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The following is a list of the countries and territories where Afrikaans or Dutch are official languages. It includes countries, which have Afrikaans and/or Dutch as (one of) their nationwide official language(s), as well as dependent territories with Afrikaans and/or Dutch as a co-official language.
This is a ranking of languages by number of sovereign countries in which they are de jure or de facto official, although there are no precise inclusion criteria or definition of a language. An '*' (asterisk) indicates a country whose independence is disputed.
The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans) [n 3] meaning 'African'. [12] It was previously referred to as 'Cape Dutch' (Kaap-Hollands or Kaap-Nederlands), a term also used to refer to the early Cape settlers collectively, or the derogatory 'kitchen Dutch' (kombuistaal) from its use by slaves of colonial settlers "in the kitchen".
The South African National Census of 2011 counted 2,710,461 white South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language, [2] or approximately 5.23% of the total South African population. The census also showed an increase of 5.21% in Afrikaner population compared to the previous, 2001 census.
Overall 15 to 20 million people are estimated to speak Afrikaans. Since the colonial era, Indo-European languages such as Afrikaans, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish have held official status in many countries, and are widely spoken, generally as lingua francas. (See African French and African Portuguese.) Additionally ...
Despite these challenges, and the disruption caused by Zimbabwe's economic crisis, a tiny community of Afrikaans-speakers exists in the country particularly in the farming and ex-farming communities, though individuals who speak Afrikaans as a first languages are almost always 'othered' and viewed as South Africans rather than natives. [11]
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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.