Comparison of Afrikaans and Dutch

Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch and—unlike Netherlands Dutch, Belgian Dutch and Surinamese Dutch—a separate standard language rather than a national variety. As an estimated 90 to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin, there are few lexical differences between the two languages; however, Afrikaans has a considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling.
Mutual intelligibility.
There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. Research suggests that mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish. Mutual intelligibility tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch.
Intelligibility of Afrikaans to Dutch speakers.
Cognate words.
Although Afrikaans borrows some lexical and syntactical structures from other languages, including Malay, Portuguese, Khoisan languages, Bantu languages, and to a lesser extent Low German, Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the other way round.
For example, the Afrikaans sentence "ons is uit die Land van Palestina" ("we are from the Land of Palestine") would be understood by a Dutch speaker as meaning "us is from that Land of Palestine", whereas the Dutch equivalent "we komen uit het Land Palestina" would be less readily understood by an Afrikaans speaker as there are no words cognate with "we" or "het".
In Afrikaans, "het" is the inflection of the verb "hê" ("to have" from Dutch "hebben") although "sy" (cognate with "zijn") is used as the subjunctive of "to be", while "we" in Dutch is cognate with "we" in English, a language widely understood by Afrikaans speakers. Conversely, "wees", meaning "to be" in Afrikaans, is used as the imperative in Dutch, although it is used as the imperative in religious contexts in Afrikaans (e.g. "wees genadig", meaning "be merciful" or "have mercy").
Verb forms.
The simplification of verbs in Afrikaans, with almost all verbs being regular and the near absence of the simple past tense, means that while the phrase "ek het gehelp" ("I have helped" or "I helped") would be recognisable by Dutch speakers, the Dutch phrases "ik heb geholpen" and "ik hielp" would not be as readily understood by speakers of Afrikaans.
Similarly, the resemblance of Afrikaans verbs like "lees" ("to read", Dutch "lezen") to the first person singular and verbs like "gaan" ("to go") to infinitive forms in Dutch means that "julle lees" ("you [plural] read") or "ek gaan" ("I go") would be understood by Dutch speakers more readily than "jullie lezen" or "ik ga" would be by Afrikaans speakers.
Unmarked and marked forms of words.
As Afrikaans no longer has unmarked and marked forms of words, instead using words derived from the marked forms in Dutch, the Afrikaans words for "there" and "now", "daar" and "nou", are more intelligible to speakers of Dutch than the unmarked Dutch forms "er" and "nu" are to Afrikaans speakers.
For example, "nou is daar", meaning "now there is" in Afrikaans, is sometimes encountered in Dutch although "nou" is used more colloquially for emphasis, in the sense of the English "well". In Dutch, "now there is" would be translated as "nu is er", using the unmarked forms, which do not exist in Afrikaans.
Intelligibility of Dutch to Afrikaans speakers.
Loanwords vs purisms.
Afrikaans uses purisms or calques where Dutch would use loans from French, Latin or English. Owing to the exposure of Afrikaans speakers to English, Dutch words like "computer", "lift" and "appartement" are more readily understood by them than Afrikaans equivalents like "rekenaar", "hysbak" and "woonstel" are by Dutch speakers.
Similarly, Dutch words such as "favoriet" ("favourite"), "film", and "station" are intelligible to Afrikaans speakers on account of their resemblance to their English equivalents, whereas the Afrikaans "gunsteling", "rolprent", and "stasie" (cognate with Dutch "statie"), while intelligible to Dutch speakers, would be considered old-fashioned.
Words of Dutch and non-Dutch origin.
In addition, while Afrikaans may use words of non-Dutch origin unintelligible to Dutch speakers (such as those derived from Malay, like "baie"), their Dutch equivalents, or cognates, are also used in Afrikaans, and would therefore be more intelligible to Afrikaans speakers.
For example, although "baie", from "banyak" has no cognate in Dutch, "heel" as in "heel goed" ("very good") is used in Afrikaans as well as Dutch. The word "amper" is unrelated to the Dutch word "amper" ("scarcely" or "sour"), being derived from the Malay "hampir", but the Dutch word "bijna", also meaning "almost" or "nearly", is cognate with "byna" in Afrikaans.
Orthographic differences.
Orthographic differences between Dutch and Afrikaans are mainly due to phonetic evolutions and spelling simplifications in Afrikaans, and the more conservative character of and recent changes to modern Dutch orthography.
However, some aspects of Afrikaans orthography also resemble those of older forms of Dutch, for example, whereas "God be with you" in modern Dutch would be "God zij met u", the Afrikaans spelling "God sy met u", was also used in 18th century Dutch. The current Dutch spelling, using and the digraph , became prevalent from the 19th century.
Other simplifications in Afrikaans had earlier been proposed for Dutch by R.A Kollewijn, but were either not adopted until 1934, such as changing to (hence "Nederlandsch" to "Nederlands"), or rejected, such as changing to (hence "logisch" to "logies") and to (hence "moeilijk" to "moeilik").
Afrikaans simplifications.
Replacement of and.
Afrikaans uses for the Dutch hard , both pronounced [ k]; compare Dutch ' ("culture") with Afrikaans '. Before the 1990s major spelling reform, the latter spelling was also accepted in Dutch, although other Dutch words such as "commissie" ("commission") were already spelt with , which in Afrikaans would be "kommissie".
Words in Dutch with the letter combination , when pronounced as [ kk] are transliterated in Afrikaans using , for example, "acclimatiseren" and "accommodatie" in Dutch become Afrikaans "akklimatiseer" and "akkommodasie". Those in which is pronounced as , such as Dutch "accent" and "accepteren", become "aksent" and "aksepteer" in Afrikaans. 
Similarly, Afrikaans uses for the Dutch soft , both pronounced [ s]; compare Dutch ' ("central") and ' ("ceremony") with Afrikaans ' and '. Afrikaans also uses instead of in words like "spesiaal" ("special") and "spesifiek" ("specific") which in Dutch would be "speciaal" and "specifiek".
Most Afrikaans words using begin with the digraph , pronounced [ x], such as "Christelik" ("Christian") or "chemie" ("chemistry") with some exceptions like "confetti", although Afrikaans dictionaries may also list more phonetic alternative spellings using or , such as for ("chronic", similar to Dutch "chronisch") and "sjirurg" for "chirurg" ("surgeon").
However, although the Dutch words "China" and "Chinees" (inflected as "Chinese") are transliterated in Afrikaans using as "Sjina", "Sjinees", and "Sjinese" respectively, the Dutch spellings are also used, particularly in the media. In some Afrikaans dictionaries, "China" is standard, while "Sjinees" is listed as an alternative spelling to "Chinees".
Transliteration of loanwords.
French loanwords in Dutch beginning in (pronounced [ ʃ]), are transliterated in Afrikaans using ; compare Dutch "champagne" and "chic" with Afrikaans "sjampanje" and "sjiek". Afrikaans also changes , encountered in French loanwords in Dutch like "campagne" and "compagnie" to , hence "kampanje" and "kompanjie".
When (pronounced [ ʃ]) appears within a Dutch word, in its Afrikaans equivalent, it is replaced by ; compare ' with '. This also applies to word endings; compare Dutch "Jiddisch" ("Yiddish") with Afrikaans "Jiddisj", although the latter is also encountered in Dutch. In Dutch, "hasjiesj" ("hashish") is always written with similar to in Afrikaans.
The Dutch word "cheque", in which is pronounced as [ tʃ], is written in Afrikaans as "tjek", while the Italian-derived word "cello" is written as "tjello". Both languages also use (also pronounced as [ tʃ]) in some geographical names, despite other differences in spelling; compare Dutch "Tsjaad" ("Chad") with Afrikaans "Tsjad".
Use of instead of soft.
Another difference between the two languages concerns verbs derived from Latin or French, with Dutch using a soft () and Afrikaans using , hence "communiceren" and "provoceren" ("to communicate" and "to provoke") in Dutch become "kommunikeer" and "provokeer" in Afrikaans, although "kommuniseren" was also used in 18th century Dutch.
The word "kommuniseer" was also previously used in Afrikaans to mean or "to make communist". However, is accepted as a synonym for . Similarly, the verb "kompliseer", similar to Dutch "compliceren", is used to mean "to complicate", both using the sound.
By contrast, related nouns in both languages contain the sound, hence "communicatie" and "provocatie" in Dutch and "kommunikasie" and "provokasie" in Afrikaans.
Changes to digraph.
The Dutch digraph was converted to in Afrikaans, although pronunciation remained . An example is ' (price), which is spelt "prys" in Afrikaans. Dutch words "ending" in , however, end in in Afrikaans, not , for example ' (ugly) in Dutch becomes "" in Afrikaans. In both languages, this suffix is pronounced , with a schwa.
In Dutch, in which is treated as a separate letter of the alphabet, "IJ" often features in place names in the Netherlands like IJsselmeer, or in the Dutch name for Iceland, "IJsland". Afrikaans similarly uses "Ysland", which was also used in 18th century Dutch.
However, few place names in South Africa of Dutch origin begin with "Y", with the exception of Yzerfontein in the Western Cape. The spelling of name of the town, which means "iron fountain", is based on the old Dutch word for iron, "yzer". It was also previously written as Ijsterfontein. The modern Afrikaans word for iron is "yster", while in Dutch it is "ijzer". 
In modern Dutch, is now typically used in words of Greek origin like "cyclus" ("cycle") replaced by in its Afrikaans equivalent "siklus", although both are pronounced as . However, unlike the in Dutch "syndroom" ("syndrome"), the in Afrikaans "sindroom" is pronounced as , as is the rule for the short i in Afrikaans in general.
Mergers of digraphs or trigraphs.
Afrikaans merged Dutch trigraphs , and to a single spelling . Apart from , generally pronounced as in the Netherlands, there is no difference in pronunciation; compare Dutch ' ("province") and ' ("police") with Afrikaans ' and '. However, words ending in in Dutch are often pronounced as particularly in Flanders.
Afrikaans merged Dutch digraphs and trigraphs , , , and (pronounced identically as by many Dutch speakers) to a single spelling , (contrastingly pronounced ); ' ("woman") and ' ("dew") in Dutch become ' and ' in Afrikaans respectively. Similarly, some Dutch words beginning with , such as "autonomie" are written with , hence 
"outonomie". 
The Dutch cluster became in Afrikaans. Compare ' ("national") with '. In Dutch, the pronunciation differs from region to region and include , , and .
Conversely, the Afrikaans cluster in words such as "spesiaal" ("special") and "pensioen" ("pension") is pronounced as with an extra syllable , but in Dutch, both the in "speciaal" and in "pensioen" are pronounced as , although the pronunciation is encountered in the Southern Netherlands.
Dropping of final letters.
