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South Africa has 11 official languages and a multilingual population fluent in at least two. IsiZulu and isiXhosa are the largest languages, while English is spoken at home by only one in 10 people – most of them not white. South Africa is a diverse nation with a rich language heritage.
What languages are spoken in South Africa’s nine provinces? Mary Alexander 11 June 2021. The home language of most people in KwaZulu-Natal is, unsurprisingly, isiZulu. In the Eastern Cape it’s isiXhosa. Around half the people of the Western Cape and Northern Cape speak Afrikaans.
Mixed with over a dozen African languages for over two centuries, spiced by imports from British, Dutch and Portuguese colonies, South African English has its own rich, varied and sometimes weird flavour.
A third of black South Africans speak isiZulu as a first language, and 20% speak isiXhosa. Three-quarters of coloured people speak Afrikaans, and 86% of Indian South Africans speak English. Sixty percent of white people speak Afrikaans, and 30% speak English.
South Africa has nine provinces, each with its own history, landscape, population, languages, economy, cities and government. They are the Eastern Cape, the Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, North West and the Western Cape.
Each of South Africa’s 11 languages has a fascinating vocabulary, with some words and phrases influenced by other languages, and many unique to that language. Learn a little South African with these animations.
Black South Africans spoke their own languages. These had already been ignored in their education. English had long been the medium of instruction – their second language – and was a language most urban young black people were at least familiar with.
Each of South Africa’s 11 languages has a fascinating vocabulary, with some words and phrases influenced by other languages, and many unique to that language. Learn a little South African with these animations.
South Africa has a population of 56.5-million people, according to 2017 estimates. The 2011 census puts it at 51.5-million – the fourth-largest population in Africa and the 25th-largest in the world. Black South Africans make up around 81% of the total, coloured people 9%, whites 8% and Indians 3%.
Infographic showing the origins and classification of South Africa’s nine major African languages: isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga.