Durban Boy Afrikaans

The CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) outlines your ability within a language. I am attempting to break free of my monotongue world view. My mother tongue is English. I also speak Durban Boy Afrikaans (i.e. not great, but better with booze). My English wife finds it strange when people in South Africa say they are English. South Africa has 11 official languages, and that is part of our identity. In CEFR, level B2 is “the capacity to achieve most goals and express oneself on a range of topics” (2500 active vocabulary) and C1 (5000) involves “nuance, in terms of appropriacy, sensitivity, and the capacity to deal with the unfamiliar”. It feels like financially speaking, we live in a world stuck on level B2. Within a hand-to-mouth, pass-the-parcel economy, we are fine if (1) there are enough jobs, and (2) we don’t go off-script. We can handle the very familiar. We can do Durban Boy Afrikaans with prepared “going to the shops” dialogues. If we want a deeper connection, we need to build Buffers (Emergency Funds) to handle unexpected expenses, and vanishing income. If we want deeper comprehension, we need Engines (Capital that earns on our behalf) that can sustain our exploration. Beyond our income-dependence lies a world of creativity.

1991 Trev in the Durban Boys' Choir

in front of the Durban City Hall