ja baas, adjectival phrase and & noun phrase

/ˈjɑː bɑːs/
Forms:
Also ja-baas.
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, see ja and baas.
colloquial
‘Yes master’, ‘yes sir’.
A. noun phrase
1. The utterance ‘Ja baas’, seen as the epitome of the language and attitudes of one who is servile. Cf. yes baas noun phrase sense 2.
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. I. 145He was to acknowledge his hour of servitude by answering ‘Yah, Baas!’ when I addressed him.
1926 L.D. Flemming Fun on Veld (1928) 226Hendrik’s ‘Yah, Baas,’ is reassuring.
1956 A. Sampson Drum 31‘It makes me boil having to say “Ya, baas” to a white man who’s inferior to me,’ he said. ‘God, I feel sick when I see an educated African grovelling in front of a white man.’
1960 Europeans Only (caption)The mythical Bantu of legend — a people of touching and childlike simplicity whose vocabulary was limited to Ja, baas.
1962 A.J. Luthuli Let my People Go 142I wonder if they believe us — left to ourselves — capable of more than ‘Ja, Baas!’
1972 A. Paton in E. Prov. Herald 8 Apr. 9Black voices are going to be heard more loudly and more compellingly and they won’t be saying ‘Ja baas’.
1974 E. Prov. Herald 4 Mar.Days of ‘ja baas’ are over.
1980 Voice 10 Dec. 13Forever ja-baas...All black people are supposed to do — always — is never to say no.
1980 N. Ferreira Story of Afrikaner 48If only the Prime Minister was willing to talk to the real black leaders, not the ones who say ‘ja baas’ all the time.
1984 Frontline Mar. 14Pass offices, crowded trains, ja-baas/nee-baas. When you have so little potency, that which you have is understandably precious.
2. A Black person who is servile in his behaviour towards White people; yes baas noun phrase sense 1.
1972 Drum 8 Aug. 8In Saso lingo a non-White is regarded as a Ja-Baas, a sell-out. Saso take strong exception to be [sic] called in the negative term ‘non-White’ and call themselves Blacks.
1980 E. Joubert Long Journey of Poppie Nongena 378Ja, they say, you are the ja-baas, the yes-men, so they don’t trust us no more. They say the whites tread on us.
1989 Pace Dec. 4The leadership position is for the learned and not for bo ‘Dom Jan’ and bo ‘Ja Baas’.
B. adjectival phrase Of persons, attitudes, or actions: servile and fawning (referring to the obsequiousness demanded in the past by White people of Black people); yes baas adjectival phrase.
1960 C. Hooper Brief Authority 103We do not want war with the europeans; but even less do we want ja-baas chiefs, who are merely the Native Commissioner’s voice.
1970 Sunday Times 22 Mar.South Africa’s school children are in danger of educational influences which are narrow, bigoted and conditioned to a ‘ja baas’ attitude to the government in power, Mr. Harry Brigish, chairman of the Witwatersrand Central School Board, said in Johannesburg yesterday.
1974 Daily Dispatch 2 Dec. 1Except for a few ‘ja-baas’ type [sic] of Africans, no black face was ever admitted into the educational councils or committees that framed the educational policy of South Africa.
1977 M.P. Gwala Jol’iinkomo 45The ja-baas jive scares cowards with Frankenstein monstereyes.
1981 Pace Sept. 32There is too much ‘baaskap’ in the SAAAU hierarchy. I was not given the chance to put my case. Perhaps they realised I am no ‘ja baas’ man.
1987 New Nation 3 Dec. 11The Genuines have chucked out Goema’s ja-baas connotations, but have emphasised its humour, anger, sensuality and subversiveness.
‘Yes master’, ‘yes sir’.
The utterance ‘Ja baas’, seen as the epitome of the language and attitudes of one who is servile.
A Black person who is servile in his behaviour towards White people; yes baas noun phrase sense 1.
servile and fawning (referring to the obsequiousness demanded in the past by White people of Black people); yes baas adjectival phrase.
Derivatives:
Hence ja-baas  transitive verb, or (rare) reflexive, to agree (to something) without resisting; to ingratiate oneself in this way.
1977 Het Suid-Western 24 Aug.Mr. Vorster will have placed his opponents at the psychological disadvantage of being a one-in-four minority with the Cape, Natal and Free State having meekly ‘ja-baased’ his proposals.
1981 Frontline May 28Idi Amin was a loyal soldier in the colonial forces, ja-baasing himself into a sergeant-majorship.
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18821989

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ja-baas

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idiomatic
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jaap, nounn.jabroer, nounn.
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