SOUTH AFRICA and its Languages
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2018
- This video is all about the languages and linguistic diversity of South Africa.
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Campbell Lewis: writer
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Here's an Apartheid story: In the eighties, doing high school, we white kids were offered the choice of learning isiXhosa or German - the majority of us chose isiXhosa. We had a wonderful teacher - a white guy who had grown up in the Eastern Cape who spoke isiXhosa first, learnt from his nanny. But, then he had to leave, so he found us a replacement teacher - a native isiXhosa speaker, but he was not allowed to teach us - because we were a white school and he was black! So we all had give up learning isiXhosa...
Wow, it’s hard to imagine living like that. 😮
@@Langfocus You mustn't trust everything you read. White Boers made up the whole Zulus' migrating form the North bit
There's an interesting phenomenon amongst English and Afrikaans speakers. When I am speaking to an Afrikaans native speaker, I will speak to them in English. They will understand me, but reply in Afrikaans, which I understand as well. That way, we both speak in the language we are most comfortable in, while still being able to understand each other. I think this is because it's easier to listen to a second language than to construct sentences
Matthew Sainsbury this is also how i speak with my aunt haha
I do the same here in the netherlands with frisian and dutch xD
It's the same in Catalonia with Spanish and Catalan, too.
This is exactly how I speak to my mother hahaha
Wow! Quite impressive to know that!
Fun facts about some South African languages:
Zulu (or isiZulu, its name in the language) is the language used in that first bit of the song "The Circle of Life" at the opening of the Disney movie, The Lion King. "Nansi ingonyama bakithi, baba!" means, "Behold, here is a lion, father!"
Xhosa (isiXhosa) is the language spoken in Marvel's smash hit movie Black Panther. It is also the home language of the renowned politician Nelson Mandela, and of The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah.
Both languages have clicks (you can hear one in the "The Circle of Life" ["sizonqoba" with "q" being a click consonant], and some in the Black Panther movie (but not clearly because the actors are American)
I'm a South African. My home language is isiZulu which I speak at home, with friends and in social settings. It is the largest spoken African language, so it is a lingua franca amongst black/African people. I live in the economic hub of SA, the city of Johannesburg, which is a cultural melting pot so I understand SeSotho and by extension the other languages in that group. However, I speak English way more often though for work and official purposes. I can also understand some Afrikaans.
Languages are currently a source of political tension today. In current affairs, there have been sustained protests, important legal cases and government action that has forced some Afrikaans only medium-of-instruction universities and high schools to revert to dual English-Afrikaans in teaching and learning, in order to be more inclusive. Afrikaans speakers feel it is an attack on their constitutional right to preserve their languages, while the post-apartheid government and the black majority it represents deem this action necessary so that scarce educational capacity & infrastructure can include more people, since English is a more common language.
From another South African, well stated!
Bandile Ngidi 9
Nelson Mandela was a murderer, terrorist and war criminal but I also find all the languages very interesting
Bandile Ngidi Thanks for the insight. I recently began (trying to) learn Swahili, and the name of the character Simba means 'lion', Rafiki means 'friend', and hakuna matata means, as you'd expect, 'no worries' or 'no problems' in Swahili.
Thanks for this comment! One of the interesting things you raise is when something counts as a "home language" or "mother tongue" or "first language". I have a love of languages precisely because although Zulu was the FIRST language I learnt as a baby, I started speaking English in pre-primary school (what others call kindergarten) and have spoken English way more often due to going to white schools.
So, responding to your point, I use the phrases "home language" and "mother tongue" to describe Zulu because they are clear and more correct, versus using "first language" because that is more debatable: yes, it is the first language I learnt (at my mother's breast) but it is sadly not the MAIN language I use, because I use English 10 hours a day for work and study, and to speak to my non-Zulu friends.
