Yoh! I’m so gatvol of this tjoekie and need a zol to handle these moggy people.
No, these are not grammatical errors – this is a sentence comprising South African words included in the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) latest update.
It means: Wow, I’m so annoyed by this prison and need to smoke some marijuana to handle these irrational people.
These popular words are among a slew of “untranslatable words”, defined by the OED as “words and phrases in one language that cannot be translated into another”, featured in the latest lexicon.
Other “loan words” included in the update come from the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Ireland.
The list of South African words come from several of the country’s 12 official languages and they are:
- Yoh: A popular South African interjection, which the OED traced to 1855. It comes from two South African languages: Afrikaans and isiXhosa and is defined as “a cry or exclamation used to express various emotions or reactions, such as surprise, wonder, admiration, shock, or distress”.
- Gatvol: Another popular slang term originating from Afrikaans and used to express “feelings of frustration and anger”. The OED traced this word to 1980 and says the adjective describes “a person who has had enough” or is “extremely annoyed, unhappy or bored” with the persistent state of affairs.
- The hell-in: A colloquial phrase which comes from an Afrikaans saying that literally translates to “in the hell”.
- Tjoekie: Another colloquial term, traced back to 1977, which refers to jail or prison. The word was first introduced into South Africa by English-speaking immigrants from India, according to the OED, “but it made its way into South African English via Afrikaans”. It is related to another slang term for jail – the English term chokey.
- Seshweshwe or shweshwe: This comes from Southern SeSotho and refers to a “type of printed cotton fabric, originally dyed with indigo but now available in various colours”, according to the OED. Seshweshwe patterns are used in traditional southern African clothes or accessories, it added.
- Makarapa: This word can be traced to 1999, and referred to a hard hat worn by construction workers or miners. According to the OED, “it is now more known for its use by sports fans, especially football fans, who paint and elaborately decorate these hats with flags, horns, and badges and wear them at games to show support for their favourite teams”.
- Zol: This term, of unknown origin, is popular in South African slang and refers to marijuana, the drug itself, or “hand-rolled cigarette containing marijuana”, according to the OED.
- Moggy: This adjective, whose origin is also uncertain, can be traced to 1984. According to the OED, it refers to someone “who is extremely irrational or out of touch with reality”.
- Sharp-sharp: The last, and arguably most well-known, phrase featured in the OED’s latest quarterly update can be traced back to 1991. The term is a “casual way to say hello or goodbye in South African English” but can also be used to “compliment someone’s style or just to comment on how generally excellent or fantastic they are”.
A list of all words added from across the world can be found on the OED website.
