Afrikaans Taal (language) Monument

South Africa has 11 official languages, Afrikaans is one of them. In the early 1970’s a commission was granted to establish a monument to celebrate the 100 years since Afrikaans was recognised as a language separate from Dutch. From Wikipedia

The Afrikaans Language Monument (Afrikaans: Afrikaanse Taalmonument) is located on a hill overlooking Paarl, Western Cape Province, South Africa. Officially opened on 10 October 1975,[1] it commemorates the semicentenary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa separate from Dutch. Also, it was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (the Society of Real Afrikaners) in Paarl, the organisation that helped strengthen Afrikaners' identity and pride in their language.[2]

My good lady and I visited the monument yesterday for a pleasant lunch and a cold beer, and I took the following photographs.

The next photograph is a longshot of the front of the monument and I have labelled the components as the following photograph will explain what each aspect of the monument is meant to depict

Pretty fascinating I reckon. A series of pic follow taken in and around the monument.

A Fountain at the base of the E tower which symbolises the growth of the Afrikaans language



Standing at the base looking up … the light is natural light filtering through ‘eyelets’



South Africa, the birth place of Afrikaans – open to the North as we are in dialogue with Africa



The three bumps are representative of the influence of Koi and other African languages in the development of Afrikaans. This is the ‘B’ in the first pic



View out towards Stellenbosch and the Hottentots Holland mountain range
Thanks for reading, I hope you found it interesting. All photo’s were taken by myself using manual settings in the heat of the midday sun… not the best time for photography