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| The Girls - Tamara de Lempicks - 1928 (Incidentally, Tamara liked the ladies as well as the gents) |
One night, somewhere at the beginning of our relationship, I sidled up to my wife and whispered into her ear: "Ek wil jou lyf teen my vas hou." (I want to hold your body against mine).
She looked at me most peculiarly. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Trying to seduce you," I offered sheepishly.
"What?" she said, "In Afrikaans?" She laughed.
Which was not quite how I envisioned a romantic night to go.
It did, however, make me consider the sex quotient of the Afrikaans language compared with, say, Italian or French. I asked my beloved, an Afrikaans speaking South African, what the word was for 'clitoris'.
"I have no idea, my darling," she replied, a little exasperated, despite being accustomed to my strange questions. It could have been because the question had been plaguing me while she was gently drifting to sleep, and was rudely asked just as she was about to nod off. (I do that. Often. And she has not yet filed for divorce.)
Since she was sufficiently awake, I pressed on: "And 'orgasm'? What's the Afrikaans for 'orgasm'."
She appeared to think about this one - although she could have been drifting off again - before saying, "I don't think there is a word for it," and turning swiftly onto her side, her back towards me, she pulled the covers up over her head.
What? My brain could not comprehend such a linguistic tragedy. If there was indeed no word for 'orgasm' in the Afrikaans language, then that was such a sad reflection of the sex life that Afrikaners could enjoy. Or not. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes as I envisioned my Afrikaans ancestors having absolutely no words for passion, and never knowing how good two people could feel together without having to do the sakkie-sakkie.
Which reminds me... did they even have a word for oral sex? Nege en sestig (nine and sixty) does not have the same ring to it as sixty-nine. Orale seks sounded way too clinical. Did the Voortrekkers even engage in oral sex?
I was about to stir my wife with these hugely important questions when I heard her snoring softly. (Which she could easily have been be faking, not wishing to be disturbed by me yet again. I've never asked.) Surely there had to be some sex to the Afrikaans language. After all, it's the language that got Steve Hofmeyr laid.
I found an Afrikaans-English translation site. It tells me that the translation of 'orgasm' is 'geprikkelde toestand' (a prickling state), and it provides the rather vulgar term 'doos'(box) as a translation for 'vagina'. It could have at least provided the slightly less offensive 'koekie' (cookie). And I hardly think that 'a prickling state' is descriptive enough of an orgasm. That can't be right.
I've not read any Afrikaans erotica, although it does appear to exist. A Google search revealed that a man named Frederick J Smith wrote erotica - in Afrikaans. Despite his very English sounding name. I can't imagine what Afrikaans must sound like in the erotic romance context: "Gerda het haar vingers diep in haar lesbiese minaares se koekie gedruk totdat say 'n geprikkelde toestand beruik het". * Most certainly does not sound sexy to me.
"Was it true when you said there was no word for orgasm," I asked my wife. I explained about the geprikkelde toestand.
She shrugged. "Orgasme?" she offered.
"That's boring," I told her.
"Afrikaans is not an erotic language," she said, "I'd rather you tried talking dirty to me in English."
Well, paint a giant exclamation mark over my head. Not even Afrikaners find Afrikaans sexy!
She does have a point, though. Even the cheesey voulez voux couchez avec moi se soir sounds immeasurably better than 'Ek wil graag vanaand seks met jou he'. **
It does beg the question, and perhaps someone out there can help, is there ANY eroticism to the Afrikaans language? I mean, of course beyond some odd fetishist fashion or erotic instrument of torture used in BDSM.
If you do have an answer, I assure you, it would cause me to be in a prickling state.
* Gerda pushed her fingers deep into her lesbian lover's cookie until she reached a prickling state.
** I want to have sex with you tonight
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