It was a source of internal tension growing up, as race relations, language and culture is for many young black South Africans in the "new" South Africa. You have to learn English to get ahead in life, but you do not want to lose your African roots. It was only when I was 15 years old when my older brother said he will no longer speak English with me, since I speak it too much. For about 9 - 12 months after that day, we spoke Zulu only to each other and it helped since I decided to actually learn Zulu properly, going into its literature and linguistics, and not just speaking at home. That's why at the top I said I have a love of languages because at an early age the issue of language was bothering me and I had to solve it!
Last point: I have heard LOZI is very similiar to Sotho. I came across Lozi while reading on the history of Shaka Zulu, and how his conquest displaced many people far away from Zululand, all the way to Northern Zambia as people were escaping his armies. So the languages of southerERN Africa are also very interesting since the influence of Shaka goes all the way that far north, and these languages are still very interconnected.
First person not from South Africa to pronounce xhosa right Respect ✊
Im from south Africa I still can't pronounce it
@@fulmato3440 you're lazy
@@sambulosokhela8711 im sure you can't pronounce venda
@@fulmato3440 of course I can't cs I'm am Zulu
@@sambulosokhela8711 so why are you saying im lazy
Paul you hit this one out the park. Brilliantly executed. 100% accurate. The word SePedi (the Pedi language) is preferred these days to the old colonial name for the language which was Northern Sotho.
I am a white anglophone South African and speak Afrikaans with pretty much native proficiency. I also speak decent Zulu and therefore Swazi and Ndebele are no problem. Xhosa is actually 5 dialects and is considered one language. The Xhosa nation was united under one king. You got the name of the Xhosa language pretty much spot on. It’s a hard consonant to master and you avoided the trap that many novices fall into. Beginners tend to nasalize the X click - but you got it right.
When I visit the eastern cape I start using they xhosa vocab where it differs from Zulu.
I also can get by with limited Pedi. To my ear, Tswana Pedi (you call it Northern Sotho) sound the same. There are some small vocab differences.
The standard Sotho of South Africa is written differently from the exact same language across the border in he country of Lesotho.
Paul I’m incredibly impressed by your attention to detail. Fantastic video. Well done!
To answer the question: I applaud the idea of 11 official languages because I want these languages to thrive. It’s completely unworkable in practice so English is emerging as the dominant language. I know many educated native Africans who speak English to their kids, leaving a confusing situation where the youngsters are growing up not knowing the language of their parents or grandparents.
C’est la vie, I suppose but I still find it sad.
Thank you again. Brilliant work.
Erich Viedge Northern Sotho = Pedi?! Wow, you learn something new every day.
Erich Viedge, Northern Sotho is actually a dialect cluster. Sepedi is the majority dialect (and afaik the only one with a standardised orthography) but khiLobedu and Sebirwa for example are also Northern Sotho dialects/languages. according to the PanSALB, Northern Sotho or Sesotho sa Leboa are indeed the preferred terms because it includes all the varieties, whereas Sepedi exclusively means the language/dialect of the Bapedi community. so Paul's usage was fine !
Sawubona Erich, ngiyavuya ukubona umntu apha oyasazi isiZulu. Mna, ndithetha isiXhosa kodwa andithethi kakuhle kangako, ndisafunda ndizama noko :)
I also find it very sad that many black South Africans are starting to speak only English to their children and abandoning their African languages as such... I hope this trend will turn.
@@FrancoisBothaZA That's really funny because I was confused as to what exactly "Northern Sotho" is and now I know it is Pedi.
I only understand a little Pedi because of Sotho (I'm white but I grew up with a lot of black people around me, so I speak Sotho and a little but of other African languages). I grew up English.
ek kan praat Afrikaans kan jy praat Afrikaans? ek kennis vierde suid afrikaanse tale xosa Zulu Afrikaans enlis
Thanks Paul! I am South African. I speak English and Afrikaans. I live in the province of Mpumalanga and can understand some Zulu and Tsonga if I know the context. One can hear the whistled sibilants regularly when moving about. Its an interesting sound. I am a teacher and teach both black and white students in both English and Afrikaans. Most of my students prefer English but there are some who stick to Afrikaans. Irrespective of race. I teach my Maths classes in both languages at once. Juggling game. As for the people who would love to visit SA...do so! Its vibrant and despite the crime rate, the tourist areas are safe enough.
