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Out of the closet: Releasing the multi-cultural strands of the origins and beauty of Afrikaans

Marianne Thamm
By Marianne Thamm
14 Apr 2025
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The life of writer CJ Langenhoven is a source of both comedy and heartbreak in what it reveals.

It is not so much the rewriting of history by those who claim it, but what it is they leave out or choose to ignore that matters.

Afrikaans, one of 12 official languages in South Africa, is being celebrated this year for its official acceptance 100 years ago. This brought it equal status in the country alongside English.

Before, Afrikaans did battle with another language: Dutch, which threatened to smother the supple mother tongue created and spoken by rural people – brown, black and white – in many regions.

I became fully bilingual despite not being an Afrikaner, nor even a first-generation English-speaking South African (German and Portuguese were spoken around me at home) growing up in Pretoria during the peak years of the Nationalist project.

Everyone spoke it; it drifted out of radios and televisions and blared from cars at braais. The rugby commentary on the draadloos (radio) by Gerhard Viviers that floated from the homes around me still colours my dreams. Even Sesotho speakers who served as domestic workers and gardeners in the neighbourhood spoke Afrikaans. They used words like “Nonnie”, “Ounooi”, “Baas”, “Kleinbaas”, “Oubaas”, each moniker a reminder of who you are.

Afrikaans CJ Langenhoven Poet and author CJ Langenhoven. (Photo: Brümmer Archive)


Polyamory in the Karoo


At the annual Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) in 2024, which takes place in Oudtshoorn, I visited Arbeidsgenot, the home of CJ Langenhoven (1873-1932), one of the “icons” of Afrikaans literature.

I knew little of the journalist, poet, politician, cosmologist, philosopher and “folk” writer who grew Afrikaans through his accessible and hilarious stories about ordinary people. All I retained from Christian National Education (in English) is that he wrote the national anthem, Die Stem, and that almost every dorp I visited had a Hoërskool Langenhoven or a granite bust of the man in front of the library.

Langenhoven became an industry after his death in 1932 thanks to the executor of his estate, Sarah Goldblatt, a Jewish Nationalist who found herself in Oudts­­hoorn working for the local paper in 1914. Langenhoven’s literary editor and acolyte, the pair soon became lovers and dedicated themselves to Afrikaans. This was before World War 2 and the Holocaust, before what was to come.

Langenhoven’s beloved wife, Magdalena “Lenie” (1863-1950), was 10 years older than her husband and knew and approved of his relationship with Goldblatt. A 19th-century, rural, polyamorous love story right under the noses of the NG Kerk.

On the way out of Arbeidsgenot, I picked up a booklet from the office. The house, of course, is situated on Jan van Riebeeck Road. Oudtshoorn’s street names are a reflection of its colonial history. There is Victoria Street and Baron van Reede Street, named after Pieter van Reede (also Rheede) van Oudtshoorn, ­governor-designate of the Dutch Cape Colony after whom the town is named. There is also a Voortrekker Road. You get the picture.

Paging through the booklet, a photograph taken in the garden of Arbeidsgenot of Lenie standing next to a woman named Sarie Karolus leapt out. It is the only one that exists. Karolus, I learnt later, was the daughter of a freed slave (according to Langenhoven: ’n Lewe by JC Kannemeyer) and had been sent with her brother, Henk, to live with Lenie and her first ­husband, Anthonie van Velden, about 22km east of Ladismith.

Afrikaans Marianne Thamm’s play, Sonde met die Spoke, with (from left) Veronique Jephtas, Tinarie van Wyk Loots and Michele Burgers. (Photo: Nardus Engelbrecht)



Karolus had been raised at the Berlin Missionary Society in Amalienstein and Zoar, where many freed slaves found refuge, the Bible and God. Lenie and Anthonie’s union produced six children; she was pregnant with the sixth when he died. The baby she carried died when she was a year old. Lenie met Langenhoven soon afterwards.

Although Karolus formed an integral part of the life of the Langenhovens, she has no grave at Arbeidsgenot, where the others in the ménage à trois are buried in graves clearly marked. She saw it all, everything.

And so the idea surfaced for my play, Sonde met die Spoke (Trouble with the Ghosts), a riff on one of Langenghoven’s favourite stories, Sonde met die Bure (Trouble with the Neighbours).

A 100-year journey


With a dream cast of Veronique Jephtas, Tinarie van Wyk Loots and Michele Burgers, and the vision of celebrated director Lee-Ann Van Rooi, the play made its debut at the KKNK this year. It challenges the narrative about the origin and age of Afrikaans. It also honours Sarie Karolus.

Achmat Davids, Hein Willemse and Suleman E Dangor have documented the first Afrikaans written in Arabic, so there is no argument.

What was thrilling to watch at the KKNK was how much a play, a comedy, about history and language can entertain while teaching. It was also the open-heartedness of audiences to rethink what they thought they knew, or to find new roots and claim a language that owns itself, which was the aim in the first place.

There are two more performances at the Suidooster Festival in Cape Town on 3 and 4 May. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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