Hoe dit kom lat dokters vertel,
How it comes let doctors tell.
Maartjie word siek en hij word wel,
Martie grows sick and he grows well.
Daar's iets wat an haar borsie knaa.
There's something what (that) in her bosom gnaws.
En hartjie-seer begin haar plaa,
And heart-sore begins her to-plague,
Haar oogies glinster ook maar braa.
Her eyes glisten eke more bright (Sc. mair braw).
Daantjie was een sachte[1] man,
Danie was a soft (Sc. sauchie) man,
En Maartjie trek haar dit soo an;
And Martie took it to her so,
Daantjie, krij[2] jammer in sijn hart.
Danie felt pity in his heart.
Die liefde groei weer an sijn part.
Love grew again (Ger. wieder) on his part.
Nou leef sulle same sonder smart.
Now-live they together without vexation.
The Boer vernacular offers many points for annotation to the curious in matters linguistic. German, as the least altered living Teutonic speech, is, of course largely represented here, witness om=um, met=mit, aânts=abends, glat=glatt (smooth), vir=vier, trane=träne, van=von, sijn=sein, wang=wange, gevoel=gefühl, ons=unser, verachte=verachten, word=werden, seg=sagen, same=zusammen, oogies=augen, krij=kriegen. But scarce any of these are unknown to Scots or old English. Thus while modern English says evening, Scots shows the same softening as the Taal, witness, "Hame cam oor gude man at een." We have now lost the useful verb, word (becomes), but Scott uses it in "Woe worth the hour!" This piece, again, shows two of the commonest words in Cape Dutch that are explained by Scots and German, though at first sight obscure. These are the positive iets (ocht=ought), and the negative niets (nocht). But the
