The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915

Afrikaans happened when slaves adapted Dutch - the language of the rulers - for their own use. Many years later Afrikaans was hijacked by some white Afrikaners as 'their language', but Davids proved beyond doubt that it was the descendants of the slaves, not their masters, who first wrote Afrikaans. The Cape Muslim community, from early in the nineteenth century, seems to have used Afrikaans as a language of communication and education, as well as a vehicle for the transmission of religious ideas. This book could be described as being a socio-historical record to evoke a greater awareness of the existence of Cape Muslim Afrikaans and as a useful source for broadening our understanding of the linguistic nature of Cape Afrikaans. In The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims aspects of the Afrikaans of the Muslim community, as well as the community that spoke this Afrikaans, are examined. Achmat Davids presents with thoroughness and insight very interesting facts about the fate of one of the types of Afrikaans that, from its inception, has been an integral part of the Cape, and later on of South Africa, over a period of a hundred years. For example, did the Cape Muslim community of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries write as they spoke? Due to the phonetic nature of Arabic script, Davids proved the answer to be 'yes!'