At the end of words, Afrikaans often dropped the in the Dutch cluster (pronounced as a schwa, ), mainly present in plural nouns and verb forms, to become Compare Dutch ' (life) and ' (people) to Afrikaans ' and '. Also in Dutch, final -n is often deleted after a schwa, but the occurrence and frequency of this phenomenon varies between speakers, and it is not recognised in spelling.
Phonetically induced spelling differences.
Simplification of consonant clusters.
Afrikaans has frequently simplified consonant clusters in final position that are still present in Dutch, although they are used in inflected forms of adjectives, for example, "bes" ("best") in Afrikaans is still inflected as "beste", as in Dutch, hence "beste man ooit" ("best man ever") is correct in both languages.
At the end of words, Dutch clusters and were reduced in Afrikaans to and respectively, with "lucht" ("air", pronounced ) and "dienst" (service, pronounced ) in Dutch becoming "lug" () and "diens" () in Afrikaans. Between two vowels, is replaced with ; compare Dutch "echtgenoot" ("husband") with Afrikaans "eggenoot".
Similarly, whereas Dutch words like "technologie" ("technology") and "monarchie" ("monarchy") contain (in this case pronounced as ) their Afrikaans equivalents use , hence "tegnologie" and "monargie". In other cases, is replaced with , compare "Tsjechische Republiek" ("Czech Republic") in Dutch with "Tsjeggiese Republiek" in Afrikaans.
At the end of words, Dutch cluster was reduced to in Afrikaans, hence Dutch "contact" and "perfect" with Afrikaans "kontak" and "perfek". Similarly, in Dutch (pronounced ) is replaced by (pronounced ); compare "reactie" ("reaction") and "connectie" ("connection") in Dutch with "reaksie" and "konneksie" in Afrikaans.
Consonant mergers.
As a result of Afrikaans merging Dutch consonants and to a single sound , spelt , the use of in Afrikaans is confined to words of non-Dutch origin, such as "Zoeloe" ("Zulu") and "zero", or country names like "Zambië" ("Zambia"), while use of is preserved only in Dutch place names in South Africa like Zonnebloem and Zeerust.
However, although "Suid-Afrika" ("South Africa") is used in Afrikaans rather than "Zuid-Afrika" as in Dutch, South Africa adopted "ZA" as its international vehicle registration code in 1936, which later became the country's ISO country code, with .za becoming the country's internet domain.
In the middle of words, Afrikaans merged Dutch and to a single sound and consequently to a single spelling, . Compare Dutch "haven" (port) with Afrikaans "hawe", both pronounced . Meanwhile, at the beginning of words, became devoiced to in Afrikaans (except in words of Latin origin, like "visueel").
Afrikaans merged Dutch fricatives and to a single sound , spelt , except when preceded by , in which case (pronounced as spelt) is used where Dutch uses (pronounced , or ; hence "school" is "school" in Dutch but "skool" in Afrikaans, but Dutch "misschien" ("maybe") is written with , while Afrikaans "miskien" is written with .
Consonant omissions.
Between two vowels, the Dutch is omitted in Afrikaans; hence Dutch uses "hoger" ("higher"), pronounced and "regen" ("rain"), pronounced while Afrikaans uses "hoër" () and "reën" (), in which the second vowel requires a trema to avoid confusion with the digraphs () and ().
This also applies to Afrikaans nouns that, while ending in as in Dutch, end with in the plural; while "railway" in both languages is "spoorweg", "railways" is "spoorwegen" in Dutch () but "spoorweë" () in Afrikaans.
Between two vowels, Dutch is omitted in Afrikaans; compare Dutch "avond" ("evening"), pronounced and "over" ("over"), pronounced , with Afrikaans "aand" () and "oor" (), with and being and respectively. In Afrikaans, as in Dutch, "oor" also means "ear".
Where precedes final in Dutch, as in "boven" ("above") pronounced and "geloven" ("believe") pronounced , in Afrikaans they merge to form the diphthong , resulting in "bo" () and "glo" (). Similarly, "open" and "samen" ("together") in Dutch become "oop" (), and "saam" () in Afrikaans.
At the end of words, Dutch is sometimes omitted in Afrikaans, which opens up the preceding vowel (usually a short "") now written with a circumflex. For example, the Dutch verb form "zeg" ("say", pronounced ) became "sê" () in Afrikaans, as did the infinitive "zeggen", pronounced . Another example is the Dutch "leggen" ("to lay", pronounced ), which becomes "lê" () in Afrikaans.
Alternatively, Dutch verb form "vraag" ("ask", pronounced ) became "vra" () in Afrikaans, which is also the equivalent of the Dutch verb "vragen", "to ask". Unlike Dutch, "vraag" in Afrikaans, pronounced , is only used as a noun meaning "question", with "vrae", pronounced , being the plural form.
The word for "day" in both languages is "dag", but whereas the plural in Dutch is "dagen" (), in Afrikaans it is "dae" (). By contrast, "wagen" or "wagon" in Dutch, pronounced , became "wa" in Afrikaans, (), with the plural form, "wagens", pronounced , became "waëns" ().
Circumflex.
In contrast to Dutch, where the use of the circumflex is essentially limited to French borrowings, like "enquête", Afrikaans makes frequent use of , , and ; examples include "nêrens" ("nowhere", Dutch "nergens"), "môre" ("morning", Dutch "morgen"), and "brûe" ("bridges", Dutch "bruggen").
