Languajes


South Africa is a multilingual country. Besides the 11 officially recognised languages, scores of others - African, European, Asian and more - are spoken here, as the country lies at the crossroads of southern Africa.
The country's Constitution guarantees equal status to 11 official languages to cater for the country's diverse peoples and their cultures. These are:

  • Afrikaans
  • English
  • IsiNdebele
  • IsiXhosa
  • IsiZulu
  • Sepedi
  • Sesotho
  • Setswana
  • SiSwati
  • Tshivenda
  • Xitsonga
Other languages spoken in South Africa and mentioned in the Constitution are the Khoi, Nama and San languages, sign language, Arabic, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu. There are also a few indigenous creoles and pidgins.
English is generally understood across the country, being the language of business, politics and the media, and the country's lingua franca. But it only ranks joint fifth out of 11 as a home language.
South Africa's linguistic diversity means all 11 languages have had a profound effect on each other. South African English, for example, is littered with words and phrases from Afrikaans, isiZulu, Nama and other African languages.
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