veld

Veld in Afrikaans (and Dutch) simply means field. From the Dutch veld (field, open ground), from Middle Dutch velt, from Proto-Germanic *felþą. The word is cognate with English 'field.' When Dutch settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, they called the grasslands around them veld — field. The same word a Dutch farmer would use for a meadow outside Leiden was applied to the vast African grasslands stretching to the horizon.

The veld divides into several types based on altitude and vegetation. Highveld (above 1,500 meters) covers the interior plateau of South Africa, including Johannesburg and Pretoria. Bushveld is lower, warmer, and more wooded. Lowveld is the subtropical region near the Mozambican border. These compound words — all using veld — map the South African landscape with a Dutch vocabulary that has become distinctly African.

The English spelling 'veldt' (with a final 't') reflects nineteenth-century British colonial usage. Afrikaans spells it 'veld.' The added 't' in English may have been influenced by German Feld or simply by Anglophone spelling conventions. Ray Bradbury titled a 1950 short story 'The Veldt,' about a virtual reality room that simulates the African grasslands. The story made the word familiar to American readers who would never visit South Africa.

In South African English and Afrikaans, veld is an everyday word — 'going into the veld' means going into the countryside. It has no exotic connotation. In international English, veldt sounds African and specific. The same word that means 'pasture' in Johannesburg means 'the African grasslands' in London. The domesticity is invisible from a distance.