Celesté Döhne hello, Is South Africa a good option to study English, if yes witch part of country? Thanks :)
@@88TayAn I take it that is Lima Peru, which I was privileged to visit some years ago. There are many parallels between our countries and we have similar difficulties. English is spoken very widely but Durban and the surrounding towns are predominantly English. Afrikaans remain a common alternate language throughout with the relevant black language depending on the part of the country you are in. Cape Town remains the most popular tourist spot and Johannesburg the commercial hub with the expected traffic, pressure and best weather in the world!!
Hey I think I know you
@@RickyMacHatton I vaguely remember you! Small world. 👋👋😂 How's your Afrikaans these days?
I've taught myself Afrikaans and I am enjoying learning Zulu, and I will learn Xhosa next!
How are you learning? I am having difficulty finding comprehensive apps/sites/resources for learning these languages.
@@LAorBust2011 Colloquial Afrikaans textbook; Teach Yourself Complete Zulu is the only textbook around, but it is not comprehensive
@@kevinrobbau so jy ken afrikaans sê n sin nou
@@Armand10ify Ek het dit twee jaar gelede geskryf ...
Ek is ‘n engelsman and I started learning die Afrikaans taal. However I’ve slowed down my learning. Are there any apps or books you recommend?
I'm South African. I speak Zulu, Swati and Tswana and Sotho and English fluently and Afrikaans proficiently .
Zulu and Swati come from my maternal grandfather, the Tswana because my maternal grandmother is Tswana, Sotho because where I live Sotho is the predominant language,
English because that's the language I am taught in at school, and Afrikaans because that's my First Additional Language at school.
I use the African languages in home situations and the European languages in school settings.
enormous respect to those of you who can speak more than 2 languages.
waaohh, I live in Belgium and here it s rare that somebody speaks the three official languages
I'm coloured. I was fully bilingual as a child but am mostly English (with my emotions being in Afrikaans and my thoughts and words and business being in English).
I also speak French as I have lived in Mauritius. Speak broken Zulu and can read Greek.
Im a black south african and im a zulu woman but i also speak and understand isiXhosa,Siswati, SiNdebele and English. I also understand some afrikaans as well as seTswana from watching tv shows. TsiVenda has been the most difficult to learn for me from watching a Vhenda tv show
Nice,👌
South African here, Afrikaans mother tongue but bilingual with English. Thank you for giving the Coloured community the attention they deserve in terms of their first language. So many people just forget them. Your video did not make me cringe at all! In fact, it is one of the best researched videos from a foreigner about SA I have seen. Thank you! :D
Well done on your X-click pronunciation! You almost had it perfectly ponounced. I'm a South African that speaks Afrikaans as my first language and additionally English with some Xhosa and Zulu.
As a South African I'm happy with this video. You've represented us well. I'm a Northern Sotho (Sepedi) speaker but I understand the Nguni languages. The beautiful thing about being black is that you can speak your own language to another black person and they'll reply in their own. However this isn't true for all cases and interactions. The modern generation speaks English more then their native tongue but we're pushing to get our children to embrace their languages
The pronunciation of Gauteng was spot on. As was the vast majority of other words and names. You earned a new subscriber
Thanks, I'm glad to hear that. And thanks for subscribing! :)
so it's pronounced like _that_ and has _English_ as the most-spoken language? (that just seems...weird to me)
Are you sure about that? It´s not an Afrikaans word.
English took over, is the most spoken language in South Africa our children at home we speak English with them
@@Nghilifa AFAIK the word "Gauteng" came from Tswana, and oftentimes they pronounces their Gs the same way Dutch and Afrikaans speakers do, even if it's purely coincidental.
