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BEFORE you travel to South Africa to dive..

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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island_sands

Erection Supervisor ;)
Supporter
Jan 19, 2001
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you must learn some of our lingo, it's rather strange...

Babbelas (pronounced bub-buh-luss) – Babbelas refers to a morning-after hangover. Picture your most drunken mate stumbling into work late, looking pale and holding his hand to his forehead. When asked what the matter is, he answers: "Jislaaik china, I dopped 20 dumpies last night and now I have a hang of a babbelas." Translation: "Gee, my friend, I drank 20 small beers last night and now I have a terrible hangover."

Bell – This comes from the Afrikaans "bel", meaning to call on the telephone. In the South African context it is used as follows: "I'll give you a bell when I get home." Translation: "I'll phone you when I get home".

Dinges (pronounced ding-us) – Used when someone can't immediately remember the name of a person or object. For instance: "When is dinges coming around?" or "Please pass me the dinges behind you". Comparative words are "whatsizname" or "whatchamacallit".

Dwaal (pronounced dwarl) – Used to indicate a lack of concentration or focus. Say a friend is talking to you but your mind is elsewhere. When the friend finishes speaking and looks at you as if expecting an answer, your response would be: "Sorry, I was in a bit of a dwaal. Could you repeat that?" Alternatively a dwaal could mean you are lost and wandering around aimlessly. An example: "I couldn't remember how to get there, so I drove around in a dwaal for a while before I found the right turning."

Eina (pronounced ay-nuh or ay-nar) – A short, sharp expression meaning ouch. Alternatively used to mean sore, as in: "That cut must have been really eina."

Koki (pronounced koh-key) – A coloured marker or felt-tip pen.

Robots – South Africans refer to traffic lights as robots. Sometimes they pronounce the word "row-bow". An example of usage would be when giving directions: "Turn left at the second robot."

Slap chips (pronounced slup chips) – French fries, usually soft, oily and vinegar-drenched, bought in a brown paper bag. "Slap" is an Afrikaans word meaning "limp", which is how French fries are generally made here. If that's not how you like them, be sure to order them "crispy".[/B]

Tackies – Running shoes or sneakers. Used in conjunction with the word fat, as in "fat tackies", it describes extra wide tyres. Example: "Look at the fat tackies on that motorbike!"

Vrot (pronounced frot) – Taken from Afrikaans, this word describes something as rotten. For example, "This apple is vrot." Alternatively, it can be used to describe something as smelly. "Jislaaik china (meaning "wow mate"), put your tackies back on, they're vrot."

and many more...
 
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some more

alternative meaning of Vrot : really drunk, as in "jong, but we were only vrot last night hey. when i woke up i had one moerse babbelas hey" translates to
hey, we were very drunk last night, were'nt we? when i woke up i had a terrible hangover, didnt i?

bakkie (buck-y) - means a pickup. as in "jislaaik china, but that bakkie has only got fat takkies hey"
translates to "wow firend, look at the wide tyres on that pickup!"

remember to add the word "hey" to the end of every sentence, and sometimes at the beginning. eg when ordering a beer "hey, can i have a beer hey?
 
jeez...

ja, hey! i almost forgot... and also.. remember that "i'll do it just now[/] doesn't mean i'll do it right away...

just now means... in a while :)

so griff... do you have a bok who you spearfish with or are the stukkies not into it?
 
nah, the cherrie's too scared of the johnnies, hey. what about the betty's in the maldives?

some more...

lekker (Lacker) although it comes from afrikaans for lick, going to licker, meaning sweet (my theroy on language evolution) it also means anything good
eg, "hey, after a lekker dive, the oke on the boat gave us a kiff lekker hey"
translates to "after a great dive the man on the boat gave us a very nice sweet, didnt he?"
 
LUS for diving..

the johnnies in the maldives are friendly...:) like most johnnies.. you got me with the betty's though! is that the opposite to cherrie??

the diving here is very lekker, the greys come really close, withing 1 or 2m sometimes. the newcomers always skrik!
 
betty = cherrie = stukkie = bok = ......

