2. The most common language spoken at home by South Africans is Zulu (24 percent speak Zulu at home), followed by Xhosa (18 percent), and Afrikaans (13 percent). English is only the sixth-most common home language in the country. There are 11 official languages in South Africa: 9 Bantu languages Nguni branch Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele Sotho-Tswana branch Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tswana Tswa-Ronga Tsonga Venda Plus: Afrikaans English
3.
4. Afrikaans is spoken by about 6,200,000 people. Afrikaans speakers are also found in Namibia, Botswana, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. There are about 6,400,000 Afrikaans speakers in the world.
5. Where does Afrikaans come from? The Afrikaans language originated mainly from Dutch and developed in South Africa. It was originally spoken by Dutch settlers in the 17 th century. It is often said that Dutch and Afrikaans are mutually intelligible, however, this is often not true as Afrikaans tends to have inherited a lot of its vocabulary and language characteristics from other languages such as Portuguese, Malay and African languages such as Bantu and Khoisan, but despite this, it is still possible for a Dutch person to understand an Afrikaans person quite well.
