Afrikaans, << `af` ruh KAHNS, >> language is a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It is one of 11 official languages of South Africa.
Several groups were responsible for the formation of the Afrikaans language during the late 1600’s and the 1700’s. They included Dutch, French, and German settlers; indigenous (native) Khoikhoi people of southern Africa; and enslaved peoples of African and Asian origin. The language developed as a written medium during the 1800’s. The Muslim community in Cape Town composed religious texts in Afrikaans, using Arabic script.
Beginning in the 1870’s, Afrikaner nationalists—that is, people dedicated to promoting the interests of Afrikaners—promoted the written and spoken forms of Afrikaans in areas where Dutch and English had dominated. The Afrikaners were people of Dutch, German, or French ancestry who lived in southern Africa. The Afrikaner nationalist movement led to the standardization of Afrikaans and to the recognition of Afrikaans as an official language of South Africa in 1925. Since then, the language has been used in government administration, education, the media, religion, and the arts, as well as in science and technology.
Afrikaans is conventionally classified as a language separate from, but related to, Dutch. It is a part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. People who speak Dutch can understand Afrikaans, despite differences between the two languages. Afrikaans has simplified the Dutch inflectional system (changes in word form) and shows influences of Khoikhoi dialects, Creole Portuguese, and Malay.
See also South Africa (Languages) .
