Cape Flats English (abbreviated CFE) or Coloured English is the variety of South African English spoken mostly in the

Cape Flats The Cape Flats ( af, Die Kaapse Vlakte) is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. The Cape Flats is also the name of an administrative region of the City of Cape Town, which lie ...

area of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. Its speakers most often refer to it as "broken English", which probably reflects a perception that it is simply inadequately-learned English, but, according to

Karen Malan Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic ...

, it is a distinct, legitimate dialect of English. Cape Flats English is very close to

the Broad The Broad () is a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The museum is named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who financed the $140 million building that houses the Broad art collections. It offers free gener ...

(or "Extreme") variety of White South African English. argues that the Respectable−Extreme (or "Cultivated−Broad") dichotomy can also be set up for CFE itself, with the former being used by the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...

(whose L1 tends to be CFE) and the latter being used by the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

(whose L1 tends to be the Cape Vernacular variety of

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

). Not all Cape Coloureds speak broken English as many speak it fluently to the degree of white South African English. Many develop accents because most television shows are American.

Grammar

* Double negatives occur in the context of a co-occurring indefinite, as in "I didn't catch nothing". *

Calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...

s from Afrikaans may occur, such as "I took that towel and I made me closed" ( af, (...) myself toegemaak, links=no; standard English: ''(...) wrapped myself'').

Phonetics and phonology

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Navboxes , list = {{South Africa topics {{Languages of South Africa {{English dialects by continent {{English official language clickable map Cape Town culture Dialects of English South African English Languages of South Africa City colloquials