‘Net Jesus Red’
Tuesday, 19th July 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Some large type. 'Net Jesus Red' is seen here written on the side of a hill in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa. I assume the language is Afrikaans, but unfortunately none of the online tools I could find would translate it...
I tried Dutch though, and got 'Save Exactly Jesus'. Can anyone do a more accurate translation?
Updated: Thanks to everyone who translated the Afrikaans to "Only Jesus Saves".
Thanks to TeddyJoe.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
How’s about “Only Jesus Saves”? I don’t know the language, but that seems likely.
Amazingly, it appears to say “Google” underneath it too. I wonder if that means anything in a native language?! 🙂
If you search it on google you do get a PDF file in Afrikaans, FWIW. So you were right on that score.
I’m South African and can confirm that the correct translation is “Only Jesus Saves”.
It isn’t dutch, and also if u should translate it in dutch it doesn’t spell ‘Save Exactly Jesus’.
I think Nick knows the meaning 😀
I’m South African and Afrikaans. Correct translation: “Only Jesus Saves”.
I’m Dutch. Afrikaans evolved as a language from the dutch that was spoken by the first colonists that settled in South Africa. RED correctly translates as SAVES and is used in dutch as it is spoken today as an imperative. NET is a bit more puzzling. It could translate as ‘ONLY’ as suggested above, it could also translate as ‘NOT’ as in the Frisian language (dialect) as it is spoken in Holland today. In my opinion it could also translate as ‘Not Jesus Saves’ or ‘Jesus Saves Not’ or (imperative) ‘Do Not Save Jesus’, perhaps Google does ( or doesn’t ) ?? (as noticed above)
It’s correctly translated as “Only Jesus Saves” as Smoochy correctly stated above. It’s Afrikaans. I’m South African. Never even knew that such a thing existed, and I work in the Pretoria area.
It doesn’t say Google beneath– zoom out and you can see that’s just the watermark.
Hey guys, I think I might be able to help out since I’m dutch :p
The word on the left says “Net” wich we use for the English “Just” and your “Net” as in Fishing net, I’m guessing the context it was used it would be the first.
The other 2 words are “Jesus” and “Red” there’s also a faint exclamation mark. Since you all know what Jesus means I’ll just skip that and move on to “Red”. In litteral translation its “Save” but in this context it would be “Saves”.
So it just says “Jesus Saves!”
Also a pretty neat “thing”: View Placemark
Sortof resembles a face, my best guess is that its photoshopped in since it just doesn’t look natural. But hey, I never trusted google anyway:p
Hi guys! I’m Afrikaan, live in Pretoria, South Africa and can confirm that it translates into “Only Jesus Saves”.
In Spanish language, the word ‘Red’ means the same that the English word ‘Net’ Curious …
I am a South African Afrikaaner and the message means “Only Jesus Saves” nothing more and nothing less:)
Hi, all of you Dutch people… The Afrikaaners have this one waxed. “Only Jesus Saves”
Come to Pretoria and see for yourself. Boyakasha.
Afrikaners rule!
Afrikaans is not a native language!
Afrikaans evolved from Dutch and other languages in what is now South Africa and Namibia. I think that means it is “native” to South Africa by many definitions. Of course, if you use “native” to mean “black African” then Afrikaans is not native as it is the mother tongue of white and coloured people. Then again, the black African (Bantu) languages evolved far away to the north of South Africa too.
“only Jesus saves” is correct. Its not dutch its Afrikaans (which is very close though). e
There’s another Jesus message written on a mountainside east of the R26 just before Fouriesburg. Can’t find it myself but I’ve seen it while driving to Rustler’s Valley. There’s probably hundreds more in South Africa alone. They keep popping up like crop circles, except in this case it’s the boers themselve that create them.