Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland spoken by the predominantly Dutch settlers and enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the east and south. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek.
This is a demography of the population of Namibia including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
South African English is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
According to the 2022 census, the population of South Africa is about 62 million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The South African National Census of 2022 was the most recent census held; the next will be in 2032.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations (AM/FM) as well as six television broadcasts to the general public. It is one of the largest of South Africa's state-owned enterprises.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most widespread language geographically. The countries in which English is the native language of most people are sometimes termed the Anglosphere. Speakers of English are called Anglophones.
This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the Germanosphere in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many other countries and on all six inhabited continents.
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. In addition, South African Sign Language was recognised as the twelfth official language of South Africa by the National Assembly on 3 May 2023. Unofficial languages are protected under the Constitution of South Africa, though few are mentioned by any name.
German Namibians are a community of people descended from ethnic German colonists who settled in present-day Namibia. In 1883, the German trader Adolf Lüderitz bought what would become the southern coast of Namibia from Josef Frederiks II, a chief of the local Oorlam people, and founded the city of Lüderitz. The German government, eager to gain overseas possessions, annexed the territory soon after, proclaiming it German South West Africa. Small numbers of Germans subsequently immigrated there, many coming as soldiers, traders, diamond miners, or colonial officials. In 1915, during the course of World War I, Germany lost its colonial possessions, including South West Africa ; after the war, the former German colony was administered as a South African mandate. Roughly half of the German settlers were allowed to remain and, until independence in 1990, German remained an official language of the territory alongside Afrikaans and English.
The population of Africa has grown rapidly over the past century and consequently shows a large youth bulge, further reinforced by a low life expectancy of below 50 years in some African countries. Total population as of 2024 is about 1.5 billion, with a growth rate of about 100 million every three years. The total fertility rate for Africa is 4.7 as of 2018, the highest in the world according to the World Bank. The most populous African country is Nigeria with over 206 million inhabitants as of 2020 and a growth rate of 2.6% p.a.
The Afrikaans Wikipedia is an Afrikaans edition of the Web-based free-content encyclopedia Wikipedia. The project was started on 16 November 2001, and was the 11th Wikipedia to be created. In December 2016 it was the 84th largest Wikipedia by number of articles. Apart from South Africa and Namibia, the Afrikaans Wikipedia is used and maintained by users in Europe, North America and Oceania. As of October 2024, it was the largest African language and 69th-largest language version of Wikipedia.
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa. The country's main languages are Shona, spoken by over 70% of the population, and Ndebele, spoken by roughly 20%. English is the country's lingua franca, used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools. English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans, Greek, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population. Deaf Zimbabweans commonly use one of several varieties of Zimbabwean Sign Language, with some using American Sign Language. Zimbabwean language data is based on estimates, as Zimbabwe has never conducted a census that enumerated people by language.
Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Until 1994, they dominated South Africa's politics as well as the country's commercial agricultural sector.
Dutch is a West Germanic language, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders. Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans, a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language, spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects.
Namibia, despite its scant population, is home to a wide diversity of languages, from multiple language families: Germanic, Bantu, and the various Khoisan families. When Namibia was administered by South Africa, Afrikaans, German, and English enjoyed an equal status as official languages. Upon Namibian independence in 1990, English was enshrined as the nation's sole official language in the constitution of Namibia. German and Afrikaans were stigmatised as relics of the colonial past, while the rising of Mandela's Youth League and the 1951 Defiance Campaign spread English among the masses as the language of the campaign against apartheid.
Ethnic groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by the colonial apartheid regime remain ingrained in South African society with the governing party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) continuing to classify the population as belonging to one of the three colonial-era constructed racial groups: Africans, 'Whites', and 'Coloureds' as well as Indians.
Namibia is a multilingual country in which German is recognised as a national language. While English has been the sole official language of the country since 1990, in many areas of the country, German enjoys official status at a community level. A national variety of German is also known as Namdeutsch.
Namibian Americans are Americans who are of Namibian ancestry or who were born in Namibia, a country located in Southern Africa. According to the National Planning Commission there were approximately 1,547 people born in Namibia living in the United States as of 2001. This number has likely increased in the years since but the United States Census Bureau does not collect data on the specific ancestry of American residents, so it is not possible to determine the total number of Namibian Americans in the United States through census data.
