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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Africa > South Africa > Afrikaans

Afrikaans

A language of South Africa

ISO 639-3: afr

Population  4,740,000 in South Africa (2006), decreasing. Population total all countries: 4,934,950.
Region  Principally Pretoria and Bloemfontein. Cape Malays mainly in Cape Town; some in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, and Port Elizabeth. Also in Australia, Botswana, Canada, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, New Zealand, Swaziland, United States, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Language map  Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland, reference number 1
Dialects  Cape Afrikaans (West Cape Afrikaans), Orange River Afrikaans, East Cape Afrikaans. A variant of the Dutch [nld] spoken by the 17th century colonists, with some lexical and syntactic borrowings from Malay [zlm], Bantu languages, Khoisan languages, Portuguese [por], and other European languages. Their ancestors were brought from Java 300 years ago.
Classification  Indo-European, Germanic, West, Low Saxon-Low Franconian, Low Franconian
Language use  Official language. 10,300,000 L2 speakers. Some also speak English.
Language development  Taught in primary and secondary schools. Newspapers. Radio programs. TV. Grammar. Bible: 1933–1983.
Writing system  Latin script.
Comments  Muslim, Christian.

Also spoken in:

Botswana

Language name   Afrikaans
Population  20,000 in Botswana (2006).
Region  Ghanzi District L1 mainly in commercial farms and Ghanzi village; south Kgalagadi District, especially near South Africa border; Kweneng District in Takatokwane.
Language map  Botswana
Language use  Spoken as L1 by Afrikaners (Ghanzi District) and by people of mixed racial background (Kweneng and Kgalagadi districts).
Language development  Literacy rate in L1: 100% in Ghanzi, 50% in Kgalagadi districts. Literacy rate in L2: 75% in Kweneng and Kgalagadi districts in Tswana [tsn], 50% in English; few use Tswana in Ghanzi District, most use English.
Comments  Christian.
 

Malawi

Language name   Afrikaans
Comments  Spoken by people of Dutch descent from South Africa.
 

Namibia

Language name   Afrikaans
Population  89,900 in Namibia (2006).
Language map  Namibia, reference number 1
Language use  Used by 25% of the population in Windhoek in their homes (1995 census).
Comments  Former official status. Not known in the north, in Owambo tribes, and Kavango and Caprivi regions.
 

Swaziland

Language name   Afrikaans
Population  13,000 in Swaziland (2006).
Language map 
Comments  Spoken by people of Dutch descent from South Africa.
 

Zambia

Language name   Afrikaans
Population  41,000 in Zambia (2006).
Language use  Language of wider communication.
 

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

HASSELBRING, Sue, author. 2000. A sociolinguistic survey of the languages of Botswana.

WIT, Gert de, author. 1995. Review of: An interpretive analysis of quantifier postposing phenomena in Afrikaans, by Johan Oosthuizen.