Afrikaans is the primary dialect of over 80% of Coloured South Africans 3.1 million people and roughly 60% of White South Africans2.5 million. Around 200,000 black South Africans speak it as their 1st dialect. Big numbers of Bantu-speaking and English-speaking South Africans also speak it as their subsequent dialect. Some state that the term Afrikaanses should be used as a idiom for all citizens who articulate Afrikaans, with no respect to racial origin, instead of ‘Afrikaners’, which refers to an cultural group, or ‘Afrikaanssprekendes’. Linguistic identity has not yet recognized that one term be favoured over another and all 3 are used in general parlance.It is also widely spoken in Namibia, where it has had legitimate recognition as a national, but not formal, tongue since independence in 1990. Preceding to independence, Afrikaans had equal status with German as an official language. There is a much lesser number of Afrikaans speakers among Zimbabwe’s white minority, as most have left the country since 1980

Afrikaans developed among the Dutch-speaking Protestant settlers, and the indentured or slave employees of the Cape region in southwestern South Africa that was established by the Dutch East India Company between 1652 and 1705. A relative majority of these first settlers were from the United Provinces now Netherlands, though there were also countless from Germany, a considerable number from France, and several from Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and numerous other countries. The indentured workforce and slaves were Asians, Malays, and Malagasys in addition to the indigenous Khoi and Bushmen.Learn Afrikaans

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