (the UN plenary meeting). Namibia

2774-447: The challenges of demotion and emigration that it faces in South Africa, the Afrikaans vernacular remains competitive, being popular in DSTV pay channels and several internet sites, while generating high newspaper and music CD sales. A resurgence in Afrikaans popular music since the late 1990s has invigorated the language, especially among a younger generation of South Africans. A recent trend is

2847-467: The concept at the UN 7th Plenary Meeting on 20 September 1986 (the Question of Namibia). The concept was strongly rejected by a Cuban-backed majority, with representatives strongly stating their opposition to the effect of, "... The UN.... Calls upon South Africa to desist from linking the independence of Namibia to irrelevant and extraneous issues such as the presence of Cuban troops in Angola as such linkage

2920-403: The conditions for Cuba's withdrawal had been agreed. Cuban troops began withdrawing on 10 January 1989, and the withdrawal was finalised in stages one month early on 25 May 1991. The Angolan government offered an amnesty to UNITA troops under the premise that UNITA would be integrated into the MPLA under a one-party state economy. That concept was rejected by UNITA. The situation in the country

2993-811: The course of the 18th century. As early as the mid-18th century and as recently as the mid-20th century, Afrikaans was known in standard Dutch as a 'kitchen language' (Dutch: kombuistaal ), lacking the prestige accorded, for example, even by the educational system in Africa, to languages spoken outside Africa. Other early epithets setting apart Kaaps Hollands (' Cape Dutch ', i.e. Afrikaans) as putatively beneath official Dutch standards included geradbraakt , gebroken and onbeschaafd Hollands ('mutilated, broken, or uncivilised Dutch'), as well as verkeerd Nederlands ('incorrect Dutch'). Historical linguist Hans den Besten theorises that modern Standard Afrikaans derives from two sources: So Afrikaans, in his view,

Transitional Government of National Unity (Namibia) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3066-504: The development of Afrikaans. The slave population was made up of people from East Africa, West Africa, Mughal India , Madagascar , and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia). A number were also indigenous Khoisan people, who were valued as interpreters, domestic servants, and labourers. Many free and enslaved women married or cohabited with the male Dutch settlers. M. F. Valkhoff argued that 75% of children born to female slaves in

3139-455: The early 20th century Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect , alongside Standard Dutch , which it eventually replaced as an official language. Before the Boer wars , "and indeed for some time afterwards, Afrikaans was regarded as inappropriate for educated discourse. Rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as 'a kitchen language' or 'a bastard jargon', suitable for communication mainly between

3212-531: The election had been neither free nor fair. Following the Halloween Massacre , UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi directed UNITA forces to take up arms again against the MPLA. However, the US now opposed UNITA, instead pressuring Savimbi to accept the election results. The war ended after Savimbi's death, in 2002. In preparation for independence, free elections in Namibia were held in November 1989, with SWAPO taking 57% of

3285-473: The government for Afrikaans, in terms of education, social events, media (TV and radio), and general status throughout the country, given that it now shares its place as official language with ten other languages. Nevertheless, Afrikaans remains more prevalent in the media – radio, newspapers and television – than any of the other official languages, except English. More than 300 book titles in Afrikaans are published annually. South African census figures suggest

3358-406: The increased availability of pre-school educational CDs and DVDs. Such media also prove popular with the extensive Afrikaans-speaking emigrant communities who seek to retain language proficiency in a household context. Afrikaans-language cinema showed signs of new vigour in the early 21st century. The 2007 film Ouma se slim kind , the first full-length Afrikaans movie since Paljas in 1998,

3431-569: The interim government illegitimate. Following interference by the South African Administrator-General the Council of Ministers resigned, and on 18 January 1983 South Africa accepted the dissolution of both the legislative and the executive body without elections being scheduled, and again assumed full administrative authority over South West Africa. The subsequent void was filled by South African administrators. Willie van Niekerk

3504-529: The language distance for Anglophones once remarked that the differences between (Standard) Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English . Afrikaans is an official language of the Republic of South Africa and a recognised national language of the Republic of Namibia. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a loss of preferential treatment by

