taal, noun

/tɑːl/
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, language, speech.
1. Also with initial capital(s). Usually die taal/di -/ [Afrikaans, die the], the taal.
a. Afrikaans noun. Also attributive.
1888 Cape Punch 18 Jan. 23Said the people of Paarl, Who speak the old Taal, ‘Let us invite out dear Mr. Varley’...With the people of Paarl did he parley.
1893 S. Afr. Methodist 24 Dec. 307As a rule, the Dutch-speaking colonist has but one string to his bow...They know no language but the taal.
1893 ‘M.’ in Cape Illust. Mag. Aug. 443This is the section which honestly imagines that a patois like the taal is eventually to prevail against the onrush of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
1896 Purvis & Biggs S. Afr. 29The term Boer..is roughly applied in South Africa as descriptive of all Whites who speak the taal — a language which has been evolved by the Dutch colonists, and which is of very limited vocabulary, containing only a few hundred words — as their familiary medium of intercourse. The taal is of Dutch foundation, but with a few other European, Malay and Native terms embodied.
1896 ‘S. Cumberland’ What I Think of S. Afr. 154The Boer taal is not pretty at its best; in its harshness, it makes one feel thirsty.
1898 Johannesburg Star 4 JuneSundry clever and humorous volumes of taal-verse.
1900 Spectator (U.K.) 6 Oct. 460One of the first results..was to establish the Taal, the Cape patois, as the official language.
1901 W.S. Sutherland S. Afr. Sketches 46I have put the verse into some kind of English from the original Taal, and of course all poetry loses in translation.
1905 Star 2 Oct. 6When his Excellency says, ‘Let the medium be the taal if the child is a Boer’, he does not mean, we take it, that each school is to be split up into two distinct sections.
1908 M.C. Bruce New Tvl 11The Dutch element includes both well-to-do and cultivated Dutch and the poor and ignorant. The better class speak English perfectly, but in their homes they talk the taal always.
1909 O.E.A. Schreiner Closer Union (1960) 24The white race consists mainly of two varieties, or rather mixed European descent, but both largely Teutonic, and though partly divided at the present moment by traditions and the use of two forms of speech, the Taal and the English, they are so essentially one in blood and character that within two generations they will be inextricably blended by inter-marriage and common interests.
1910 J. Runcie Idylls by Two Oceans 51He yelled for Jantje in the taal, for Rachel in Yiddish, and to me as he passed in convoluted English.
1911 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Kimberley 393The mother tongue (sc. Dutch) had merged itself into what is called the Taal, a medley of Dutch, Kaffir and Hottentot words, a linguistic compound enough to drive a savant crazy.
1911 E. Prov. Herald 9 Dec.He disagreed with the present movement for the study of the Taal in preference to the Dutch language proper with its fine literature.
1911 P. Gibbon Margaret Harding 78‘Koos’ is the Taal for cousin, you know; it’s a sort of familiar address.
1913 D. Fairbridge Piet of Italy 100Gamaliah..was explaining in voluble Taal to Hadje Omar.
1914 S.P. Hyatt Old Transport Rd 92The Taal, the horrible jargon of the Cape Dutch.
1914 W.C. Scully Lodges in Wilderness 187He spoke in High Dutch, before which my homely ‘taal’ faltered, abashed.
1916 J. Buchan Greenmantle 178The newcomer..started questioning Peter in the taal.
1943 ‘J. Burger’ Black Man’s Burden 241Afrikaans is still spoken of slightingly as an inferior language, as ‘kitchen-Dutch’, as the ‘taal’, by people who ought to know better.
1955 G. Saron in Saron & Hotz Jews in S. Afr. 189Sammy Marks..spoke the ‘taal’ fluently, and this counted with Kruger.
1963 A. Delius Day Natal Took Off 4We finally got used to calling the Dutch Afrikaners, and even learning a few words in the Taal ourselves.
1973 J. Meintjes Voortrekkers 19Speech was conditioned by environment to such an extent that a new language began to evolve, then simply called the Taal (the language), or Cape Dutch, and much later Afrikaans.
