What is the south african main language?

Question

I've heard that it is either English or Dutch.. Is this true.. If not, what is the main language. Thanks

Answer 1

There are 11 official languages, from Afrikaans to isiZulu.

Answer 2

It's 'Afrikaans'. Originates from Dutch.

But I'm sure the people there speak English, too.

Answer 3

It's Khosa of course

Answer 4

It's a bit more complicated than that. There are eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Nothern-Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. The two used the most in governmental issues are Afrikaans and English.

Afrikaans comes from Dutch but is not the same. The two languages split off a long time ago and are not the same. Being Dutch I am able to read Afrikaans fairly well but many words get interpreted on the go since they do not exist in Dutch. Understanding the language is doable too but it's harder since you also have to deal with the pronounciation which is different. I sometimes have to switch to English when talking to SA people.

Answer 5

South Africa has eleven official languages: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu. In this regard it is second only to India in number. While each language is formally equal to every other, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2001 National Census, the three most spoken first home languages are Zulu (23.8%), Xhosa (17.6%) and Afrikaans (13.3%). Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it was spoken by only 8.2% of South Africans at home in 2001, an even lower percentage than in 1996 (8.6%).

There are eleven official names for South Africa, one in each of the official national languages.

The country also recognises eight non-official languages: Fanagalo, Khoe, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, San and South African Sign Language. These non-official languages may be used in certain official uses in limited areas where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. Nevertheless, their populations are not such that they require nationwide recognition.

Many of the "unofficial languages" of the San and Khoikhoi people contain regional dialects stretching northward into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. These people, who are a physically distinct population from other Africans, have their own cultural identity based on their hunter-gatherer societies. They have been marginalised to a great extent, and many of their languages are in danger of becoming extinct.

Many white South Africans also speak other European languages, such as Portuguese (also spoken by Angolan and Mozambican blacks), German, and Greek, while some Asians and Indians in South Africa speak South Asian languages, such as Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil.

Most people speak or understand English though.

Answer 6

59,1 % of the white people speek africaans, 39,3 % English.

The coloured people language distribution is as follows:

IsiZulu 30,1 %

IsiXhosa 22;3 %

Sepdedi 11,9 %

Setswana 10,3 %

Sesotho 10,0 %

Xitsonga 5,6 %

SiSwati 3,4 %

Tshivenda 2.9 %

IsiNdebele 2,0 %

Africaans 0,7 %

English 0,5 %