Besides recognisable characteristics of South African English, such as‘Vrystaat’, ‘ou boet’ / ‘ou swaer’, ‘eksê’ or ‘nogal’, speakers of South African English give clear indications – even if their accent is not marked – of their being South African. Many of our South African English structures have unexpected meanings or usages which are not found in General English. South Africans are also, like their counterparts elsewhere, linguistically creative, and have coined many new English words and phrases. You may readily recognise some of these items, but there will be others which you will be surprised to learn are unique to South Africa. It is this, as much as our accent and the borrowings, which makes South African English quite as distinctive as any other World English.