So glad I've been able to contribute to another great video on your channel Paul!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
South African here. Very good video. If you want some notes on pronunciation:
You correctly pronounced the click (one of the 3 clicks in the language) at the beginning of Xhosa, but you pause between the "X" and the "-osa". It takes some practice, since it requires you to start pushing the vowel forward while sucking the click backwards. I don't natively speak any languages with clicks, so I kinda have to prepare my mouth if I want to say a word with clicks successfully. It was especially difficult to learn to say 2 successive syllables with clicks in the same word without pausing. Most white folks who can't pronounce the click (or don't want to sound like they're trying too hard) refer to the language as "khoza".
For Ndebele/Nguni you're adding a vowel with the N, almost as if you're saying indebele/inguni. Just a "nnnn", not an "in" or a "ne" - "nnnnndebele", "nnnnguni". I'm elongating the "n", but I just mean it would sound more like the middle of a "nnnn" instead of where it meets a vowel. Oddly, I think you got it closer for Mpumalanga. Similar idea for "Mbeki", our former president.
For Afrikaans, the initial "A" is more like the English "u", as in "upwards". Then it sounds as if you're doing something odd with the "n", almost like a French nasal vowel instead of a true "n".
I'm less certain about this, but I've only ever heard of Griqua with ... I think it's the IPA /χ/. Like the Afrikaans pronunciation of "g". Maybe your pronunciation is also acceptable in other languages, but I've only heard it with a /χ/.
Keep up the good work. I'm a fan of your videos, and only mean it as constructive criticism :)
fromdabosch you hit the nail on the head here. Probably because you're from da Bosch like me ;-)
Maybe part of the nasal sounds Paul uses are because of his Canadian accent, I've noticed some words even in english that don't sound the same when he says them, so your comment is actually pretty useful to distinguish not only different sounds in various languages but also different dialects and accents.
some dialects of Afrikaans do indeed have nasal vowels !! (like they'd pronounce "ons" as /ɔ̃s/ too), but yeah it isn't very common to drop the /n/ completely. you'd usually say something like /äfrikɑ̃:ns/. that's _in_ Afrikaans though ; most people wouldn't use a nasal vowel when saying the name in English.
and good point about the syllabic /n/ in "Ndebele" and "Nguni". we wouldn't want the former president to mock his accent in parliament like (i)Nkandlaaaa
Yea, my one Afrikaans teacher always insisted "ons" gets nasalized, but I've never picked up on that in real life (other than in her exaggerated version of "ons"), and definitely haven't heard it nasalized in the word "Afrikaans" by a South African. Aside from travelling and university, I grew up in North West, and now live outside Cape Town, so I feel I've heard a good spectrum of accents. The ones that nasalize must be few and far between.
Generally, when South Africans with a first language other than Afrikaans say "Afrikaans", they don't trill the /r/, and sometimes the "aa" is a bit shortened, but otherwise I find the pronunciation matches native speakers'.
I'd give a LOL on Nkaaandlaaa if it weren't so depressing :/
it's worth noting, that even for speakers who _do_ nasalise vowels, it only happens specific contexts :
1) when the vowel is followed by *[ns]* (some linguists suggest that it can be any n+fricative sequence but idk). this means a word like "aansoek" [ɑ̃:nsuk] can have nasalisation, but "aanneem" could not. "hond" or "wenkbrou" would also _not_ be nasalised.
2) only the vowels *[ä], [ɑ], [e~ɛ] or [ɔ]* are nasalised, as in the words "dans, saans, mens, venster, ons". words with any other vowels or diphthongs, like "guns, wins, Woensdag, kleinste, boonste" are never nasalised
and as mentioned, not all speakers who nasalise vowels drop the [n]. so for example, "ons" effectively has three pronunciations : [ɔns] (no nasalisation), [ɔ̃ns] (slight nasalisation + n), [ɔ̃:s] (heavy nasalisation).
(fun sidenote, in Kaaps dialect, it's usually pronounced [ɔ:s] and spelled "ôs", with neither the [n] nor nasalisation !)
