THE BIBLE IN AFRIKAANS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—In your issue of August 7th you comment, in the column headed " Speetabilia," on the "Dutch Professor who will leave Holland next year for South Africa, where he has been asked to undertake the-translation of the Old Testament into Afrikaans." There is clearly some misapprehension on this point, as the translation of the Bible into Afrikaans has been the work, during the last two years, of four leading members of the Dutch Reformed Church ; the complete translation will, I believe, be published at a comparatively early date.
Afrikaans resembles, in vocabulary, the Dutch of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries almost more than modern Nederlands does. The latter language has adopted many words from French, whereas Afrikaans is still a more direct descendant of the original Dutch—the Afrikaans word for umbrella, for example, is the old Dutch word, " sambreel," while " paraplu " is used in Holland. The idiom of Afrikaans is, of course, unique ; the language is also much less inflected than Dutch.—! am, Sir, &c., D. M. Oxford.
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