Languages of South Africa
South Africa has 11 official languages, which is second in number only to the 23 national languages of India. South Africa also recognises eight non-official languages as "national languages". Of the official languages, two are Indo-European languages — English and Afrikaans — while the other nine are languages of the Bantu family (within Africa's largest phylum, Niger-Congo).
Constitutional provisions
Chapter 1 (Founding Provisions), Section 6 (Languages) of the Constitution of South Africa is the basis for government language policy:
:1. The official languages of the Republic are Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
- 2. Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages.
- 3.(a). The national government and provincial governments may use any particular official languages for the purposes of government, taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional circumstances and the balance of the needs and preferences of the population as a whole or in the province concerned; but the national government and each provincial government must use at least two official languages.
- 3.(b). Municipalities must take into account the language usage and preferences of their residents.
- 4. The national government and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must regulate and monitor their use of official languages. Without detracting from the provisions.
- 5. Pan South African Language Board established by national legislation must
- a. promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of
- b.(i).all official languages;
- (ii). the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and
- (iii). sign language; and
- c. promote and ensure respect for
Official languages
The eleven official languages of South Africa are as follows (with the name used for each language, by speakers of that language, in brackets):
- Afrikaans (Afrikaans), English, Ndebele (isiNdebele), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa), Sotho (Sesotho), Swati (siSwati), Tsonga (Xitsonga), Tswana (Setswana), Venda (Tshivenda), Xhosa (isiXhosa), Zulu (isiZulu).
The most common language spoken at home by South African is Zulu (24 percent speak Zulu at home), followed by Xhosa (18 percent), and Afrikaans (13 percent). English is only the fifth-most common home language in the country, but is understood in most urban areas and is the dominant language in government and the media.
The majority of South Africans speak a language from one of the two principal branches of the Bantu languages represented in South Africa: the Sotho-Tswana branch (Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tswana), or the Nguni branch (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele). For each of the two groups, the languages within that group are for the most part intelligible to a native speaker of any other language within that group.
As can be seen from the accompanying maps, the nine indigenous African languages of South Africa can be divided into two geographical zones, with Nguni languages being predominant in the south-eastern third of the country (Indian Ocean coast) and Sotho languages being predominant in the northern third of the country located further inland, as also in Botswana and Lesotho. Gauteng is the most linguistically heterogeneous province, with roughly equal numbers of Nguni, Sotho and Indo-European language speakers. This has resulted in the spread of an urban argot, Tsotsitaal, in large urban townships in the province.
Venda and Tsonga are neither Nguni nor Sotho-Tswana languages.
Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch, is the most widely spoken language in the western third of the country (Western and Northern Cape). It is spoken not only by a majority of whites but also by about 90 percent of Coloured (multiracial) people in the country. Afrikaans is also spoken widely across the centre and north of the country, as a second (or third or even fourth) language by Black South Africans living in farming areas.
Other significant languages spoken in South Africa
The Constitution also recognises a further eight non-official "national languages":
- Fanagalo, Lobedu (Khilobedu), Northern Ndebele (Sindebele), Phuthi (Siphuthi), South African Sign Language, Khoe, Nama, San (Khoisan/Khoesan) languages.
In reality, the membership of this additional list above is very varied. SA Sign Language is an utterly distinct though incompletely emerged national standard language (SA Sign Language), but which also subsumes a cluster of semi-standardised dialects. The status of SA Sign Language makes South Africa one of the few countries to have legal recognition of sign language). Another four are of the names given can properly be termed languages (Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, Khoe, Nama). San (Khoesan) is an imprecisely named cluster of languages. Lobedu has been claimed to be a dialect of Northern Sotho, but is perhaps more accurately classed as an autonomous language. Fanagalo is a semi-stable pidgin of uncertain contemporary status.
Significant numbers of immigrants from Europe, elsewhere in Africa, and the Indian subcontinent means that a wide variety of other languages can also be found in parts of South Africa. In the older immigrant communities there is : Hindi (particularly the Gujarati variety), Urdu, Tamil, Greek (ελληνικά); Yiddish, Polish (polska), Portuguese (português), and smaller numbers of French (français) and German (Deutsch) speakers.
These non-official languages may be used in limited semi-official use where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. More importantly, these languages have significant local functions in specific communities whose identity is tightly bound around the linguistic and cultural identity that these non-official SA languages signal.
Of the listed non-official languages, the fastest growing are perhaps Portuguese — now spoken by more recent immigrants from Angola and Mozambique) — and increasingly French, spoken by immigrants and refugees from francophone central Africa. Finally, more recently, many thousands of speakers of northern, central and west African languages have arrived in South Africa, mostly in the major cities, especially in Johannesburg and Pretoria, but also Cape Town and Durban.
Extinct languages