It's lekker bru! A user's guide to S.African lexicon
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Your support makes all the difference.Want to have a lekker time at the World Cup, chomping boerewors at a braai on the Veld or downing a rooibos at the shebeen next to the robot? Here's a newcomer's guide to some uniquely South African words and phrases for football fans heading to the month-long tournament.
- Howzit: A universal greeting, a short-form version of "How is it going?"
- Bru: Abbreviation of "brother" used to address friends and colleagues as in "Howzit bru?"
- Yebo: The Zulu word for Yes which is now used across the board.
- Sharp: A sign-off signalling an agreement as well as farewell, often said twice.
- Ag shame: An expression of sympathy or annoyance.
- Eish!: An exclamation expressing exasperation.
- Lekker: An Afrikaans word meaning superb or fantastic which is applied equally to a person, object or event.
- Braai: An originally Afrikaans word for barbecue, which often features a sizzling boerewors, a curled spiced sausage.
- Biltong: Dried meat - usually beef but also from other animals as ostrich, antelope or buffalo - which is eaten as a snack, often accompanied by a beer or glass of wine.
- Rooibos: Red bush tea, South Africa's unofficial national brew which is grown in the southwestern Cape region.
- Shebeens: Makeshift bars in the townships which sell often super strength homemade brews.
- Muti: A traditional tree or plant-based medicine. Its practioners are known as nyangas.
- Sangoma: Traditional Zulu healers or sorcerers who often summon ancestral spirits to foretell the future.
- Townships: Black-only neighbourhoods under apartheid that were once mainly shantytowns but now include middle-class areas. The most famous is Soweto, short-form for SOuth WEst TOwnships, near Johannesburg.
- Jozi: The abbreviation for the largest city of Johannesburg which is also known as Joburg.
- Veld or Veldt: An Afrikaans words meaning shrubland, it now generally refers to the countryside as a whole.
- Robot: Traffic lights.
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