What are the origins of the Afrikaans language?

Answer 1

Afrikaans developed in South Africa. It is derived almost entirely from Dutch and is still mutually intelligible with Dutch. It is an Indo-European language.

It developed almost as a slang or colloquial form of Dutch amongst the Dutch settlers of the Cape province. It was known as "Kitchen Dutch" in the early period before gaining recognition as a new language. The Dutch from which it is derived is a dialect of Dutch spoken in the Netherlands which itself is derived from the west-germanic language family. Besides Dutch, Afrikaans grammar (taalkunde) was also heavily influenced by Arabic grammar due to the Cape-Malay Muslim population who were the first people to write Afrikaans. It was first written using the Arabic script and not the Latin script. Translations between Arabic, Malay and Afrikaans were common and Arabic grammar influenced Afrikaans. For example, the joining of the word "al" to the following word is taken from spoken Arabic. Other than Arabic and Dutch, languages such as Xhosa, Zulu and Malay also added to some of the Afrikaans vocabulary in its present form.

Answer 2

Afrikaans is derived from 17th-century Dutch settlers in southern Africa. It developed from interactions between Dutch, various African languages, and other European languages, leading to a distinct language that became known as Afrikaans.