Euro African Trust

Euro Africans generally enjoy an outdoor lifestyle and fondness for sport. The braai, although originally Afrikaans, is a popular way for all Euro Africans to gather friends. Another pastime is that of visiting game reserves, hiking, camping and recreational angling. 

There is a particular appreciation of country life and farms are often bought as weekend retreats. The agricultural industry was modernised and greatly expanded by European settlers, who often worked as farmers, hence it is very close to the heart of the Euro African. Farmers themselves generally prefer holiday houses at the coast. 

In other ways the culture of Euro Africans is more Euro than African; for Anglo-Africans, afternoon tea - in fact, tea at any time of day - is still widespread, as are pastimes such as gardening and reading. 

The most avidly followed (and participated in) sports are rugby, cricket and tennis. Many Anglo-Africans will follow South African as well as British news and watch BBC and Sky News rather than CNN, and prefer British humour as expressed by Fawlty Towers and the Blackadder series. 

There is a widespread appreciation for British things by those of British ancestry and a certain cachet attached to British books, paints, clothes, fabric, magazines, stationary, china and toys; most Anglo-Africans travel to Britain at least once in their lives to discover their ancestral homeland where some may have friends and even long lost relatives.

South African English

Many Euro Africans speak a unique dialect of English. However, even in South Africa, there are geographical differences in the English that Euro Africans speak; most can clearly tell the difference between the languid accent of Durban, Cape Town's supposedly disdainful drawl, and the near-Received Pronunciation of Johannesburg's northern suburbs and the Natal Midlands. There are influences from Cape Malays, Afrikaners, and the Bantu languages. 

The common greeting 'Howzit!' comes from 'How is it?' and can be likened to the US 'Howdy', the Australian 'G'Day', the Irish 'Howya?' or the recent British 'All right?'. The considerable Afrikaans influence can be seen from words such as braai, trek, lekker, and ja having become common usage centuries ago. In South Africa many Zulu and Xhosa words (such as shongololo, muti, ubuntu, fundi etc.) are used.

Afrikaans

Afrikaans is a Germanic language which derives from a Dutch dialect. The Afrikaans language changed over time from the Dutch spoken by the first white settlers at the Cape. From the late 17th century, the form of Dutch spoken at the Cape developed differences, mostly in morphology but also in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from that of the Netherlands, although the languages are still similar enough to be mutually intelligible. 

Settlers who arrived speaking German and French soon shifted to using Dutch and later Afrikaans. The process of language change was influenced by the languages spoken by slaves, Khoikhoi and people of mixed descent, as well as by Cape Malay, Zulu, English and Portuguese.

 While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch, "Kitchen Dutch", or "Taal" (meaning language in Afrikaans) developed into a separate language by the 19th century, with much work done by the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners and other writers such as Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven. 

In a 1925 act of Parliament, Afrikaans replaced standard Dutch as one of the two official languages of the Union of South Africa. There was much objection to the attempt to legislate the creation of Afrikaans as a new language. Marthinus Steyn, a prominent jurist and politician, and others were vocal in their opposition. 

They perceived that legalization of Afrikaans as an official language would only serve to isolate the Afrikaners, as they would be the only people in the world to speak Afrikaans. Steyn, who died before 1925, had been educated in Holland and England and was a worldly cosmopolitan figure.

Today, Afrikaans is recognised as one of the eleven official languages of the new South Africa, and is widely accepted as an appropriate means of communication for a large number of South Africans. The Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging (ATKV) (Afrikaans Language and Culture Society) is responsible for promoting the Afrikaans language and culture.

Numismatics

The world's first ounce-denominated gold coin, the Krugerrand was struck at the South African Mint on the third of July 1967. The name Krugerrand was derived from Kruger (President Paul Kruger) and rand the monetary unit of South Africa. The Rand is associated with the area called Witwatersrand, "the ridge of white water" an important gold producing area.

In April 2007, the South African Mint coined a collectors R1 gold coin commemorating the Afrikaner people as part of its cultural series, depicting the Great Trek across the Drakensberg mountains.

Institutions

Die Voortrekkers is a youth movement for Afrikaners in South Africa and Namibia with a membership of over 10 000 active members to promote cultural values, maintaining norms and standards as Christians, and being accountable members of public society.

Cuisine

Numerous Euro African cuisines can be traced back to Coloured people. Bobotie, snoek based dishes,koeksisters, bredies, Malay roti are staple diets of Coloureds and other South Africans as well. Most dishes are passed down for many generations.

Other Euro African cuisine, though enjoyed by all Euro Africans, is of Boer ancestry, for example, koeksisters, biltong, and boerwors.

Let us not forget rooibos (English: redbush) tea.