On a lighter note, some writers at the Norwegian show Uti Vår Hage wondered what would happen if a language collapsed. It’s quite funny – they do the standard thing along the way of mocking Danish. This video reminds me of another joke I heard recently, where the Dutch refer to Afrikaans as ‘loldutch.’ For instance, giraffe is kameelperd, meaning ‘camel leopard.’ Weird. For more examples, look at the Facebook page of people making fun of Afrikaans. It’s apparently amusing, but I don’t understand a word.
Note: There are a few swear words in the video.
Quick correction: I think it’s actually kameelperd. This beast is a composite, all right, but of camel and pard (as in the leopard) rather than of camel and horse.
Thanks, Ortu. I don’t know Dutch, and was trusting my Belgian friend, who doesn’t know Afrikaans. Chinese whispers, anyone?
The Afrikaan name for giraffe is actually not that strange, it’s just archaic. That was the common name for giraffe even in english until the 16th century when the name giraffe was adopted instead from arabic. You can still find a reference to the old name in the official latin name for the giraffe: Giraffa camelopardalis