As a result of the disappearance of consonants found in equivalent Dutch words, particularly , Afrikaans uses circumflexes with single vowel letters in open syllables to indicate the long monophthongal pronunciations , , and , as opposed to the vowel letters without a circumflex, pronounced as , and , respectively.
The circumflex is also used in , appearing only in "wîe" ("wedges", Dutch "wiggen"), where it denotes a long pronunciation , keeping the digraph from being pronounced .
Diminutive.
In diminutive forms, Afrikaans uses and (normally pronounced and ) where Standard Dutch would use (pronounced or ). For example, whereas the diminutive of "beet" ("bit") in Dutch would be "beetje" (pronounced [beːt͡ʃə]), in Afrikaans, the diminutive of "biet" would be "bietjie" (pronounced [biːki]).
In Belgium and the Southern Netherlands, the diminutive is often realised as in the spoken language. This ending is also found in some varieties of Dutch Low Saxon, a group of dialects spoken in the Northeastern Netherlands. Conversely, in the Western Cape, it is common to hear it realised as . The diminutive of words ending in in Afrikaans is , hence whereas "doek" in Dutch becomes , in Afrikaans, it becomes .
Where Dutch would use , and (pronounced , and ) Afrikaans would use , and (pronounced , and ) hence the diminutives of "glas", "kop" and "probleem" in Dutch would become "glaasje", "kopje" and "probleempje", while in Afrikaans they would be "glasie", "koppie" and "probleempie", with an extra being added to "kop". The ending is also found in some varieties of Dutch Low Saxon: "glassie(n)", "koppie(n)", "probleempie(n)". In addition, the diminutive is used in Hollands dialects such as that of Amsterdam as well as in less formal registers of general Dutch. "A cute little face", for instance, can be rendered as "Een schattig koppie".
Other words formed from diminutives in Dutch ending in may have different equivalents in Afrikaans; for example, the Dutch term of endearment "schatje" (the diminutive of "schat" or "sweetheart", literally "treasure") is , of which is used either as the diminutive or to mean "little treasure".
In both languages, the word for "niece" is a diminutive of the word for "female cousin", but owing to the simplification of consonant clusters in Afrikaans, "nig" becomes "niggie", using in contrast to Dutch, in which "nicht" becomes "nichtje". The adjectives "saggies" and "zachtjes", both meaning "softly", are diminutives of Afrikaans "sag" and Dutch "zacht" respectively.
Other spelling differences.
Unlike Dutch, the names of months in Afrikaans are capitalised, hence 2 June 2016 would be written as "2 Junie 2016", whereas in Dutch, it would be written as "2 juni 2016".
Phonetic differences.
Afrikaans pronunciation tends to be closest to the dialects of the province of South Holland, in particular that of Zoetermeer.
Consonant mergers.
Afrikaans merged Dutch consonants and to a single sound , spelt , with "zorg" ("care") and "zout" ("salt") in Dutch becoming "sorg" and "sout" in Afrikaans. A similar phonetic evolution can be found in the Northern Netherlands.
At the start of words, Afrikaans often merged Dutch voiced with voiceless , as in "ver" ("far"), pronounced in Afrikaans and in Standard Dutch. The same merger is present though in the areas around Amsterdam, where all voiced consonants merged with the voiceless ones, pronounced as the latter ones.
Afrikaans merged Dutch voiced with voiced , as in "werk" ("work"), pronounced in Afrikaans and in Belgium and Suriname or in the Netherlands. A similar near-assimilation of to can also be found in the Northern Netherlands, where is pronounced , and .
Fricative mergers.
In Afrikaans, Dutch fricatives and were merged to a single sound . A similar phonetic evolution can be heard in the Northern Netherlands, where the sounds have also been merged to or , although the spelling difference has been retained. In Belgium and Suriname, however, the phonetic distinction between and has been preserved.
Afrikaans uses only (written as ) in initial syllables where Dutch uses , or (written as ), hence "skoonheid" ("beauty") in Afrikaans is "schoonheid" in Dutch. However, in some Dutch varieties, such as Southern West Flemish and certain dialects of Dutch Low Saxon, can also be heard word-medially as well as syllable-initially.
Grammatical differences.
Grammatical differences are arguably the most considerable difference between Afrikaans and Dutch, as a result of the loss of inflections in Afrikaans, as well as the loss of some verb tenses, leading to it being greatly simplified in its grammar compared to Dutch.
Unlike Dutch, Afrikaans has no grammatical gender, and therefore only has one form of the definite article "die", while standard Dutch has two ("de" for both masculine and feminine nouns and "het" for neuter ones) and Dutch dialects in the Southern Netherlands have a third, "den", used for masculine nouns.
The verb "to be" in Afrikaans is "wees" (from Dutch "wezen"); the Dutch "zijn" only survives in Afrikaans in the form of the subjunctive "sy", as in "God sy met u" ("God be with you"). In Dutch, as in Afrikaans, "wees" is used as an imperative, hence "wees sterk!" ("be strong!") while "wezen" is used as a less formal form of to be than "zijn".
Verb conjugations.
In Afrikaans verbs, the same form is generally used for both the infinitive and the present tense, with the exception of "wees" ("to be") conjugated as "is" and "hê" ("to have") conjugated as "het", and there is no inflection for person; contrast "ek gaan" ("I go") with "ik ga", "hy doen" ("he does") with "hij doet", and "julle was" ("you (plural) were") with "jullie waren".
The past participle is usually regularly formed by adding the prefix "ge-" to the verb, hence "gedoen" ("done") is formed from "doen" in Afrikaans, although Dutch "gedaan" survives in Afrikaans as "welgedaan!" ("well done!") One exception is the verb "hê" ("to have") of which the past participle is "gehad", while sometimes an irregular past participle is used with the verb "dink" ("to think") hence "hy het gedag" or "hy het gedog", similar to Dutch "hij heeft gedacht", instead of "hy het gedink".
All other verbs use the existing form as the past participle. For example, "to pay" is "betaal" and "I have paid" is "ek het betaal", while "to translate" is "vertaal" and "he has translated" is "hy het vertaal"; Dutch would use "betaald" (from "betalen") and "vertaald" (from "vertalen") respectively.
Verb tenses.
Afrikaans has dropped the simple past tense for all but a few verbs, of which five are modals, hence kon ("could") from "kan" or "can" and "moes" or "should" from "moet" or "must"; instead, it generally uses either the present perfect or the present tense, depending on context, the latter being used as the historical present. It has also lost the pluperfect, conjugated using "had", no longer used, with the present perfect, conjugated with "het", being used instead.
Consequently, the sentence "ek het die boek vir haar gegee" in Afrikaans can be translated into Dutch as "ik heb het boek aan haar gegeven" ("I have given the book to her") "ik gaf het boek aan haar" ("I gave the book to her") or "ik had het boek aan haar gegeven" ("I had given the book to her").
However, the verb "dink" ("to think") still makes use of a simple past tense; for example, instead of "ek het gedink" to mean "I thought", "ek dag" or "ek dog", similar to Dutch "ik dacht", is sometimes used instead.
Whereas Dutch distinguishes between verbs that use "zijn" ("to be") and verbs that use "hebben" ("to have") in the present perfect, Afrikaans has dropped this distinction, instead using "hê" ("to have"), hence "he has been" is "hy het al gewees" in Afrikaans, while "hij is geweest" would be used in Dutch. In Dutch Low Saxon, "hebben" is found in the present perfect as well: .
The past tense of the passive voice in Afrikaans uses "is", the present tense of "wees" instead of "word", hence "dit word geskryf" ("it is written") becomes "dit is geskryf" ("it was/has been written"). In Dutch, the passive voice can be constructed by both "zijn" and "worden", hence "het is/wordt geschreven", and "het was/werd geschreven".
Dutch, like English, has a continuous tense using the verb "zijn" ("to be") with "aan het" ("on the") and the infinitive, hence "I am reading" is "ik ben aan het lezen", which may be expressed periphrastically in Afrikaans as "ek is besig om te lees" (literally "I am busy of to read") or "I am busy reading". However, a similar grammatical construction may be found in Afrikaans using "wees" ("to be") and "aan die" ("on the") as in "ek is aan die werk" ("I am working"), though this is less common than "ek werk" ("I work"/"I am working").
Omitting of subordinate conjunctions.
In Afrikaans, as in English, it is possible to omit the subordinate conjunction "dat" ("that"); for example, the phrase "I believe [that] she has done it" can be translated into Afrikaans as either "ek glo dat sy dit gedoen het" or "ek glo sy het dit gedoen" (note the change in position of the auxiliary verb "het"), but in Dutch it is not possible to do so, hence the sentence would be translated as "ik geloof dat ze het gedaan heeft".
Merger of marked and unmarked forms of words.
Whereas Dutch has unmarked and marked forms for pronouns, adverbs and indicatives, Afrikaans uses only one form; for example, whereas Dutch uses "er" to mean "here" or "there", Afrikaans only uses "hier" for "here" and "daar" for "there", as well as "hiervan" ("hereof") for "of this/these" and "daarvan" ("thereof") for "of that/those/them" , not "ervan" as in Dutch.
Pronouns in Afrikaans, whether subjects, objects or possessives, usually have only one form, derived from the Dutch marked forms; compare "my" in Afrikaans, which can be used either as the object "me" or the possessive "my", with Dutch marked forms "mij" and "mijn", the unmarked forms being "me" for "me" and "m'n" for "my" respectively. Whereas Dutch uses the term "van mij, van jou, van hem, van haar, van ons, van jullie". to mean "mine", "yours", "his", "her", "ours" and "theirs" respectively, Afrikaans uses "myne, joune, syne, haar sunne, ons sunne", and "hulle sunne".
Dutch uses an apostrophe in some unmarked possessive pronouns instead of the digraph , hence "zijn" "his" or "its" becomes "z'n", whereas in Afrikaans, "sy" is not abbreviated. In Afrikaans "sy" also means "she", but Dutch equivalents "ze" (unmarked) and "zij" (marked) mean either "she" as in "ze/zij is" ("she is"), or "they", as in "ze/zij zijn" ("they are").
Similarly, Afrikaans uses only "jy" as the subject "you" (singular) where Dutch uses "je" or "jij", "jou" as the object "you" where Dutch uses "je" or "jou", and as the possessive "your" where Dutch would use "jou" or "jouw".
Personal pronouns.
Afrikaans, unlike Dutch, has no unmarked or marked forms of pronouns; whereas Dutch distinguishes between "je/jij" and "ze/zij" for "you" (singular) and "she" as subject pronouns, Afrikaans uses only "jy" and "sy", while whereas "me/mij" and "je/jou" are the Dutch unmarked or marked forms of object pronouns for "me" and "you", Afrikaans only uses "my" and "jou".
It also lacks the distinction between the subject and object form for plural personal pronouns; the first person plural pronoun in Afrikaans differs markedly from Dutch, with "ons" meaning either "we" or "us", in contrast to Dutch "we" and "wij", hence "we go to the beach" is "ons gaan na die strand" as opposed to "we gaan naar het strand".
