Afrikaans

About Afrikaans

Afrikaans is the first language of about 6.9 million people in South Africa, where it is one of the official languages, and it is also widely spoken in Namibia. It grew out of the Dutch brought to the Cape in the 1600s, shaped by Malay, Portuguese, Khoekhoe and Bantu languages. Speakers of Dutch can read much of it.

Afrikaans spelling is regular once you know a few rules. The g is a throaty sound like the ch in Scottish "loch", w sounds like v, v like f and j like the y in "yes". The letters ie sound like the ee in "see". Use u as a polite "you" with older people and strangers, and jy with friends.

FamilyIndo-European, West Germanic
Native speakersabout 6.9 million in South Africa (2011)
Official inSouth Africa
Where spokenSouth Africa, Namibia
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codesaf (ISO 639-1), afr (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Statistics South Africa, Census 2011. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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