Creole had become a common means of communication among the Asian
slaves. A simplified form of Dutch, which dropped certain inflections and
vocabulary items, modified the vowel sounds, and incorporated
loan
words from the other languages, however, was becoming the dominant
lingua franca. This dialect, which originated as a medium of oral commu-
nication between burghers and slaves, would become a distinct lan-
guage-Afrikaans-which,
with English and nine African languages,
would be recognized as officiallanguages in postapartheid South Africa."?
The British Cape Colony, I795-I870
During the European turmoil sparked off by the French Revolution,
Great Britain became the dominant sea power and occupied the Cape
peninsula to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French. A British
expedition easily forced the capitulation of Dutch officials in 1795, and
although the Dutch-then
constituted as the Batavian Republic-regained
the Cape under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens in 1803, they were ousted
again in January 1806. British sovereignty over the colony was confirmed
in the eyes of Europe, but, of course, without any consultation with black
or white South Africans, in the peace settlement of 1814.
In the British perspective ofthat era, South Africa was still significant for