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There are eleven official languages of South Africa: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. Fewer than two percent of South Africans speak a first language other than an official one.〔 Most South Africans can speak more than one language. Dutch and English were the first official languages of South Africa from 1910 to 1925. Afrikaans was added as a part of Dutch in 1925, although in practice, Afrikaans effectively replaced Dutch, which fell into disuse. When South Africa became a republic in 1961 the official relationship changed such that Afrikaans was considered to include Dutch,〔The Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 says ''Dutch includes Afrikaans''; Article 119 of the constitution of 1961 says ''Afrikaans includes Dutch''〕 and Dutch was dropped in 1984, so between 1984 and 1994, South Africa had two official languages: English and Afrikaans. Different government departments and official bodies use different terms to denote Northern Sotho.〔(Translate.org.za Newsletter 2006: Sesotho sa Leboa or Sepedi. 14 November 2006. Retrieved 6 September 2011 )〕 In South Africa, Southern Ndebele is known simply as ''Ndebele'', as most speakers of Northern Ndebele live in Zimbabwe. Since taking power in the 1994 election, the ANC has promoted English as the main language of government, even if South Africans often take pride in using indigenous languages for any purpose. Afrikaans also features prominently in commerce together with English as the languages with the highest number of fluent speakers are Afrikaans and English. In terms of linguistic classification, the official languages include two West Germanic languages (English and Afrikaans) and nine Bantu languages. Four of these are Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele) and three are Sotho–Tswana languages (Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho and Tswana). Tsonga is a Tswa–Ronga language. South African Sign Language is understood across the country, though sometimes sign-language interpreters use manually coded language. ==Language demographics== |Density of first-language speakers of Nguni languages. }} |Density of first-language speakers of Sotho–Tswana languages. }} |Density of first-language speakers of West Germanic languages. }} The most common language spoken as a first language by South Africans is Zulu (23 percent), followed by Xhosa (16 percent), and Afrikaans (14 percent). 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.〔''The Economist'', "Tongues under threat", 22 January 2011, p. 58.〕 The majority of South Africans speak a language from one of the two principal branches of the Bantu languages represented in South Africa: the Sotho–Tswana branch (Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tswana), or the Nguni branch (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Ndebele). For each of the two groups, the languages within that group are for the most part intelligible to a native speaker of any other language within that group. As can be seen from the accompanying maps, the nine indigenous African languages of South Africa can be divided into two geographical zones, with Nguni languages being predominant in the south-eastern third of the country (Indian Ocean coast) and Sotho languages being predominant in the northern third of the country located further inland, as also in Botswana and Lesotho. Gauteng is the most linguistically heterogeneous province, with roughly equal numbers of Nguni, Sotho and Indo-European language speakers. This has resulted in the spread of an urban argot, Tsotsitaal, in large urban townships in the province. Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch, is the most widely spoken language in the western half of the country (Western and Northern Cape). It is spoken as first language by approximately 61 percent of whites and 76 percent of Coloured (multiracial) people in the country. Afrikaans is also spoken widely across the centre and north of the country, as a second (or third or even fourth) language by Black South Africans living in farming areas. The 2011 census recorded the following distribution of first language speakers:〔 ===Other significant languages spoken in South Africa=== Other languages spoken in South Africa, though not mentioned in the Constitution, include Fanagalo, Lobedu (''Khilobedu''), Northern Ndebele (''Sindebele''), Phuthi (''Siphuthi''). Lobedu has been variously claimed to be a dialect of Northern Sotho and an autonomous language. Fanagalo is a pidgin often used as a mining lingua franca. Significant numbers of immigrants from Europe, elsewhere in Africa, and the Indian subcontinent means that a wide variety of other languages can also be found in parts of South Africa. In the older immigrant communities there are: Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Yiddish, and smaller numbers of Dutch, French and German speakers. These non-official languages may be used in limited semi-official use where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. More importantly, these languages have significant local functions in specific communities whose identity is tightly bound around the linguistic and cultural identity that these non-official SA languages signal. The fastest growing non-official language is Portuguese – first spoken by white, black, and mulatto settlers and refugees from Angola and Mozambique after they won independence from Portugal and now by more recent immigrants from those countries again – and increasingly French, spoken by immigrants and refugees from Francophone Central Africa. More recently, speakers of North, Central and West African languages have arrived in South Africa, mostly in the major cities, especially in Johannesburg and Pretoria, but also Cape Town and Durban. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Languages of South Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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