Similarly, the third person plural pronoun in Afrikaans is "hulle", used to mean "they" or "them", in contrast to Dutch in which "ze" and "zij" are used as plural pronouns, hence "they are the best" is "hulle is die beste" as opposed to "ze zijn de beste", although "hullie" is encountered in Dutch dialects, particularly in North Brabant and North and South Holland.
Other possessive pronouns like "ons" ("our", inflected as "onze" in Dutch and "onse" in Afrikaans) and Dutch "jullie" ("your" plural, "julle" in Afrikaans) work in a similar fashion in both languages.
Demonstrative pronouns.
The word "die" is used in Afrikaans as a definite article, but in Dutch, it is used as a demonstrative pronoun meaning "that" or "those", or as a relative pronoun meaning "who", "which" or "that", for which Afrikaans would use "wat"; compare Afrikaans "die man wat weet" ("the man who knows") with Dutch "de man die weet".
For demonstratives, Afrikaans uses "hierdie" for "this" or "these" and "daardie" for "that" or "those", which are shortened to "dié" (with an acute accent) and "daai". In Dutch, "dit" is used as the word for "this", whereas in Afrikaans it is the third-person singular impersonal pronoun meaning "it", with "dis" being a contraction of "dit is", similar to "it's" in English.
Genitive.
As Afrikaans has no genitive forms of nouns, the official titles of most countries include the word "van", although this was considered optional, hence "Republiek van Malta" (as opposed to "Republiek Malta" as in Dutch) although "Republiek van Suid-Afrika" was previously considered an anglicism. However, the Union of South Africa was known in Dutch and Afrikaans as "Unie van Zuid-Afrika" and "Unie van Suid-Afrika" respectively.
The title "Kingdom of the Netherlands", which refers to the entire realm including its Caribbean islands, is known in Afrikaans as "Koninkryk van die Nederlande", a direct translation of the Dutch title "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden", which uses the genitive article "der" meaning "of the".
Afrikaans may form compounds where Dutch would use separate words using the genitive or equivalent, or vice versa. For example, the Salvation Army is known in Afrikaans as "Heilsleër", but in Dutch as "Leger des Heils"; conversely "Member of Parliament" in Afrikaans is "Lid van Parlement", similar to English, while in Dutch, the term is "parlementslid" or "kamerlid". However, in both languages, a member of a council or councillor is "raadslid".
Possessive.
Whereas Dutch uses an apostrophe with an "s" as in English to form the genitive, or alternatively an "s" without an apostrophe, Afrikaans uses "se", hence "Maria's huis" and "haar broers probleem" would be "Maria se huis" and "haar broer se probleem" respectively.
Afrikaans, like Dutch, has possessive pronouns to indicate ownership, hence "joune" and "jouwe", although Afrikaans omits the use of the definite article, hence "is dit jou glas of syne?" ("is that your glass or his?") in contrast to "is dat jouw glas of het zijne?" in Dutch.
Similarly, "van" or "of" is also omitted in Afrikaans; compare "dit is my fiets, waar is joune?" ("that is my bike, where is yours?") to Dutch "dat is mijn fiets, waar is die van jou?" However, Dutch also uses the construction "waar is de jouwe?"
Plural.
While Afrikaans uses "-e" as the plural of most nouns, similar to Dutch "-en", it also uses the "-s" ending where Dutch would use "-en", hence the plural of "seun" ("son") being "seuns", in contrast to Dutch, in which the plural of "zoon" is "zonen", "zoons" being used as a plural in eighteenth century Dutch. The plural "zoons" in Dutch is still common.
Similarly, "-ers" is used as a double plural instead of "-eren", hence the plural of "kind" ("child") is "kinders", not "kinderen", although the plural "kinders" being used in nineteenth century forms of Dutch, including West Flemish.
Double negative.
A notable feature of Afrikaans is its use of a double negative, which is absent in standard Dutch (yet still exists in some dialects like West Flemish). For example, Dutch "Ik spreek geen Engels" (I do not speak English) in Afrikaans becomes "Ek praat nie Engels nie." Similar constructions can be found in French ("Je ne parle pas anglais") but also in West Flemish ("k en klappe geen Engels") as well as in other Dutch dialects in the southern part of Holland ("Ik praat geen Engels nie")
Adjective inflections.
Like Dutch, adjectives in Afrikaans are generally inflected (with a number of exceptions) in the attributive position (when preceding the noun) and not in the predicative. Unlike Dutch, this inflection depends only on position, not grammatical gender; for example, "nasionaal", when followed by "party" becomes "nasionale", hence "Nasionale Party".
This also applies to adjectives from which the final "t" has been dropped, for example, while "first" is "eers", not "eerst", "first time" is "eerste keer" in both languages; similarly, while "bad" is "sleg" in Afrikaans (instead of Dutch "slecht"), the "t" is reintroduced in inflected form, hence "slegte tye" ("bad times") similar to "slechte tijden".
Similarly, just as Dutch adjectives ending with "-ief", such as "positief", are inflected to end with "-ieve", for example, "positieve reactie" ("positive reaction") their equivalents in Afrikaans end in "-iewe", hence "positiewe reaksie", despite the differences in spelling.
Vocabulary differences.
Owing to the geographical and later political isolation of South Africa from the Netherlands, Afrikaans vocabulary diverged from that of Dutch, coining purisms or using loan translations rather than adopting terms found in English, as English was perceived as being a greater threat to Afrikaans in South Africa than it was to Dutch in the Netherlands.
French and Latin influence.
While Dutch, like English, increasingly borrowed vocabulary from Latin or French, Afrikaans resisted such borrowing and instead favoured older Germanic equivalents, albeit with some exceptions; one of these is the Afrikaans word for "hospital", "hospitaal", which, while understood in Dutch, is less widely used than "ziekenhuis" (literally "sick house").
For example, the word for "magistrate" in Afrikaans, "landdros", comes from the Dutch term "landdrost", a legacy of the old court system of the Dutch Cape Colony which survived its abolition and replacement by magistrate's courts under British rule, but the term is no longer officially used in the Netherlands, where the Latin-derived term "magistraat" is used instead.
Conversely, the Dutch word "procureur", referring to a kind of lawyer, became obsolete in 2008, whereas in Afrikaans, "prokureur" is still used to mean "attorney", "solicitor" or "lawyer", especially in the sense of "Prokureur-Generaal" or "Attorney-General". The spelling "prokureur" was also previously used in Dutch. By contrast, whereas "advocaat" in Dutch means "lawyer", in Afrikaans, "advokaat" is only used to mean "advocate" or "barrister", hence "Senior Counsel" in Afrikaans being "Senior Advokaat".
Similarly, the South African Navy is known in Afrikaans as the "Suid-Afrikaanse Vloot", the word "vloot" (meaning "fleet") having been used in Dutch for the navy of the Dutch Republic, known as "Staatse vloot", but the modern Dutch navy is known as the " Koninklijke Marine", "marine" being a French loanword.
In Afrikaans, "Eerste-Minister" ("first minister") was the official title of the Prime Minister of South Africa (before the post was abolished in 1984) and is still the official Dutch title of the Prime Minister of Belgium, but in the Netherlands, the term "premier" is used as a generic term for a prime minister or equivalent office holder, the official title of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands being "minister-president".
In South Africa, the term "premier" is now more typically used in Afrikaans to refer to the head of government in each of the nine provinces, whereas "eerste-minister" is used for foreign leaders, and is used by the Afrikaans-language media in Namibia to refer to the country's Prime Minister.
Some French loanwords are common to Afrikaans as well as Dutch, such as "regisseur", used in both languages to mean director of a play or film, although the use of "rolprent" in Afrikaans instead of "film" is considered old-fashioned in Dutch. The word "redakteur" ("editor") is used in Afrikaans as well as Dutch, but in the latter it is now written as "redacteur".
Purisms and loan translations.
As the influence of English was perceived as a threat to Afrikaans, there was a trend to coin purisms rather than to borrow from English or international vocabulary; whereas the word for "computer" in Dutch is simply "computer", in Afrikaans it is "rekenaar", from "reken", meaning "to count".
Other purisms were less successful; "beeldradio", a word for "television" which literally means "picture radio", proposed before its introduction in the 1970s, was abandoned in favour of "televisie", already used in Dutch. In South Africa and Namibia, the TV licence is known in Afrikaans as "TV-lisensie", whereas in the Netherlands and Flanders, the now defunct equivalent was known in Dutch as "kijkgeld" ("viewing money") or "omroepbijdrage" ("broadcasting subsidy").
There are some instances of Afrikaans using calques or loan translations where Dutch uses an English loanword, such as the word for "milkshake", "melkskommel", from "melk" ("milk") and "skommel" ("shake" or "shuffle") in contrast to Dutch, in which the original English word is untranslated.
Similarly, English has influenced such terms in Afrikaans as "bestuurslisensie", from "bestuur" ("driving") and "lisensie" ("licence") and "grondboontjiebotter", literally "peanut butter". By contrast, the Dutch term "rijbewijs", translates as "driving certificate", but while "ry" is used in Afrikaans to mean "driving", "bewys" means "evidence" or "proof".
The Dutch term for peanut butter, "pindakaas" (literally "peanut cheese"), was coined because when it was first sold in the Netherlands, the term "boter" was a protected name and could only be used for products containing actual butter. The word "pinda", a loanword from Papiamentu, spoken in the Dutch Caribbean, is ultimately of Kongo origin.
Names of languages and countries.
Unlike in Dutch, in Afrikaans, the word "Afrikaans" is not used to mean "African" in general; instead the prefix "Afrika-" is used, hence whereas African languages would be referred to in Dutch as "Afrikaanse talen", in Afrikaans, they would be called "Afrikatale". Conversely, the Afrikaans language is sometimes referred to in Dutch as "Zuid-Afrikaans", literally "South African".
Although the Netherlands is formally called "Nederland" in Afrikaans, it is more colloquially known as "Holland", as in English. The term "Hollanders" is similarly also used to refer to Dutch people in general, particularly in a historical context, while "Hollands" is used either to refer to the Dutch language or as an adjective, hence the expression "die Kaap is weer Hollands" ("the Cape is Dutch again") to mean that things are back to normal.
In the Netherlands, the former Dutch Reformed Church was known in Dutch as the "Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk", but in South Africa, the two Dutch Reformed Churches are known in Afrikaans as the "Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk" and "Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk" respectively, as "Nederduitsch" (or "Nederduits") originally referred not to Low German but to any West Germanic language except High German.
Changes in meanings of words.