3577-576: The language of instruction for half the subjects taught in non-White schools (with English continuing for the other half). Although English is the mother tongue of only 8.2% of the population, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of a majority of South Africans. Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto. The Black community's opposition to Afrikaans and preference for continuing English instruction

3650-513: The likes of big Afrikaans Hollywood film stars, like Charlize Theron ( Monster ) and Sharlto Copley ( District 9 ) promoting their mother tongue. SABC 3 announced early in 2009 that it would increase Afrikaans programming due to the "growing Afrikaans-language market and [their] need for working capital as Afrikaans advertising is the only advertising that sells in the current South African television market". In April 2009, SABC3 started screening several Afrikaans-language programmes. There

3723-530: The majority are of Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaner and Coloured South-African descent. A much smaller and unknown number of speakers also reside in the Dutch Caribbean . Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Afrikaans speakers today are not Afrikaners or Boers , but Coloureds . In 1976, secondary-school pupils in Soweto began a rebellion in response to the government's decision that Afrikaans be used as

SECTION 50

#1732845294784

3796-645: The newly founded constitution and the principle of a multi-party democracy. As part of the Tripartite Accord, the African National Congress, the Marxist-leaning guerrilla /freedom movement conducting guerrilla attacks in South Africa to end apartheid , would remove its bases from Angola and no longer received support from the Angolan MPLA. The ANC moved its operations to Zambia and Uganda. Later,

3869-514: The other official languages. In 1996, for example, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reduced the amount of television airtime in Afrikaans, while South African Airways dropped its Afrikaans name Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens from its livery . Similarly, South Africa's diplomatic missions overseas now display the name of the country only in English and their host country's language, and not in Afrikaans. Meanwhile,

3942-410: The other way round. Mutual intelligibility thus tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. In general, mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is far better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish . The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach , attempting to visualise

4015-411: The past tense is also often replaced with the perfect.) When telling a longer story, Afrikaans speakers usually avoid the perfect and simply use the present tense, or historical present tense instead (as is possible, but less common, in English as well). A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative ; it is classified in Afrikaans as ontkennende vorm and is something that

4088-472: The position of the DTA was not as strong as in the previous assembly after the 1978 elections where it occupied 41 out of the 50 seats. This time, the five smaller parties could easily outvote the DTA. The 62 seats in the National Assembly were allocated such that the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) had 22, and five smaller parties got 8 seats each: South West African Labour Party (LP),

4161-475: The same." They did not mention withdrawing from Namibia. On 16 March 1988, the South African Business Day reported that Pretoria was "offering to withdraw into Namibia – not from Namibia – in return for the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. The implication is that South Africa has no real intention of giving up the territory any time soon." However the UN plenary meeting of 1986 indicates that

4234-442: The subject. For example, Only a handful of Afrikaans verbs have a preterite , namely the auxiliary wees ('to be'), the modal verbs , and the verb dink ('to think'). The preterite of mag ('may') is rare in contemporary Afrikaans. All other verbs use the perfect tense, het + past participle (ge-), for the past. Therefore, there is no distinction in Afrikaans between I drank and I have drunk . (In colloquial German,

4307-508: The territory became independent as the Republic of Namibia on 21 March 1990. Afrikaans language Afrikaans ( / ˌ æ f r ɪ ˈ k ɑː n s / AF -rih- KAHNSS , / ˌ ɑː f -, - ˈ k ɑː n z / AHF -, -⁠ KAHNZ ) is a West Germanic language , spoken in South Africa , Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana , Zambia and Zimbabwe . It evolved from

4380-537: The two languages. Afrikaans has a considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. Afrikaans acquired some lexical and syntactical borrowings from other languages such as Malay , Khoisan languages , Portuguese, and Bantu languages , and Afrikaans has also been significantly influenced by South African English . Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than

4453-430: The vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch often lie in the more analytic morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and different spellings. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form . The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans ) meaning 'African'. It

SECTION 60

#1732845294784

4526-530: The vote. Namibia gained independence in March 1990. SWAPO was originally a Marxist party that intended to install a one-party state. The South African government rejected that premise until the fall of the Soviet Union and SWAPO assured that it would support a multi-party democracy. South Africa held onto Namibia's economic port of Walvis Bay for an additional 18 months until it was assured that SWAPO would respect

4599-432: Was anything but settled, and civil war continued for more than a decade. According to Presidents of Foreign Policy by Edward R. Drachman and Alan Shank, a series of meetings and accords between UNITA and the MPLA, brokered by various African leaders, failed horribly. UNITA was insulted by MPLA's insistence on a premise of a one-party state. A combination of MPLA dismay of intervention from the USA (backing UNITA and forcing

4672-488: Was appointed administrator-general for South West Africa and Jan F Greebe became chief executive officer. A Judicial Commission was appointed. Urged by United Nations Security Council Resolution 532 to speed up the process of releasing the territory into independence, a State Council was established in May 1983. In September this Council was obsoleted by the establishment of the Multi-Party Conference (MPC) which consisted of 19 parties but again excluded SWAPO. The MPC issued

4745-517: Was demonstrated by the bombing of the strategic Calueque complex, and the overflights in 1988 of Cuban Mig-23s of Namibian airspace. According to David Albright , South Africa believed that the discovery of preparations for a nuclear weapon test at the Vastrap facility created an urgency amongst the superpowers to find a solution. While the hostilities in Angola continued, the parties met in June and August in New York City and Geneva . Finally, all approved an outline agreement of Principles for

4818-424: Was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Real Afrikaners , and the 50th anniversary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa in distinction to Dutch. The earliest Afrikaans texts were some doggerel verse from 1795 and a dialogue transcribed by a Dutch traveller in 1825. Afrikaans used the Latin alphabet around this time, although the Cape Muslim community used

4891-412: Was influenced by Eugene Nida 's theory of dynamic equivalence which focused on finding the nearest equivalent in the receptor language to the idea that the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic wanted to convey. A new translation, Die Bybel: 'n Direkte Vertaling was released in November 2020. It is the first truly ecumenical translation of the Bible in Afrikaans as translators from various churches, including

4964-525: Was like watching two scorpions in a bottle." After refusing direct talks with Cuba, the US agreed to include a Cuban delegation in the negotiations, who joined on January 28, 1988. The three parties held a round of negotiations on March 9 in London . The South African government joined negotiations in Cairo on 3 May expecting UN Security Resolution 435 to be modified. Defence Minister Magnus Malan and President P.W. Botha asserted that South Africa would withdraw from Angola only "if Russia and its proxies did

5037-399: Was previously referred to as 'Cape Dutch' ( Kaap-Hollands or Kaap-Nederlands ), a term also used to refer to the early Cape settlers collectively, or the derogatory 'kitchen Dutch' ( kombuistaal ) from its use by slaves of colonial settlers "in the kitchen". The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony , through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects , during

5110-418: Was the translation of the whole Bible into Afrikaans. While significant advances had been made in the textual criticism of the Bible, especially the Greek New Testament , the 1933 translation followed the Textus Receptus and was closely akin to the Statenbijbel . Before this, most Cape Dutch-Afrikaans speakers had to rely on the Dutch Statenbijbel . This Statenvertaling had its origins with

5183-455: Was to gain independence on terms that South Africa had set out, including multi-party democracy, a capitalist free-market economy, and a transition period. The signing of the agreement was marred by the death of Bernt Carlsson , the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia , who had contributed to the agreement but was killed on Pan Am Flight 103 , on his way to the signing ceremony. The South African Army left Angola by 30 August 1988, before

5256-531: Was under development As of 2018. The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls , compiled by Die Taalkommissie . The Afrikaners primarily were Protestants, of the Dutch Reformed Church of the 17th century. Their religious practices were later influenced in South Africa by British ministries during the 1800s. A landmark in the development of the language

5329-622: Was underlined when the government rescinded the policy one month after the uprising: 96% of Black schools chose English (over Afrikaans or native languages) as the language of instruction. Afrikaans-medium schools were also accused of using language policy to deter Black African parents. Some of these parents, in part supported by provincial departments of education, initiated litigation which enabled enrolment with English as language of instruction. By 2006 there were 300 single-medium Afrikaans schools, compared to 2,500 in 1994, after most converted to dual-medium education. Due to Afrikaans being viewed as

#783216