It’s lekker bru! A guide to South African lexicon

While I can’t take credit for this piece it’s a surprisingly useful guide to South African words and phrases.

To be honest I thought the ‘howzit bru?!’ was about as South African as ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’ is Australian – but I was way wrong. This IS how South Africans speak to each other, and I must admit, it’s contagious!

I’ll leave the rest to AFP:

Want to have a lekker time at the World Cup, chomping boerewors at a braai on the Veld or downing a rooibos at the shebeen next to the robot?

Here’s a newcomer’s guide to some uniquely South African words and phrases for football fans heading to the month-long tournament.

• Howzit: A universal greeting, a short-form version of “How is it going?”
• Bru: Abbreviation of “brother” used to address friends and colleagues as in “Howzit bru?”
• Yebo: The Zulu word for Yes which is now used across the board.
• Sharp: A sign-off signalling an agreement as well as farewell, often said twice.
• Ag shame: An expression of sympathy or annoyance.
• Eish!: An exclamation expressing exasperation.
• Lekker: An Afrikaans word meaning superb or fantastic which is applied equally to a person, object or event.
• Braai: An originally Afrikaans word for barbecue, which often features a sizzling boerewors, a curled spiced sausage.
• Biltong: Dried meat – usually beef but also from other animals as ostrich, antelope or buffalo – which is eaten as a snack, often accompanied by a beer or glass of wine.
• Rooibos: Red bush tea, South Africa’s unofficial national brew which is grown in the southwestern Cape region.
• Shebeens: Makeshift bars in the townships which sell often super strength homemade brews.
• Muti: A traditional tree or plant-based medicine. Its practioners are known as nyangas.
• Sangoma: Traditional Zulu healers or sorcerers who often summon ancestral spirits to foretell the future.
• Townships: Black-only neighbourhoods under apartheid that were once mainly shantytowns but now include middle-class areas. The most famous is Soweto, short-form for SOuth WEst TOwnships, near Johannesburg.
• Jozi: The abbreviation for the largest city of Johannesburg which is also known as Joburg.
• Veld or Veldt: An Afrikaans words meaning shrubland, it now generally refers to the countryside as a whole.
• Robot: Traffic lights.

Lekker eh? I’ll see you in the Veld for a Braai, eh bru?