Although the Afrikaans word "as", like "als" in Dutch, means "if", it is also used as a conjunction to mean "than" with which to make comparisons, instead of "dan", used in Dutch, hence "more than" is "meer as" (similar to "mehr als" in German) rather than "meer dan", although "meer als" is also encountered in Dutch.
In Dutch, "als" can also mean "as" or "like", but Afrikaans generally uses "soos", similar to "zoals" ("such as") in Dutch, whereas Dutch would use either "als" or "zoals", hence the Afrikaans "troeteldiere soos katte en honde..." ("pets, like cats and dogs...") could be translated into Dutch either as "huisdieren als katten en honden" or "dieren zoals katten en honden...".
While the Afrikaans verb "heet" can be used to mean "to be called", like the Dutch "heten", it is less commonly used for that purpose, hence "what is your name?" and "my name is John" would be "wat is jou naam?" and "my naam is Johan", rather than "hoe heet jy?" ("how are you called?") and "ek heet Johan". By contrast, Dutch would use "hoe heet je?" and "ik heet John".
In Afrikaans, "heet" is used to mean "to be said", for example, "soos dit heet" ("as it is claimed") or, as in Dutch, "to bid", as in "ek heet jou welkom" ("I bid you welcome" or "I welcome you"). As an adjective, like the Dutch "heet", it means "hot", as in "high temperature", and can also mean "fiery temper". In Dutch, "heet" can also mean "hot" in the sense of "spicy" or "horny".
Like "praten" in Dutch, the verb "praat" in Afrikaans means "to talk", but can also mean "to speak", where Dutch uses "spreken"; compare "sy praat vlot Engels" ("she speaks English fluently") with "zij spreekt vlot Engels". However, Afrikaans uses "sprekend" as an adjective meaning "speaking", as in "Afrikaansprekend" ("Afrikaans-speaking"). "Spreek" is used interchangeably with "praat", but "praat" is more common.
Like "football" in American and Australian English, the term "voetbal" is not generally used in Afrikaans to mean soccer, which, unlike in Dutch, is called "sokker". Instead, it is used in the context of other codes of football, such as American football, hence "Amerikaanse voetbal". In Dutch, "soccer" is only used to refer to the game when played in the United States. Rugby, however, is the more popular sport amongst Afrikaners.
Changes due to spelling and pronunciation.
The changes in spelling and pronunciation in Afrikaans means that two unrelated words become homophones and are written identically, unlike their Dutch equivalents; "bly" in Afrikaans, like "blij" in Dutch is used as an adjective to mean "happy", it is also a verb meaning "to remain", cognate with "blijven" in Dutch.
In Afrikaans, unlike Dutch, the word "ná" (meaning "after") is written with an acute accent, as "na" (derived from Dutch "naar") means "to". Conversely, while the Dutch word for "one" is written as "één", to distinguish it from the indefinite article "een", in Afrikaans, "een" ("one") is written without any diacritics as the indefinite article in that language is "ŉ".
Similarly, the Dutch word for "before", "vóór", may be written with acute accents on both vowels to distinguish it from "voor", meaning "for", although it is correct to write the word without them irrespective of meaning. By contrast, "voor" in Afrikaans only means "before", the word for "for" being "vir", and so no diacritics are required.
In both languages, "oor" means "ear", but in Afrikaans "oor" (derived from Dutch "over") can also mean "over" or "about", as in "hy praat oor die weer" ("he talks about the weather", or in Dutch "hij spreekt over het weer"). Although Dutch and Afrikaans share a number of words prefixed with , such as "oorsprong" ("origin"), this is an unrelated word meaning "original".
Although "kus" in Afrikaans can mean "kiss", as in Dutch, the more usual term is "soen", similar to Dutch "zoen", as the homophone "kus" means "coast". In contrast to the Dutch equivalents "kus" and "kust" (plural "kussen" and "kusten"), it is only in their inflected plural forms "kusse" and "kuste" that the two Afrikaans words can be clearly distinguished.
False friends due to English influence.
English language influence has also resulted in changes in the meanings of some Afrikaans words, such as "eventueel", which now means "eventual" or "eventually", rather than "possibly", as in Dutch. Consequently, some Afrikaans dictionaries give both meanings, with the entry for "eventueel" listing "uitendelik" ("finally") as well as "moontlik" ("possible") as definitions. However, the latter is described as "Nederlandisties" or "Dutch-influenced".
By contrast, other Afrikaans words cognate with Dutch ones retain the same meaning, such as "aktueel", which, like "actueel" in Dutch, means "up to date" or "concerned with current affairs", although "aktualiteit" can also mean "reality" in the sense of the English word "actuality". The Dutch word "actualiteit", on the other hand, only means "topicality" or "current events". Dutch also previously spelled both "actueel" and "actualiteit" with a "k".
Colloquialisms.
Another consequence of the two languages diverging has been the differences between colloquialisms, meaning that a word in Dutch which has no offensive connotations is used as an expletive or term of abuse in Afrikaans, and vice versa, although other changes in meanings have also arisen.
For example, the Afrikaans phrase "die meisie gooi haar flikkers" ("the girl throws her sparkle") was highlighted by the Dutch journalist, Derk-Jan Eppink, in an article in the daily "NRC Handelsblad", as an example of differences in meaning. In Afrikaans, "flikkers by iemand gooi" means to flirt with someone, but in Dutch, "flikker" means a male homosexual, while "flikker op!" is akin to the British English expletive "bugger off!"
Comparison of sample text.
Below is a comparison of the Afrikaans words of the first stanza of "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (formerly the national anthem of South Africa) with the Dutch translation.