Is the "brei" vanishing or evolving? A sociolinguist shares her view

CapeTalk's John Maytham speaks to Sociolinguist, Yolandi Ribbens-Klein, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Listen below:

The word "brei/bry" refers to the variation in how the letter "r" is pronounced by some Afrikaans speakers.

"Brei" refers to the uvular rhotic pronunciation, where the sound is made at the back of the throat, rather than the standard alveolar trill. 

This variation has social implications, reflecting regional identity, belonging, and linguistic mobility. 

Ribbens-Klein's study explores a uniquely local linguistic feature—the Afrikaans “brei” (the uvular or guttural ‘r’)—and whether this emblem of Malmesbury identity is vanishing or evolving. And how individuals, who were studied in a particular rural community use this variation to indicate their locality and social status. 

Ribbens-Klein says she does not have a clear answer about the origin of the "brei" but there are several theories.

"There are various kind of beliefs or series or folk ideologies around it linked to the European roots of Afrikaans, the fact that it's a feature of French for instance, but then also the underlining substrate features that played a role in the development of Afrikaans that were not necessarily European languages, such as Khoi San varieties that present with quite a few guttural or  throat sounds in their inventories. So, the story is not clear but the time when the French Huguenots arrived were not really the stage at which the uvular "r" or the brei "r" would've reached the Dutch varieties of the speakers who arrived here."

- Yolandi Ribbens-Klein, Sociolinguist

"If we go back to about 100 years ago when linguists starting writing about the brei "r", they do make the point that it was quite a widespread  Western Cape feature but not the norm of the more urban areas. So theoretically, the uvular "r" was much more widespread but through the standardisation process of Afrikaans, it became quite highly stigmatised."

- Yolandi Ribbens-Klein, Sociolinguist

Ribbens-Klein also specifies that some accents change or adapt based on the context people find themselves in or with whom they speak. Linguistically, this action is known as "sociolinguistic accommodation".

For example, people might choose to speak with a "brei" around those they are comfortable with while they would lose the "brei" around new groups of people. 

"People have more than one sound in their repertoire and they can use and draw on it strategically as they speak... some sounds are just more striking and as soon as it rises to the level of being socially marked or stereotypical, it gains a little more social force or impact."

- Yolandi Ribbens-Klein, Sociolinguist

Ribbens-Klein says her study shows that older women in the community studied, had a very low use of the "brei" because of these social stigmas and wanted to appear to be speaking more standard language.

While, the young generation, being aware that they are proud of being from a rural town used the "brei" more frequently than the older people. 

However, in Malmesbury, Ribbens-Klein's colleagues found that the "brei" was used less among younger speakers.

This shows that there are "social variables" at play and it's typically found that younger people are the drivers or indicators of new changes coming in for accents or new varieties.

"My main standpoint is that we have a range of sounds or ways of speaking in our repertoire and language use is much more flexible and fluid than we tend to think."

- Yolandi Ribbens-Klein, Sociolinguist

Read Ribbens-Klein's full dissertation on this here.

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