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The unions and Xstrata have a deal at Sudbury. The human side of the agreement is shrouded in official pronouncements. But here are the snippets I found that give a little insight as to what the negotiators were thinking.
A little red book called The Miners’ Dictionary – Woordeboek vir Mynwerkers (Fanakalo and Afrikaans) lies on my desk. My mother spoke kitchen Fanakalo. My father spoke mine Fanagalo. I learnt the language formally on the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam and was quite fluent. Now I remember only the echo of the sounds and the smells of the kitchen and fresh concrete ever tumbling into new formwork. We were forever shouting kipa lo vibrator (extract the concrete vibrator lest you induce seggregation of the concrete and the French QA inspector see us.)
The word “mine” as in mining industry apparently comes from Middle English, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin, possibly from the earlier Celtic word mina. Not much has changed. It is pure liguistic quirkiness that it sounds like mine as in “that hat is mine.”
