South Africa is one of the most nationally diverse countries on the "black" continent. Among the 47 million people living in it, you can find whites and mulattoes, blacks and Asians, and therefore it is not surprising that there are as many as eleven state languages in South Africa.
Some statistics and facts
- The bulk of the South African population is black Africans. They make up at least 70% of the population.
- Roughly equally in the country of whites and mulattos - 10% and 9%, respectively.
- Black citizens of South Africa are representatives of ethnic groups that have long inhabited this part of the African continent. They all speak the languages of the Bantu family, some of which are the state languages of South Africa.
- Among the official languages in the republic are the languages of the ethnic groups Venda, Zulu, Kosa, Tsonga and others.
- One of the state languages in South Africa is Afrikaans, formerly known as Boer or Germanic.
- English is the language of international communication in southern Africa and also belongs to the state group.
Originally from the Cape Colony
The Afrikaans language was born on the lands adjacent to the Cape of Good Hope in the south of the "black" continent. Dutch sailors landed there in 1652 and founded the current city of Cape Town. Then they were joined by the Germans and the French, resulting in the emergence of a new white African people. Its representatives began to be called Boers or Afrikaners, and on the basis of their dialects and, mainly, Dutch, the Afrikaans language appeared.
The very first written evidence of its existence is short song couplets recorded at the end of the 18th century, and dictionaries and grammar textbooks appeared only a century later. Today, magazines and books, television programs and radio programs are published in this state language in South Africa.
Having remained the leading language in South Africa for many decades, Afrikaans has had a significant impact on the Bantu dialects and English. Lexical borrowings from Afrikaans are found in all the other 10 state languages of South Africa.
Tourist notes
The bulk of the information necessary for a comfortable travel in southern Africa is presented here in English. Restaurant menus, reference information in guidebooks, traffic patterns and names of public transport stops, warning signs in national parks are available in English.