1976 Sunday Times 22 Aug. (Mag. Sect.) 5No matter how often you might speak English,..the heart is truly stirred only by the cadences of the taal.
1978 Speak Vol.1 No.5, 55Language is felt to be a political issue in South Africa. One thinks of the taal and Soweto.
1981 Rand Daily Mail 25 Mar. 23Swazi schools to teach the ‘taal’. Swaziland’s Parliament has approved in principle a recommendation by the Minister of Education..that Afrikaans be taught in the country’s schools.
1988 ‘K. de Boer’ in Frontline Oct.–Nov. 42Another taal truth was established: when deciding whether something should be one or two words the rule was very simple: one concept, one word.
1991 A. Van Wyk Birth of New Afrikaner 24It was Language Year, commemorating the formation a century before of Die Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners..which first set out to formalise Afrikaans as a language separate from Dutch. Once more we were bombarded with taal doings...My reaction to this overdose of taal propaganda was identical to the way I closed my mind to the anti-communist campaign in the 1960s.
b. flaaitaal.
1956 T. Makiwane in New Age 19 July 6The various groupings...Somebody speaking English there — teachers — then one or two other smaller groups often hostile to the former, speaking in their own language (the taal) stressing every word in loudest tones, are the ‘boys’ (Tsotsis).
1962 W.S. Manqupu in Star 22 Feb. 14The very name ‘tsotsi’ had its birth as a result of a film, shown in 1946 (though by this time ‘Die Taal’ had long been flourishing)...‘Die Taal’ still flourishes, and grows, at places such as Meadowlands and Diepkloof.
1979 C. Van der Merwe in Frontline Dec. 17Dutch swears by Flytaal...He’s known..as the brabisa manoja, the mhlophe who knows the taal.
1990 P. Alexander in Weekly Mail 5 Oct. (Weekend Mail) 14Dialogue is in the form of die taal ‘which is neither English, Afrikaans nor ethnic’. This makes it difficult for most whites and foreigners to follow.
‖2.
a. Language.
1944 ‘Twede in Bevel’ Piet Kolonel 35Afrikaans was the home taal of the majority, but the language of the regiment was English and Afrikaans on alternate days.
1957 D. Grinnell-Milne Baden-Powell at Mafeking 172Speaking but a few hundred words of a taal that was neither German nor Dutch.
1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena 20Sit and rest...How do say that in the kaffir taal?
1972 Cape Times 10 Mar. 5Any more taals tossed into the translation arena would have escalated the number of permutations possible.
1979 J. Gratus Jo’burgersYou’d better learn the taal of my friend. It’s called English.
1980 Fair Lady 19 Nov. 384Stumbling along in some strange taal, poking fun at each other’s bad (language) habits.
1982 Pace Apr. 15These youngsters communicate in their own lingo...It is a quick-shifting ‘taal’ that alarms parents.
1992 J. Raphaely in Femina June 6If you are tone-deaf you can’t sing in tune in your own taal, let alone any other.
b. With defining word:
moedertaal/ˈmʊdə(r)-//ˈmudə(r)-/ [Afrikaans, moeder mother], ‘mother-tongue’ (meaning Afrikaans); also attributive.
1957 L.G. Green Beyond City Lights 36G.W.A. van der Lingen, the Dutch Reformed Church minister at Paarl, later to become prominent in the moedertaal struggle.
1990 Sunday Times 11 Feb. (Mag. Sect.) 34Until such time as their own private school brand of education is available in the moedertaal, Afrikaans parents who choose English-medium education for their children will continue to make a sacrifice.
‖3. combinations and Special Combinations (in sense 1 a):
Taalbeweging/-bəˌviəxəŋ/ [Afrikaans, beweging movement], either of two language movements, the first for the recognition of Afrikaans as a written language (1875–1900), and the second for the acceptance of Afrikaans as an official language (1915–1925);
Taalbond/-bɔnt/ [Afrikaans, elliptical for Suid Afrikaanse Taalbond South African Language Society], (a) a society formed in 1890 to strengthen and encourage the use of Dutch (and later Afrikaans); also attributive; (b) elliptical, the national examinations set by this body, known as the Higher Taalbond, Lower Taalbond and Voorbereidende (Preparatory) Taalbond (examinations);
taalfees/-fɪəs/ [Afrikaans, fees festival, feast], a language festival celebrating a hundred years of the Afrikaans language, held on the 14th of August 1975;
taalmonument/-ˌmɔnyˈment/, a monument to the Afrikaans language, particularly that near Paarl;
taal-speaker obsolete, an Afrikaans-speaker;
taalstryd/-streɪt/ [Afrikaans, stryd struggle, battle], ‘language struggle’, especially the struggle to advance the status of the Afrikaans language; hence taalstryder, one active in this movement;
taaltoets [Afrikaans, toets test], a test of proficiency in both official languages, obligatory for all hotel employees.
1970 T. Hattingh Informant, Bloemfontein, Free StateTaalbeweging — the name for the first Afrikaans language-movement.
1975 Sunday Times 17 Aug. 14On its hundredth birthday, Afrikaans finds its future uncertain..As it stands on the threshold of a new era it is in the throes of a Derde Taalbeweging, facing challenges as great as those which confronted the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners.
1987 W.A. De Klerk in Sunday Times 25 Jan. 321876: The Taalbeweging.
1892 Cape Illust. Mag. Nov. 90What..gave rise to the word Kameahs,..is a problem I leave to..a Select Committee of the Taal Bond.
1893 Cape Illust. Mag. Vol.4 No.10, 370The crass ignorance of the Taal-Bond.
1921 E. Prov. Herald 15 Jan. 3The following are the official results of the Taalbond examination.
1932 Grocott’s Daily Mail 12 Jan. 2The passes in the Lower Taalbond Examination..are as follows.
1941 Bantu World 15 Feb. 15Preference will be given to an applicant..who has passed Matric Afrikaans or the Hoer Taalbond.
1966 T.R.H. Davenport Afrikaner Bond 140In October 1890 the Taalbond was inaugurated, to propagate the Dutch language and culture in schools.
1974 J.R. Olivier in Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. X. 396The Taalbond had its origin in a language conference held in Cape Town on 1 Nov. 1890. It aimed at improving the knowledge of what it called the ‘language of the people’ (Dutch) and developing a national sentiment...The civil service accepted the certificates of the Taalbond as proof of competence in the Dutch (later Afrikaans) language.
1975 Sunday Times 17 Aug. 14It must learn, this language of Africa, to speak to Africa in words that it will accept. If it does — and few who know its vitality will doubt that it can — this week’s Taalfees will mark not the end of one chapter, but the beginning of another.
1971 Daily Dispatch 31 Aug. (Suppl.) 7The first ‘taalmonument’ (language monument) for the Afrikaans (Dutch) language was founded here and it can rightly be said that the first Afrikaans language movement was inspired by Burgerdorp.
1982 Sunday Times 18 July 24Why on earth do supermarkets stick price labels on everything with a glue that could stick the Taal Monument together if it broke in two?
1896 Purvis & Biggs S. Afr. 94The Transvaal taal-speaker.
1975 Sunday Times 17 Aug. 14In a year which marks those triumphs, Afrikaans is once again racked by a taalstryd. Once again academics are prophesying its demise, once again it is under stress.
1990 S. De Waal in Weekly Mail 23 Feb. (Suppl.) 9He is concerned with Taalstryd (linguistic struggle), harking back to the days when Afrikaans fought for its identity and its survival.
1980 N. Ferreira Story of Afrikaner 136The Afrikaner nation was born when his language was born, when an early taalstryder exclaimed: ‘Ons skryf soos ons praat.’ [We write as we speak.]
1972 Het Suid-Western 14 Dec. 19Recently..became the first hotel employee..to pass her ‘taal toets’. Now she has a certificate to prove that she can say ‘boerewors’ in both official languages.
Afrikaans noun. Also attributive.
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