Hans den Besten (1948-2010) made numerous contributions to Afrikaans linguistics over a period of nearly three decades. This book contains a selection of Den Besten's important papers - some of which originally appeared in less accessible journals - concerning the structure and history of Afrikaans.

1. Introduction (by Wouden, Ton van der); 2. Chapter 1. The origins of the Afrikaans pre-nominal possessive system(s); 3. Chapter 2. The complex ancestry of the Afrikaans associative constructions; 4. Chapter 3. What a little word can do for you: Wat in Afrikaans possessive relatives; 5. Chapter 4. Afrikaans relative 'wat' and West-Germanic relativization systems; 6. Chapter 5. Demonstratives in Afrikaans and Cape Dutch Pidgin: A first attempt; 7. Chapter 6. Speculations on [chi]-elision and intersonorantic [upsilon] in Afrikaans; 8. Chapter 7. The Dutch pidgins of the Old Cape colony; 9. Chapter 8. On the "verbal suffix" -UM of Cape Dutch Pidgin: Morphosyntax, pronunciation and origin; 10. Chapter 9. Relexification and pidgin development: The case of Cape Dutch Pidgin; 11. Chapter 10. Khoekhoe syntax and its implications for L2 acquisition of Dutch and Afrikaans; 12. Chapter 11. Reduplication in Afrikaans (by Besten, Hans den); 13. Chapter 12. Double negation and the genesis of Afrikaans; 14. Chapter 13. From Khoekhoe foreigner talk via Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans: The creation of a novel grammar; 15. Chapter 14. Creole Portuguese in South Africa: Malayo- or Indo-Portuguese?; 16. Chapter 15. The slaves' languages in the Dutch Cape colony and Afrikaans vir; 17. Chapter 16. A badly harvested field: The growth of linguistic knowledge and the Dutch Cape colony until 1796; 18. Chapter 17. Desiderata for Afrikaans historical linguistics; 19. Appreciations; 20. Giving voice: The archive in Afrikaans historical linguistics (by Deumert, Ana); 21. Afrikaans: "Might it be a little more 'South Africa'?" (by Roberge, Paul T.); 22. Partial restructuring: Dutch on the Cape and Portuguese in Brazil (by Holm, John); 23. Bibliography of Hans den Besten's writings on Afrikaans; 24. References; 25. Language index; 26. Place index; 27. Author index; 28. Subject index