Darkies discuss darkie English on Facebook

A friend of mine drew my attention to a Facebook discussion where darkies discuss darkie English.

Some terms they discussed there I was familiar with, others not.

One of the interesting ones was "at least", meaning "not so bad", and one person mentioned getting quite annoyed when it was used in other senses, such as in news reports about a road accident that say "At least 10 people were killed".

What no one mentioned, though, at least (hmmm) so far, was the use of "at least" on its own.

"How are you?"
"At least".

In that context "at least" means "Can't complain".

And no one seems to have discussed taxi terms like "short right", which I think, though I'm not absolutely sure, means "stop where the next road turns off to the right".

There was some discussion of "cold drink", but no one seemed to mention that when used by darkie traffic cops it means "Make it worth my while not to give you a ticket."

There are some expressions in darkie English that have spread to the general population, and have become part of general South African English. One of these is "Eish!", or is it "Aish!" or "Aysh!" which means "That's painful", often uttered as an expression of sympathy.

Another, which hasn't fully caught on yet, perhaps because it is excessively wordy, is "next of next week". A native speaker would say "Friday week", as in "I'll come to see you Friday week", which means "I'll come to see you a week from next Friday", whereas in darkie English it is "I'll come to see you Friday next of next week".

And then there is "sharp", meaning "good". And "sharp sharp", meaning very good. That one seems to be spreading into general South African English as well.