Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in legal status.
It became one of South Africa's 12 official languages in 1994. [6] According to Ethnologue, it is the second-most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Swahili. [a] Like many other Bantu languages, it is written with the Latin alphabet. In South African English, the language is often referred to in its native form, isiZulu. [10]
Zulu is the most widely spoken language in South Africa, where it is an official language. More than half of the South African population can understand it, with over 13.78 million first-language and over 15 million second-language speakers. [10] Many Zulu people also speak Xitsonga, Sesotho and others from among South Africa's 12 official ...
Major Horn of Africa languages are Somali, Amharic and Oromo. Lingala is important in Central Africa. Important South African languages are Sotho, Tswana, Pedi, Venda, Tsonga, Swazi, Southern Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans. [ 36 ] French, English, and Portuguese are important languages in Africa due to colonialism.
Afrikaans is an official language of the Republic of South Africa and a recognised national language of the Republic of Namibia. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a loss of preferential treatment by the government for Afrikaans, in terms of education, social events, media (TV and radio), and general status throughout the country, given that ...
Sotho (/ sɛˈsuːtuː /) [a] Sesotho, also known as Southern Sotho or Sesotho sa Borwa is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken in Lesotho, and South Africa where it is an official language. Like all Bantu languages, Sesotho is an agglutinative language that uses numerous affixes and derivational and ...
Tsonga (/ ˈ (t) sɒŋɡə / ⓘ (T)SONG-gə) or, natively, Xitsonga, as an endonym, is a Bantu language spoken by the Tsonga people of South Africa. It is mutually intelligible with Tswa and Ronga and the name "Tsonga" is often used as a cover term for all three, also sometimes referred to as Tswa-Ronga.
KwaXhosa. The Xhosa people, or Xhosa -speaking people (/ ˈkɔːsə / KAW-sə, / ˈkoʊsə / KOH-sə; [2][3][4] Xhosa pronunciation: [kǁʰɔ́ːsa] ⓘ) are a Bantu ethnic group native to South Africa. They are the second largest ethnic group in South Africa and are native speakers of the isiXhosa language.