The Cape Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, however they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape. They are generally bilingual, however subsets within the group can be exclusively Afrikaans speakers, whereas others primarily speak English. In addition, some Cape Coloureds may "code switch", resulting in a variation of Afrikaans and English, called Kaapse Afrikaans. Cape Coloureds were defined under apartheid as a subset of the larger Coloured race group,
The Cape Coloureds are a heterogeneous South African ethnic group, with diverse ancestral links. Ancestry may include European settlers, indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa people, and slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies (or a combination of all). People from India and the islands within the Indian Ocean region were also taken to the Cape and sold into slavery by the Dutch settlers. The Indian slaves were almost invariably given Christian names but their places of origin were indicated in the records of sales and other documents so that it is possible to get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their Indian cultural identity over the course of time. Slaves of Malay ancestry were brought from Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and Mozambique. This diverse assortment of people was subsequently classified as a single group under the Apartheid regime.
Under Apartheid, under the Population Registration Act as amended, the term Cape Coloured referred to a subset of Coloured South Africans, with subjective criteria having been used by the bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a Cape Coloured, or belonged to one of a number of other related subgroups such as the "Cape Malays", or "Other Coloureds".
Read more about Cape Coloureds: Cape Coloureds in The Media
Famous quotes containing the word cape:
“A solitary traveler whom we saw perambulating in the distance loomed like a giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as if held up from above by straps under his shoulders, as much as supported by the plain below. Men and boys would have appeared alike at a little distance, there being no object by which to measure them. Indeed, to an inlander, the Cape landscape is a constant mirage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)