Afrikaans in Patagonia: Language shift and cultural integration in a rural immigrant community

Ryan Szpiech,Lorenzo García-Amaya,Victoria Langland,Andries W Coetzee,Paulina Alberto,Ellie Johandes,Joshua Shapero,Nicholas Henriksen

doi:10.1515/ijsl-2020-2110

Abstract

AbstractChubut Province, in Patagonia, Argentina, is home to a group of Afrikaans-speaking Boers, descendants of those who–starting in 1902–came to Argentina from the region of present-day South Africa. Although little Afrikaans is spoken among fourth- and fifth-generation community members, many in the third generation (60 years and older) still maintain the language. According to Joshua Fishman’s model of generational language shift, the Boers’ Afrikaans should have been largely diluted by the third generation; older community members today should have little functional knowledge of the language, and their children and grandchildren none. The goal of this paper is to explore the persistence of bilingualism in the Argentine Boer community and explain why the changes normally associated with the third generation of immigrants are only now being seen in the fourth and fifth generations. On the basis of bilingual interviews with living community members, we argue that the community’s attitude toward Afrikaans as a language of group identity, as well as the relative isolation of the community in rural Patagonia in the first half of the 20th century, were both decisive factors in delaying the process of linguistic assimilation. Only in the middle of the 20th century, when the community came into greater contact with Argentine society as a result of modernization and schooling in the region, did the process of linguistic integration begin in a measurable way.

Highlights

Following the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the various independent republics organized by Boer settlers in Southern Africa were subjugated to British rule.1 Between 1902 and 1907, approximately 600 Afrikaans-speaking Boers emigrated to the Chubut region of Patagonia, Argentina
Testimonies from community members allow us to affirm all three hypotheses: the remoteness of farms meant that many Boers did not speak much Spanish at first, or spoke only with indigenous farmhands; numerous members spoke of having a “pride” in their past as Boers; and before the growth of schools and the oil industry in the region, Spanish was not recognized as a language of prestige in Patagonian society. These factors, which can best be assessed on the basis of personal testimony about lived experience, help explain the unique history of linguistic shift among the Boer population and elucidate the reasons behind the long survival of Afrikaans in Patagonia.10. If we trace this history not from the moment of Boer immigration to Argentina in the first decade of the 20th century, but from the start of their economic and educational integration into Patagonian society a few decades later, we see that the real shift from Afrikaans to Spanish in the Boer community took place over the span of generations two, three, and four
It is possible to conclude that a conventional three-generation model does apply if community history is divided into an initial period of isolation in the first half of the 20th century, followed by an active period of integration

Summary

Introduction

Following the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the various independent republics organized by Boer settlers in Southern Africa were subjugated to British rule. Between 1902 and 1907, approximately 600 Afrikaans-speaking Boers emigrated to the Chubut region of Patagonia, Argentina. Between 1902 and 1907, approximately 600 Afrikaans-speaking Boers emigrated to the Chubut region of Patagonia, Argentina. Lured by the Argentine government’s propaganda, which promised cheap, fertile land and freedom from British rule, they established themselves principally as sheep farmers in the modern-day Patagonian province of Chubut. The regions where the Boers settled were far removed from any major urban centers, letting the community remain functionally monolingual in Afrikaans throughout the first several decades of its existence. There are still descendants of the original Afrikaans-speaking settlers concentrated around the cities of Comodoro Rivadavia and Sarmiento, who maintain a strong cultural Afrikaans identity (Henriksen et al 2018). The number of Afrikaans speakers in the community is dwindling as the youngest generations (fourth and fifth) evince a decisive shift toward monolingual Spanish use

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Conclusion