I'm a simple person...I see Langfocus and I click
Click consonants?
tut tut
:P
I’m a complex person...I click and see langfocus
Mmmkaaa
As a coloured South African I speak both Afrikaans and English with my parents. My mum is Indian and she can speak English, Afrikaans, Hindi, Xhosa, Zulu and my dad is British and he speaks English, Afrikaans and Zulu but he has said during apartheid they were still taught African languages and they were given a choice If they wanted to continue further
I am an Indian South African from Cape Town. I speak English as a first language and learnt Afrikaans and Xhosa. I learnt Afrikaans from my father's family who speak it as their first language. They speak Afrikaans because when my grandfather came to South Africa, he settled in and worked in predominantly Coloured areas and therefore had to use Afrikaans as a medium of communication. The reason I speak English is because all of my father's siblings learnt English at school during apartheid and met english speaking women.
The point about Indians having their own separate accents when speaking english mainly pertains to indians outside of Cape Town as indians in cape town mostly went to coloured schools and therefore have more coloured-leaning accents when speaking english. Both my parents speak in these coloured-leaning accents however my sibling and I speak in whiter accents due to the schools that we went to.
Your point about English and Afrikaans having elevated status in South Africa is spot on. In the former white schools that I went to, most people took Xhosa for a joke and barely bothered learning it - while the syllabus for L3 Xhosa was bare and lacked true learning outcomes. However, I was lucky that my Xhosa teacher took it seriously and taught those who were keen how to speak the language. He even took us to the Transkei for a week where we could only speak Xhosa to get around. At the end of the day, however, I pretty much solely use English now that I am out of high school.
P.S. Yesterday was South Africa's Freedom Day public holiday. On the 27th of April 1994, all people of all races could vote for the first time.
Molo mfondini, ndiyavuya ukubona ukuba ukhona umntu oyasazi isiXhosa :) Ube nemini emnandi!
Enkos' kakhulu, nawe ube nemini emnandi!! Uhlala phi eMzantsi?
Qha! Ubhala ngesiXhosa esimnandi...
Enkosi mfo!
Hayi andisahlali eMzantsi, ngelishwa.. Ndihlala ephesheya ngoku, eSwitzerland... Ndizifundele isiXhosa apha, neencwadi nee-CD :) Ndiqale ukufundisa isiXhosa eCZcams.. Jonga itshaneli yam :)
Ithi ndiyavuya ukubona umntu osaziyo isixhosa not oyasaziyo
Lol ufundisa njani isixhosa nawe usafuna ufundiswa nje,, uyayazi ifonetiki, uyazazi izaci namaqhalo isixhosa sityebile kwaye uyakwazi ukuthi uyasazi ubekanti usasifunda kukho isixhosa njengoba ndise kapa nje endinosithetha phambi komxhosa ozalelwe cpt angandiva tuuuu ngoba sintsokothile that mean it's deep Xhosa from the Eastern cape rural areas I learned it from my grandma
I'm South African, I'm Tswana, and I speak 10 official languages. I read a Greek, Hebrew, a bit of Latin and a bit of Arabic.
Impressive
Dumelang ka kopa metse ke togela i am half i am from Botswana and Netherlands i can speak some setswana
Hi Paul, I’m an Afrikaner living in Gauteng. I speak Afrikaans and English fluently and I can speak very basic Tswana. I go to an English medium school that offers English at home language level, Afrikaans and Sepedi at first additional level and French and German at second additional level. You have to take a home language and a first additional language but a second additional language is optional after grade 9. I personally take English, Afrikaans and also German. At home and with family I only speak Afrikaans, I either speak English or Afrikaans with my friends and generally we use English as a lingua franca in everyday situations like at the shops etc. Thanks for the South African video. Really enjoy your channel! 🇿🇦🙏😁
Like for the pronunciation of Xhosa! Excellent video.
I can't do the clicking noise so I snap my fingers instead...
