Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia; it is a separate standard language rather than a national variety, unlike Netherlands Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Indonesian Dutch, and Surinamese Dutch. An estimated 90 to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin, so there are few lexical differences between the two languages; however, Afrikaans has considerably more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling.

Mutual intelligibility There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. Research suggests that mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish. Mutual intelligibility tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch.

Intelligibility of Afrikaans to Dutch speakers

Cognate words Although Afrikaans borrows some lexical and syntactical structures from other languages, including Malay, Portuguese, Khoisan languages, Bantu languages, and to a lesser extent Low German, Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the other way around.

In Afrikaans, is an inflection of the verb ("to have" from Dutch ) although (cognate with ) is used as the subjunctive of "to be", while in Dutch is cognate with "we" in English, a language widely understood by Afrikaans speakers. Conversely, , meaning "to be" in Afrikaans, is used as the imperative in Dutch as in Afrikaans (e.g. wees betyds, meaning "be on time").

Verb forms The simplification of verbs in Afrikaans, with almost all verbs being regular and the near absence of the imperfect tense, means that while the phrase ("I have helped" or "I helped") would be recognisable by Dutch speakers, the Dutch phrase would not be as readily understood by speakers of Afrikaans.

Similarly, the resemblance of Afrikaans verbs like ("to read", Dutch ) to the first person singular and verbs like gaan ("to go") to infinitive forms in Dutch means that julle lees ("you [plural] read") or ek gaan ("I go") would be understood by Dutch speakers more readily than jullie lezen or ik ga would be by Afrikaans speakers.

Unmarked and marked forms of words As Afrikaans no longer has unmarked and marked forms of words, instead using words derived from the marked forms in Dutch, the Afrikaans words for "there" and "now", and , are more intelligible to speakers of Dutch than the unmarked Dutch forms and are to Afrikaans speakers.

For example, , meaning "now there is" in Afrikaans, is sometimes encountered in Dutch although nou is used more colloquially for emphasis, in the sense of the English "well". In Dutch, "now there is" would be translated as , using the unmarked forms, which do not exist in Afrikaans.

Intelligibility of Dutch to Afrikaans speakers

Loanwords vs purisms Afrikaans uses purisms or calques where Dutch would use loans from French, Latin or English. Owing to the exposure of Afrikaans speakers to English, Dutch words like , and are more readily understood by them than Afrikaans equivalents like , and are by Dutch speakers.

Similarly, Dutch words such as ("favourite"), , and are intelligible to Afrikaans speakers on account of their resemblance to their English equivalents, whereas the Afrikaans , , and (cognate with Dutch ), while intelligible to Dutch speakers, would be considered old-fashioned.

Words of Dutch and non-Dutch origin In addition, while Afrikaans may use words of non-Dutch origin unintelligible to Dutch speakers (such as those derived from Malay, like baie), their Dutch equivalents, or cognates, are also used in Afrikaans, and would therefore be more intelligible to Dutch speakers.

For example, although Afrikaans ("very", "many" or "much"), from banyak has no cognate in Dutch, heel as in heel goed ("very good") is used in Afrikaans as well as Dutch. The Dutch word ("scarcely" or "sour") is unrelated to the Afrikaans word ("almost" or "nearly"), being derived from the Malay hampir, but the Dutch word , also meaning "almost" or "nearly", is cognate with byna in Afrikaans.

Orthographic differences Orthographic differences between Dutch and Afrikaans are mainly due to phonetic evolutions and spelling simplifications in Afrikaans, and the more conservative character of and recent changes to modern Dutch orthography.

However, some aspects of Afrikaans orthography also resemble those of older forms of Dutch, for example, whereas "God be with you" in modern Dutch would be God zij met u, the Afrikaans spelling God sy met u, was also used in 18th century Dutch. The current Dutch spelling, using and the digraph , became prevalent from the 19th century.

Other simplifications in Afrikaans had earlier been proposed for Dutch by R.A Kollewijn, but were either not adopted until 1934, such as changing to (hence Nederlandsch to Nederlands), or rejected, such as changing to (hence logisch to logies) and to (hence moeilijk to moeilik).

Afrikaans simplifications

Replacement of and Afrikaans uses for the Dutch hard , both pronounced [ k ]; compare Dutch ("culture") with Afrikaans . Before the 1990s major spelling reform, the latter spelling was also accepted in Dutch, although other Dutch words such as commissie ("commission") were already spelt with , which in Afrikaans would be kommissie.

Words in Dutch with the letter combination , when pronounced as [ kk ] are transliterated in Afrikaans using , for example, acclimatiseren and accommodatie in Dutch become Afrikaans akklimatiseer and akkommodasie ("akkommodasie" is used for all meanings of "accommodation" except "a place to stay"; for that meaning, the most accepted word is "verblyf", cognate with Dutch ""). Those in which is pronounced as , such as Dutch accent and accepteren, become aksent and aksepteer in Afrikaans ("aksepteer" is very rare, and typically rejected; the accepted translation of "accept" is "aanvaar", cognate with Dutch "").Afrikaans-English, English-Afrikaans Dictionary, Jan Kromhout, Hippocrene Books, 2001, page 9

Similarly, Afrikaans uses for the Dutch soft , both pronounced [ s ]; compare Dutch ("central") and ("ceremony") with Afrikaans and . Afrikaans also uses instead of in words like spesiaal ("special") and spesifiek ("specific") which in Dutch would be speciaal and specifiek.

