Afrikaans
West Germanic language evolved from Dutch vernacular in the 17th–18th century Dutch Cape Colony; spoken primarily in South Africa and Namibia; developed among Dutch settlers and the enslaved population, gradually diverging from Dutch
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Summary
Afrikaans is a natural language[1]. Afrikaans ranks in the top 1% of natural language entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (23,659 views/month).[2]
Key Facts
- Country: South Africa[3], Botswana[4], Namibia[5], Zambia[6], Zimbabwe[7]
- Instance of: modern language[8], spoken language[9]
- Based on: Dutch[10]
- Subclass of: Low Franconian[11]
- Writing system: Latin script[12]
- Commons category: Afrikaans language[13]
- Wikimedia language code: af[14]
- Topic's main category: Category:Afrikaans[15]
- Language regulatory body: Taalkommissie[16]
- Number of speakers, writers, or signers: 7,200,000[17], 10,300,000[18]
- Topic has template: Q84938281[19]
- Native label: Afrikaans[20]
- NCI Thesaurus ID: C153828[21]
- Short name: африкаанс[22]
- UNESCO language status: 1 safe[23]
- History of topic: history of Afrikaans[24]
- Indigenous to: Botswana[25], Central District[26], Ghanzi District[27], Kgalagadi District[28], Kgatleng District[29], Southern District[30], South Africa[31], Southern Africa[32]
- Exact match: http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/AFR[33], https://apics-online.info/contributions/29[34]
- Ethnologue language status: 1 National[35]
- Linguistic typology: subject–verb–object[36], subject–object–verb[37], V2 word order[38], stress-timed language[39], fusional language[40]
Why It Matters
Afrikaans has Wikipedia articles in 30 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[41] Afrikaans is known by 51 alternative names across languages and contexts.[42]