Afrikaans folklore is the body of traditional literature, music, dance and customs present in Afrikaans-speaking cultures.
Afrikaans examples of folklore
Some of the Afrikaans folklore subjects being taught can be categorized as follows:
Humour
Bosch points out that there are different aspects of humour which can add to the enjoyment of studying folktales and Afrikaans as an additional language. Experience has shown that the humour expressed and understood by Zulu learners in the additional language classroom consists mostly of imitating comical situations, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. Additional language learners struggle to appreciate humour that involves the implicit subtlety of word games.
Morain believes kinesics should be part of any learning programme that includes perception and that it can contribute to the understanding of social and intercultural relationships, because those who have "learned" a language without the nonverbal component are seriously handicapped if they intend to interact with living members of the culture instead of with paper and print.
Kinesics comprises understanding and interpreting body language to provide a creative means of communication across borders and add another dimension to the appreciation and expression of humour in the additional language classroom.
One of the functions of folklore is to entertain the audience. Humorous events set in motion by tricksters can contribute to amusement and mental stimulation. Examples are the actions of the "Jakkals en Wolf" characters of Afrikaans folktales which Honiball portrayed in comic strips and cartoons. Lategan refers to how Honiball used the Jakkals and Wolf stories that he had heard as a child. His stories followed an old tradition of Middle Dutch literature - that of the satirical Van den Vos Reynaerde - and Honiball became the Walt Disney of Afrikaans. He used satire to gently ridicule people and to unmask human frailty among the Afrikaans-speaking society of the day, mocking the eccentric habits and customs of a community.
Cartoons and comics like these are not regarded by all folklore specialists as belonging to folklore, because they do not explicitly include oral traditions. However, since they are based on the "Jakkals en Wolf" intertextual tradition of oral folktales that have been handed down for generations, it could be argued that Honiball's Adoons-hulle (1977) and Wolf en Jakkals van Uilekraal (1978) can indeed be regarded as part of mass-cultural folklore where city life is portrayed by the mass media. Dorson cites Bausinger (1961) who maintains that "we no longer believe that industrialization necessarily implies the end of a specific folk culture, but rather we attempt to trace the modifications and mutations undergone by folk culture in the industrialized and urbanized world."
These comic strips by Honiball provide interesting teaching possibilities in the additional language classroom, especially because of the elements of humour in the animal tricksters, comical situations, body language and language usage (e.g. the nicknames of some of the characters). This argument is in line with Jansen, who is of the opinion that comics and television series should receive the interest of folklorists and should incite them to pursue further the application and significance of the esoteric-exoteric factor in folklore.
Magic
An Afrikaans story that could be classified as a magic tale in that it portrays the role of magic and the repetition of the number three, is "Die Wolfkoningin" by I.D. du Plessis. Though this story is called a Cape story, since it reflects the culture of people of Malay origin, who are concentrated in the Western Cape (Du Plessis can be regarded as one of South Africa's leading experts on Cape Malay stories). Following Bettelheim, Steenberg would probably regard the story as a fairy tale. It is a story of magic that reflects some aspects of the inner world of human beings. According to Miruka's classification of folktale content, it can be called an imaginary tale.