Most Afrikaans words using begin with the digraph , pronounced [ x ], such as Christelik ("Christian") or chemie ("chemistry") with some exceptions like confetti, although Afrikaans dictionaries may also list more phonetic alternative spellings using or , such as for ("chronic", similar to Dutch chronisch) and sjirurg for chirurg ("surgeon").

However, although the Dutch words China and Chinees (inflected as Chinese) are transliterated in Afrikaans using as Sjina, Sjinees, and Sjinese respectively, the Dutch spellings are also used, particularly in the media. In some Afrikaans dictionaries, China is standard, while Sjinees is listed as an alternative spelling to Chinees.Afrikaans-English, English-Afrikaans Dictionary, Jan Kromhout, Hippocrene Books, 2001, page 30

Transliteration of loanwords French loanwords in Dutch beginning in (pronounced [ ʃ ]), are transliterated in Afrikaans using ; compare Dutch champagne and chic with Afrikaans sjampanje and sjiek. Afrikaans also changes , encountered in French loanwords in Dutch like campagne and compagnie to , hence kampanje and kompanjie, and "sjampanje", in which both these changes are seen.

When (pronounced [ ʃ ]) appears within a Dutch word, in its Afrikaans equivalent, it is replaced by ; compare with . This also applies to word endings; compare Dutch Jiddisch ("Yiddish") with Afrikaans Jiddisj, although the latter is also encountered in Dutch. In Dutch, hasjiesj ("hashish") is always written with similar to in Afrikaans.

The Dutch word cheque, in which is pronounced as [ tʃ ], is written in Afrikaans as tjek, while the Italian-derived word cello is written as tjello. Both languages also use (also pronounced as [ tʃ ]) in some geographical names, despite other differences in spelling; compare Dutch Tsjaad ("Chad") with Afrikaans Tsjad.

Use of instead of soft Another difference between the two languages concerns verbs derived from Latin or French, with Dutch using a soft () and Afrikaans using , hence communiceren and provoceren ("to communicate" and "to provoke") in Dutch become kommunikeer and provokeer in Afrikaans, although kommuniseren was also used in 18th century Dutch.

The word kommuniseer was also previously used in Afrikaans to mean or "to make communist". However, is accepted as a synonym for . Similarly, the verb kompliseer, similar to Dutch compliceren, is used to mean "to complicate", both using the sound.

By contrast, related nouns in both languages contain the sound, hence communicatie and provocatie in Dutch and kommunikasie and provokasie in Afrikaans.

Changes to digraph The Dutch digraph corresponds to in Afrikaans, in line with older Dutch spelling norms, although pronunciation remains . An example is (price), which is spelt prys in Afrikaans. Dutch words ending in , however, end in in Afrikaans, not , for example (ugly) in Dutch becomes in Afrikaans. In both languages, this suffix is pronounced , with a schwa.

In Dutch, in which is treated as a separate letter of the alphabet, IJ often features in place names in the Netherlands like IJsselmeer, or in the Dutch name for Iceland, IJsland. Afrikaans similarly uses Ysland, which was also used in 18th century Dutch.

However, few place names in South Africa of Dutch origin begin with Y, with the exception of Yzerfontein in the Western Cape. The spelling of the name of the town, which means iron fountain, is based on the old Dutch word for iron, yzer. It was also previously written as Ijsterfontein. The modern Afrikaans word for iron is yster, while in Dutch it is ijzer.

In modern Dutch, is now typically used in words of Greek origin like cyclus ("cycle") replaced by in its Afrikaans equivalent siklus, although both are pronounced as .

Mergers of digraphs or trigraphs Afrikaans merged Dutch trigraphs , and to a single spelling . Apart from , generally pronounced as in the Netherlands, there is no difference in pronunciation; compare Dutch ("province") and ("police") with Afrikaans and . However, words ending in in Dutch are often pronounced as particularly in Flanders.Één taal, twee uitspraaknormen, Onze Taal, June 1999, pages 148-150

Afrikaans merged Dutch digraphs and trigraphs , , , and (pronounced identically as by many Dutch speakers) to a single spelling , (contrastingly pronounced ); ("woman") and ("dew") in Dutch become and in Afrikaans respectively. Similarly, some Dutch words beginning with , such as autonomie are written with , hence outonomie.

The Dutch cluster became in Afrikaans. Compare ("national") with . In Dutch, the pronunciation differs from region to region and include , , and .

Conversely, the Afrikaans cluster in words such as spesiaal ("special") and pensioen ("pension") is pronounced as with an extra syllable , but in Dutch, both the in speciaal and in pensioen are pronounced as , although the pronunciation is encountered in the Southern Netherlands.

Dropping of final letters At the end of words, Afrikaans often dropped the in the Dutch cluster (pronounced as a schwa, ), mainly present in plural nouns and verb forms, to become Compare Dutch (life) and (people) to Afrikaans and . Also in Dutch, final -n is often deleted after a schwa, but the occurrence and frequency of this phenomenon varies between speakers, and it is not recognised in spelling.

Phonetically induced spelling differences

Simplification of consonant clusters