Afrikaans

Afrikaans (/ˌæfrɪˈkɑːns/ AF-rih-KAHNSS, /ˌɑːf-, -ˈkɑːnz/ AHF-, -⁠KAHNZ)[4][5] is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular[6][7] of Holland proper (i.e. the Hollandic dialect)[8][9] used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and people enslaved by them. Afrikaans gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics during the course of the 18th century.[10] Now spoken in South Africa, Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, estimates c. 2010 of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million.[note 1] Most linguists consider Afrikaans to be a partly creole language.[11][12][13]

Quick facts: Afrikaans, Pronunciation, Native to, Eth... ▼

Afrikaans
Pronunciation	[afriˈkɑːns]
Native to	South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Ethnicity	Afrikaners Boers Basters Cape Coloureds Cape Malays Griqua Goffal
Native speakers	7.2 million (2016)[1] 10.3 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2002)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Weser–Rhine Germanic Low Franconian Dutch Central Dutch Hollandic Afrikaans
Early forms	Frankish Old Dutch Middle Dutch Modern Dutch
Writing system	Latin using Afrikaans alphabet Arabic (See Arabic Afrikaans) Afrikaans Braille
Signed forms	Signed Afrikaans[3]
Official status
Official language in	South Africa
Recognised minority language in	Namibia
Regulated by	Die Taalkommissie
Language codes
ISO 639-1	af
ISO 639-2	afr
ISO 639-3	afr
Glottolog	afri1274
Linguasphere	52-ACB-ba
Dark Blue: Spoken by a majority; Light Blue: Spoken by a minority
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An estimated 90% to 95% of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin, with adopted words from other languages, including German and the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa.[note 2] Differences with Dutch include a more analytic-type morphology and grammar, and some pronunciations.[14] There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form.[15]

About 13.5% of the South African population (7 million people) speak Afrikaans as a first language, making it the third most common natively-spoken language in the country,[16] after Zulu and Xhosa. It has the widest geographic and racial distribution of the 12 official languages and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language, although Zulu and English are estimated to be understood as a second language by a much larger proportion of the population.[note 3] It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa—the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape—and the first language of 75.8% of Coloured South Africans (4.8 million people), 60.8% of Whites (2.7 million people), 1.5% of Blacks (600,000 people), and 4.6% of Indians (58,000 people).[17]