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The most common language spoken as a first language by South Africans is Zulu (23%), followed by Xhosa (16%), and Afrikaans (14%). English is the fourth most common first language in the country (9.6%), but is understood in most urban areas and is the dominant language in government and the media.
This is a list of countries by number of languages according to the 22nd edition of Ethnologue (2019). [ 1 ] Papua New Guinea has the largest number of languages in the world.
For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world. This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties, and so ...
There are eleven official names of South Africa, [1] one in each of its 12 official languages. The number is surpassed only by India. The number is surpassed only by India. These languages include English , Afrikaans , the Nguni languages ( Zulu , Xhosa , Ndebele , and Swazi ), the Sotho-Tswana languages ( Tswana , Sotho , and Pedi ), Venda ...
The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population. This declined to 16% in 1980, [31] 8.9% in 2011 and 7.65% in 2022. [32]: 21 Coloured South Africans replaced Whites as the largest minority group around 2010. Maps of ethnoracial groups of South Africa
Zulu is the most widely spoken language in South Africa, where it is an official language. More than half of the South African population can understand it, with over 13.78 million first-language and over 15 million second-language speakers. [9] Many Zulu people also speak Xitsonga, Sesotho and others from among South Africa's 12 official ...
Between 1910 and 1961 Dutch was a co-official language of South Africa, together with English. In 1961 Dutch was replaced by Afrikaans as a co-official language. However, between 1925 and 1984 Dutch and Afrikaans were seen as two varieties of the same language by the Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 and later article 119 of the South ...
The following languages are listed as having at least 50 million first-language speakers in the 27th edition of Ethnologue published in 2024. [7] This section does not include entries that Ethnologue identifies as macrolanguages encompassing all their respective varieties, such as Arabic, Lahnda, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese.