Undecided questions
Is modern Afrikaans spelling easier for learners of the language than modern Dutch spelling?

i think afrikaans is a bit less melodious than dutch. what i mean is that the dont "sing" that much as the dutch. i went to southafrica some years ago, but as i dont use the language i can have a exact perception now. in fact, i think they vocalize a little bit more, just because some vowels have dipthongized. for example: "voor" (fo:r, dutch) becomes (voo-err) /i m trying english phonetization/. just for your info, it may help to know that, as i was told by afrikanerspeaking people, most of the colonizers came from the dutch speaking area of today's belgium or southern holland, so the prominent dialect must have been the one of these areas. Also there was a lot of french hugonotes in the beginning of population, i dont know if their influence in language is perceptible. hope some dutch or afrikaans tells about it.

Linguists will tell you that the greatest difference between Afrikaans and Dutch is not in the vocabulary but in the formal aspect of inflections. In contrast with such forms of loop as lope, loopt, lopen, leep, leept, leepen, and gelopen, Afrikaans merely has loop and geloop. In contrast with de and het (the) Afrikaans has merely die. Afrikaans is therefore economical, and this economy has led many to think that Afrikaans is poor simply because it has fewer inflections than Dutch. It is one of the most interesting phenomena in the lives of languages that the older the documentation, the richer the inflection.