Browsing by Author "Louw, Anna Magdalena"

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    Language maintenance and shift among the Rehoboth Basters of Namibia ca. 1868-2008
    (2010) Louw, Anna Magdalena; Mesthrie, Rajend
    The main theme of the thesis is language endangerment, which represents a subfield of enquiry in sociolinguistics. The language under investigation is Afrikaans in its setting in Rehoboth, Namibia. Afrikaans was maintained as mother tongue and has been the dominant language as well as lingua franca in Rehoboth for some hundred years but could be losing these positions to English because of function and status loss and changes in the demographic mix of the area after Namibia's Independence in 1990. The Afrikaans-speaking Rehoboth Basters were initially the primary research subjects but it soon transpired that the Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds of the town need focused attention too because their language behaviour is as vital to the future of Afrikaans in the area.