Glossary

Here follows a list of words you are likely to encounter in conversation with South Africans. Languages are freely mixed in South Africa; nothing is sacred.

Afrikaans is South Africa’s own language, born of kitchen Dutch spoken in the colony’s early days. Arguably sexier than French, but not quite as correct as Her Majesty’s English, Afrikaans is abused daily all over South Africa as one of its many languages. It truly is a beautiful language, one that is alive and morphing all the time.

Not only is Afrikaans an extremely descriptive language, the Afrikaans speaking populace are incredibly skilled at creating new words on the fly by simply combing words at their pleasure. Also be especially careful of double negatives, and straight contradictions, like “ja-nee”. The results are very often absolutely hilarious.

Much of this has crept into daily use even for English-speaking South Africans who have Anglicised many of the words and phrases for themselves: watch out for “now-now”, and “just now”.

Word / Phrase	Direct Translation	Meaning / Origin
baas	boss
babbelas	hungover / hangover	Zulu origin
Bafana Bafana		national football team
bakkie	pick-up truck
bangbroek	scared pants	scaredy-pants
bergie	mountain person	vagrant (homeless people sleeping on Table Mountain)
biltong	cured meat	Beef, kudu, springbok, ostrich, spiced and air-dried
bliksem	punch, hit
boer	farmer
boeretroos	farmer's comfort	coffee
boerewors	famer's sausage	sausage for the braai, generally fairly spicy, fatty beef
boet	brother
Bokke	Sprinboks	the national rugby team
bokkie	diminutive of bok (buck)	sweetheart
boma		an enclosure, especially for animals
braai	barbeque	OK not quite a barbecue, but close. The National pasttime
brak
bru / bro	from the Afrikaans broer, meaning brother
cozzie		bathing suit (from the English "costume")
dagga	cannabis	an Afrikaans word derived from from Khoikhoi "dachab"
diesel en dam	diesel and dam (water)
dankie	thank you
dikbek	thick mouth	grumpy
doff	dull	stupid
dop	alcoholic beverage
dronk	drunk	what happens when you have to much dop
howzit	hi
ja-nee	yes-no
jol	party
just now	soon	see also: now now
kief	nice
klap	slap
kloof	gorge
koppie	hillock
kreef	crayfish
lapa		semi-open structure with a (thatched) roof
lekker	nice
mamparra		idiot
mampoer		witblits made from peaches
miggie	midge
'n Boer maak 'n plan	a farmer makes a plan
net nou	just now
now-now	nou nou	translated literally from the Afrikaans phrase nou nou, don't expect anything to happen in a hurry at all!
oom	uncle	not limited to actual family, this is a respectful form of addressing an older, unknown male person
padkos	road food	food prepared for a road-trip
papsak	soft bag	Afrikaans word referring to the bag inside box wine
potjie	cooking pot	generally referring to a 3-legged cooking pot, and most often to the dish prepared therein
roosterkoek	grid cake	bread dough cooked over the coals
sarmie	sandwich
sharp	OK, cool
shebeen		township drinking establishment
skattie	treasure	darling
spook en diesel	ghost and diesel
stoep	verandah
stukkend	broken	often used to describe a drunk person
tannie	aunt	not limited to actual family, this is a respectful form of addressing an older, unknown female person
takkies / tekkies	sneakers
tokoloshe		Mythical evil little man (Zulu)
twak	tobacco	used to mean nonsense, as in: Jy praat twak (You speak nonsense)
vetkoek	fat cake	deep-fried dough, savory or sweet
witblits	white lightning	spirit distilled from practically anything (see also: mampoer)
yebo	yes