1-2m! i'm not surprised they skrik. i personally prefer the johnnies that keep a friendly distance. jan is the time to see the raggies off quarter-mile at sodwana. they gather there to naai ;)
then you can get really close, especially if you meet one that fancies his chances...

is spearfishing legal in the maldives?
 
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naaing raggies

i have an excellent video clip of some naaing white tip sharks
hell they can lekker pomp!

you need a licence to spearfish here.. not easy to get.. however, the Maldivians fish with a line wrapped around a plastic bottle... i dragged a line off the back of the diving dhoni (boat) the other day.. and caught a dolphin fish, 1m big.

not bad for a beginner... made great sashimi. :p
 
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is that the same clip from www.sharkporn.com?

thats pretty good going for a plastic bottle! i once saw this fisherman fighting a dorado. he ended up sitting on the boat deck, with the rod resting on the gunwhale because he couldnt fight it any more (the same guy had boated a marlin a few hrs earlier). dorado is one of my top three tasting fish. what did the clients say when you boated it?

they use the same plastic bottle technique for fishing in mauritius. but the locals there only trash the reef. but it seems they are wising up a bit.
 
Funny shit guys that afrikaans. I'm Dutch, and half the words you just descibed come straight from dutch. Should be fun visiting your country sometime in the future, hey.

cheers

Gerald
 
You guys are worse than listening to a limey announcer call out a game of cricket :D.

"oh, I'm sure the nightwatchman was expecting pudding the way he tried to paddle that wicked googly" :confused:

*I acutally have no idea how that game is played (or if my above quote even made sense :eek:), but I love to listen to it. When all the other stations turn into infomercials after 3 AM, I can always count of the BBC to keep me laughin til the sun comes up. Watching Parliament is even better.....the US politicians could learn a thing or two about how to properly insult your opponent. For example, you would never hear a US senator call the president a motherf#$#er. Yet, this could be achieved with the right wording and the aid of the third-person; eg - "the committee recognizes that the prime minister shags his mum" (immediately followed by the room exploding into inaudible grumbling).

I love that stuff!

...but I digress - *badly :eek:.
 
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to deepdown..

i am not Afrikaans actually, in fact, i speak it terribly! but understand it almost perfectly.

We were forced to learn it at school and so I refused to do well at it... but that's just me being blxxdy minded.

I have visited Netherlands on several occasions and have met many a Dutch diver here in Maldives.. to be honest i find Flemish easier to understand than Dutch.

The Dutch always told me that Afrikaans sounds like baby talk.. hehehehe. From what i understand, Afrikaans is the way your forefathers spoke in the 1700s...

do you dive over there in the Benelux parts? i believe you have these incredible sepia sightings..
 
for Griff -sh@gging sharks

I was actually on that dive with the frisky sharks, and my colleague took video clips with his old P3.
This was about two years ago, here in the Maldives. since then i have only seen white tips frolicking.. biting etc but not actually doing it :)
 
island_sands

I was born in the Netherlands, however, moved the Curaçao (dutch West Indies) in my teens. This is where I started diving and spearfishing. Now I live in Miami, and dive the local waters, the keys and the Bahamas. So NO sepia for me. Although not quite as clear as the Maldives I suppose. As yes, you're right Afrikaans sounds like oooold dutch, very old.

Take care and dive safe.

Gerald
 
Fish Names

In SA, Natal where we keep all the best fish, you also get a wide variety of fish names as well:
Kakaap - Job Fish
kingie - Any type of Trevally
Cuda - king Mackeral
Snoek - Queen Mackeral
Barrie - Barracuda

many more as well
 
Hey!

Hie's mos afrikaanse mense ook hier wat kan verstaan wat julle se. Ek kyk vir julle met 'n hout oog!
 
Couta

Hi Paul

Why does the rest of the country ( Natal aside ) call King Mackeral Couta and you guys stick with Cuda ? I like Couta much more.

Skin.
 
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