Wikipedia has a magnificently insightful and humorous list of South African Slang words. I have selected some of my favourites and the ones I found the most hilarious!
Have a look:
bergie – from berg, mountain, originally referring to vagrants who sheltered in the forests of Table Mountain; now a mainstream word for a particular subculture of vagrants in Cape Town. When used as slang refers to anyone down and out
bioscope, bio – cinema, movie theatre (now dated), originally a defunct international English word it has survived longer in South Africa as a result of the influence of the Afrikaans cognate bioskoop
boerewors – spicy sausage (Afrikaans) farmer-sausage, used as a mainstream word in South African English
bru – male friend (shortening of broer meaning brother, see also bra below)
dinges – thingamabob, a wotzit or a whatchamacallit
dof – stupid
fyndraai – at the brink of orgasm (Afrikaans – at the fine end of the last turn)
gatvol - fed up, had enough. (Afrikaans – hole-full)
goof, goef – swim, dip
hoesit, hoezit, howzit – how’s it going? How are you?
jislaaik! – wow!
kiff, kif, kief – (adjective) cool, neat, great, wonderful (from Arabic, kayf, meaning enjoyment or wellbeing)
windgat – highty-tighty; highty and mighty; snobbish. (Afrikaans: wind hole)
vrot – rotten, putrid
stukkend – (Afrikaans) broken
swak – broke. Original Afrikaans: weak. “I’m swak, ek sê”. Also used to express disgust or derision (depending on tone and context), for example: “It’s swak that I failed the test”
Check out the full Wikipedia list.
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May 28th, 2007 at 2:47 am
They missed some commun current words, and included some obsolete ones. What about fundi?
And “bru” IO always associate with the Assemblies of God, since it was an almost universal form of address within that denomination, and relatively rare outside (bra is a different matter, beuing derived from tsotsitaal).
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