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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.
Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. [5] 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.
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 ...
When South Africa became a republic in 1961, Pretoria remained its administrative capital. ... The main languages spoken in Pretoria are Sepedi, Setswana, ...
These countries are referred to as the Nederlands taalgebied (Dutch language area). The Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname are member states of the Dutch Language Union; South Africa refuses to become a member state although Afrikaans is integrated in the task statement of the Dutch Language Union. [citation needed] Country.
Most Sesotho speakers in South Africa reside in Free State and Gauteng. Sesotho is also the main language spoken by the people of Lesotho, where, according to 1993 data, it was spoken by about 1,493,000 people, or 85% of the population. The census fails to record other South Africans for whom Sesotho is a second or third language.
Black South African English, or BSAE, is spoken by individuals whose first language is an indigenous African tongue. [4] BSAE is considered a "new" English because it has emerged through the education system among second-language speakers in places where English is not the majority language. [4]