Learn some common noun suffixes in Afrikaans
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are some noun suffixes in Afrikaans? |
| Dewan: And why are they useful to know? |
| At AfrikaansPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben Lee is watching a movie and hears an unfamiliar word. He asks his classmate, Rentia Oosthuizen, |
| Dewan as Antoni: What does "[librarian]" mean? |
| Ben Lee: Wat beteken "bibliotekaris"? |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Wat beteken "bibliotekaris"? |
| Rentia Oosthuizen: Dit is iemand wat 'n biblioteek bestuur. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Wat beteken "bibliotekaris"? |
| Dewan: What does "[librarian]" mean? |
| Rentia Oosthuizen: Dit is iemand wat 'n biblioteek bestuur. |
| Antoni: It is someone who manages a library. |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, we’re going to look at different noun suffixes in Afrikaans and how they are used. But, first, let's quickly discuss what a suffix is. |
| In Afrikaans, just like in English, many words comprise a stem, plus small units called affixes. Affixes are subdivided into prefixes or suffixes, and they serve to modify words like nouns, verbs, and so forth. In this lesson, we're going to focus on suffixes that modify noun stems specifically. Do you remember what the stem of a word is? The smallest meaningful unit of a word is its stem. |
| Let’s take the word "beautiful" as an example. "Beauty" is the smallest meaningful unit, while the suffix "-ful" modifies the noun to become an adjective, such as in the sentence, "It is a beautiful day." In Afrikaans, the word for suffix is |
| Dewan: agtervoegsel. |
| Antoni: This literally means "behind addition." |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Ben asks, |
| Dewan: "What does "bibliotekaris" mean?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan: Wat beteken "bibliotekaris"? |
| Antoni: Now, let’s put the noun, |
| Dewan: "bibliotekaris" |
| Antoni: under our microscope. This Afrikaans word for "librarian" consists of the stem, |
| Dewan: biblioteek |
| Antoni: which means "library," and the suffix |
| Dewan: "-aris." |
| Antoni: This turns it into the common noun, |
| Dewan: bibliotekaris. |
| Antoni: Now that you know what a noun suffix does, let’s find a couple more that are commonly used by Afrikaans speakers in everyday conversation. How about we use the noun "bakery" in this sentence, "Bread is baked in a bakery?" |
| Dewan: Brood word in ʼn bakkery gebak. |
| Antoni: The Afrikaans noun for "baker" is |
| Dewan: bakker |
| Antoni: and, by adding the suffix, |
| Dewan: "-y" |
| Antoni: we turn "baker" into "bakery:" |
| Dewan: bakkery. |
| Antoni: Noun suffixes can also be added to words to change them to adjectives, meaning they help us describe a person, a situation, or an object, like in the following sentence: |
| Dewan: Dit is ʼn pragtige bos blomme. |
| Antoni: This means, "It is a beautiful bunch of flowers." The Afrikaans word that describes something as having the quality of "beauty" is |
| Dewan: prag |
| Antoni: and, by adding the suffix |
| Dewan: "-tige," |
| Antoni: we now have the adjective "beautiful," |
| Dewan: "pragtige." |
| Antoni: Could you hear that we added in the letter "t" when joining the noun suffix to the noun? The "t" is simply a connecting sound that joins the two parts together when forming the adjective. We will go into more detail about connecting sounds a bit later. |
| Let’s look at another way we use noun suffixes in Afrikaans. In this instance, the suffix is used to indicate the diminutive form. Imagine that Ben and Rentia are talking about their siblings. Rentia is very fond of her little sister, Angelique, and she says, |
| Dewan: My sussie, Angelique, is nes ʼn klein poppie. |
| Antoni: "My little sister, Angelique, is just like a tiny doll." Afrikaans diminutives are often formed by adding the diminutive suffix |
| Dewan: "-ie" |
| Antoni: to nouns. In this case, it was added to both the words, |
| Dewan: sus |
| Antoni: meaning "sis," and, |
| Dewan: pop |
| Antoni: which means "doll." The word for "little sister" |
| Dewan: sussie |
| Antoni: and the word meaning "little doll" |
| Dewan: poppie |
| Antoni: are both also terms of endearment. Another common function of suffixes in both Afrikaans and English is to modify the noun to indicate the plural form. In many cases, that's pretty simple, and works just like in English morphology—simply add an -s to the noun. To illustrate, let's stick with the Afrikaans word for "little doll." You will hear that we just add the -s suffix to form the plural: |
| Dewan: poppies. |
| Antoni: While the plural in Afrikaans is always indicated with a suffix, it's a bit more complex than English because, in Afrikaans, we don't always add an -s. Some words get other suffixes like, for instance: |
| Dewan: -se |
| Antoni: Incidentally, the noun from our dialogue gets this suffix to indicate the plural, |
| Dewan: bibliotekarisse. |
| Antoni: which means: "male librarians." Another example is the word "horse," |
| Dewan: perd |
| Antoni: of which the plural form is simply "horses" in English. In Afrikaans, however, it's |
| Dewan: perde. |
| Antoni: In this instance, the suffix |
| Dewan -e |
| Antoni: was added to the noun. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, we learned what a suffix is, and we used various suffixes to form new common nouns that describe professions and places of work. We also saw that some noun suffixes change nouns into adjectives, while others help form diminutives in Afrikaans. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Antoni: To round off our discussion on noun suffixes, we’re going to highlight one or two other important aspects. For instance, when certain suffixes are added, they indicate gender in a noun, or to become what we refer to as a |
| Dewan: persoonsnaam. |
| Antoni: This literally translates to "person's name." For instance, the noun, or stem word, |
| Dewan: onderwys |
| Antoni: refers to "education," and, when you add the suffix, |
| Dewan: "-er," |
| Antoni: the new word means "male teacher:" |
| Dewan: onderwyser. |
| Antoni: Add yet another suffix, |
| Dewan: "-eres," |
| Antoni: and the new word now refers to a female teacher— |
| Dewan: onderwyseres. |
| Antoni: Do you remember Ben’s question at the beginning of our lesson? |
| Dewan: What does "bibliotekaris" mean? |
| Antoni: As Rentia explains, it's the word for someone who manages a library. By looking at the noun suffix, which in this case is |
| Dewan: "-aris," |
| Antoni: an Afrikaans speaker would know that the person in question is "a male librarian." If she was "a female librarian," adding the noun suffix, |
| Dewan: "-aresse" |
| Antoni: would form the new word, |
| Dewan: "bibliotekaresse." |
| Antoni: Now let's proceed to another interesting phenomenon regarding the pronunciation and spelling of certain noun suffixes. When you learn to read in Afrikaans, you’ll come across letters you don’t see in English. These are sometimes used when a suffix is added to a stem, and a good example of one such sound is the "e" with two dots above it. Those dots are what we call a diaeresis, and a diaeresis indicates that there is a sound shift in the pronunciation of that syllable or letter. Let me explain. |
| Imagine a conversation where Ben and Rentia talk about their parents’ professions. Ben tells Rentia that his father is a pilot. He says, |
| Dewan: My pa is ʼn vlieënier, |
| Antoni: which means: "My father is a pilot." If you listen carefully, you'll hear that, in the word meaning "pilot," |
| Dewan: vlieënier, |
| Antoni: the long "ee" sound, like in the word "flea," is followed by a short "u" sound, as in the word "grub." This sound shift helps to ease pronunciation of the new word, which is a combination of |
| Dewan: vlieg, |
| Antoni: the Afrikaans word for "fly", and the suffix |
| Dewan: "-enier." |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Dewan: Totsiens! |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Dewan (Afrikaans, Pietermaritzburg), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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