African Languages

There are many official living languages in South Africa recognized by the world as a whole. In this report I will discuss official, non-official, and religious languages in South Africa alike. Theses languages vary according to geography, population, religious backgrounds, and cultural history.

The first language I will discuss is very well known. It is called Afrikaans or formerly known as Cape Dutch or Kitchen Dutch. It first originated in the 1600s. Back then it was used by the Dutch when they settled in South Africa. Afrikaans was influenced by languages such as English, French, Portuguese, and many others. It is similar to English in many ways, for example to say “Hello.” they say “Hallo.” and to say “What is this?” they say “Wat is dit?”.It was used only as a spoken language up to the 1800s. In the late 1800s it was known to be developed by Reverend S.J. Du Toit. In 1933 there was a complete translation of the Bible in Afrikaans. In 1925 it was accepted to be one of South Africa’s official languages. Once again in 1996 it was accepted as on official language because there was a new constitution.
“5,811,547 people use Afrikaans as their home language in South Africa (Cyber Serv).” “It is important to note that Afrikaans is spoken by all races and ethnic groups in South Africa (Cyber Serv).”

The next language I will discuss is not as well known as Afrikaans. It is called Ndebele also known as IsiNdebele, South Ndebele, or IsiKhethu. Not much information of the language Ndebele is known. It was developed sometime in the late 16th century, early 17th century. With stories of deaths of kings, brotherhood, and bloodshed the number of Ndebele speakers decreased. In the late 1800s “Ndebele were forced to work and live on farms over a large area which destroyed their pride as a nation. (Cyber Serv)” Not until many years later, in 1984, was not only their homeland restored as well was their pride.
Only about 586,961 people in South Africa use Ndebele as their “home language”. “This language is become extinct (Wiki).”

The next language I will talk about is called Xhosa. It is also known as Cape Nguni or the Southern. “The Xhosa are composed of numerous groups of people (Cyber Serv).” This language is a tonal language, not like a lot of the other western languages. The noun dominates the sentence. The language Xhosa looks something like this “Nkosi, sikelel' iAfrika” which means, “Lord, bless Africa”.
Many people in South Africa speak Xhosa as their “home language”. There is a total of 7,196,118 Xhosa speakers. Xhosa is part of the Bantu family which Ndeble aslo classifies from.

The next language is one of the most known languages. It is called Zulu or IsiZulu. Some Zulu traces all the way back to the 16th century. Zulu was very complex, so during the 19th century Shaka, a warrior king, made the language less complicated. Zulu is also a tonal language like Xhosa. “The first Zulu Christan booklet was produced by Newton Adams, George Newton and Aldin Grout between 1837-1838 titled ‘Incwadi Yokuqala Yabafundayo’ which dealt with the spelling of Zulu workds and the history of the Old Testament (Cyber Serv).” Zulu is the most popular language that I will speak about. “ Around 9,200,144 people in South Africa use it as their home language (Cyber Serv).” Zulu also classifies in the Bantu family.