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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Arabic-Afrikaans literature at the Cape
Author:Dangor, Suleman EssopISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Tydskrif vir letterkunde
Volume:45
Issue:1
Pages:123-132
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
The Cape
Subjects:Islamic education
Arabic language
Afrikaans language
translation
manuscripts
writing systems
textbooks
External link:https://doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v45i1.29824
Abstract:Tuan Guru - the first official imam at the Cape, South Africa - used Malayu as the medium of instruction in the Dorp Street madrasah (Muslim religious school) which he established at the end of the 18th century. This changed in the middle of the 19th century when Cape Dutch was adopted as the language of instruction. While the children were familiar with this language they could not read the Latin script since they were barred from attending the public schools. Cape Muslims could, however, read the Arabic script which they had to learn for liturgical purposes - though they could not speak Arabic. To overcome this conundrum, numerous scholars and teachers began to translate Arabic texts into Cape Dutch and then transcribe these into the Latin script. These 'readers' came to serve as official textbooks in the madrasahs at the Cape. This article traces the development of this genre of literature which came to be known as Arabic-Afrikaans, comments on manuscripts that were identified by Adrianus van Selms, Achmat Davids and Hans Kähler and highlights the daunting challenge of transcribing Afrikaans phonetically into the Arabic script. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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