Vince M The "tsk tsk" sound of disapproval that doesnt actually sound like someone saying a combo of t s and k is the click sound for the letter x in xhosa
@@vincem3748 interesting, does it work??
@@nickeman132 I actually haven't tried it in conversation yet, but I imagine it would work
@@realeuphoniism I know. The snapping fingers sound, "tut tut" noise, and "x" in xhosa are 3 separate sounds
Your attention to detail is impressive. I am a South African, my home language is Zulu (isiZulu) but ,other than the other Nguni languages, I also speak English for work purposes and for communicating with people who do not speak Zulu. I learned Afrikaans in school as a second language and I would be fluent in it if I spoke it frequently but I never speak it. I can still understand it at a basic level. My understanding of Tswana and Sotho is poor but surprisingly someone once gave me directions in Tswana when I was lost and I understood them.
So I have some info that anybody going through the comments in 2019 may find interesting. On the map detailing the geographical spread of languages, you can see some yellow sections in Kwa-Zulu Natal for English. KZN and parts of the Eastern Cape are basically the heartlands of British descended South Africans. That's where they settled in their largest numbers, and that's where the older people sound almost Australian. In a sense, it's almost like New England in the States. Now, those yellow sections that are inland KZN are generally in an area called the Midlands. It's very green and beautiful. Now, in those areas, you have substantial numbers of coloured South Africans who are generally a mix of British and Zulu or Xhosa. They all speak English as their first language and those who are from very rural areas speak Zulu or Xhosa as well. It's a very different culture from the Afrikaans speakers of the Western and Northern Capes who are very Malay and/or Khoisan influenced. It's very British influenced, most of them are either Anglican (Episcopalian) or Methodist. There ya go...
In my country (Brittany in France) there's only one official language : French, and it's a shame, because there 's no help from the state to protect and honour the other languages (like breton language I speak) ; it's only through long struggles we got some institutions or rights for our languages.
its not a shame world needs a one language. more language is more problem and more. for example you mates speak english your family speak french your school teach and speak german you go to the supermarket after school and they speak arabic..... Did you see, many languages are chaos
J'ai passé 11 semaines en Bretagne dans une famille d'accueil (je suis australienne) et j'ai trouve l'histoire très intéressante. Je souhaite que le Breton devienne plus respecté, car c'est une langue celtique (qui sont rares).
@@borakaraca9788 This is actually literally a Nazi argument
@@micayahritchie7158 no it is not
@@micayahritchie7158 nazis did not want one language in the world they wanted to one race in their country and they wanted bigger country
As a native speaker of lower german I like the fact that I can make sense of the comments in Dutch and Afrikaans
Love your videos, thanks! In answer to your question at the end: I was born Afrikaans, and spoke no other languages initially whilst living just outside of Cape Town, but moved to the UK when I was young and now my English is stronger. Still speak Afrikaans now, but only really with family/old family friends. After reading Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, I have also started to learn Xhosa, in order to show more respect to a wider range of people than just those with the same skin colour as me. Really enjoying the process; kunzima kodwa kumnandi!
You're the most kick-ass language skill teacher that there is Paul!
I'd just like to say props to you on pronunciation mate, it may not be perfect, but you put a hell of a lot more effort in than most foreigners. xD
Luke Watermeyer and than many white South Africans as well. Props
In my country, Morocco, Berber & Arabic are the official languages in the constitution. But in reality, French is widely used in education, business and many other sectors. along with it, standards Arabic especially in administration.. while the spoken lingua franca is Moroccan Arabic (which very different than the standard form), and varieties of Berber depending on the region..
I believe that the standardization and officialization of the spoken languages is much practical and appropriate in term of linguistic justice and identity reconciliation.
muh n mas don't forget the hassani in the south regions of morocco :D
Is Spanish used ?
Joshua G.A No, except from some loan words in our spoken languages.. especially in the north
There may be some sort of fluency in Spanish in cities like Tangiers or Tetouan, which are really close to Ceuta, but that's all. In Ceuta and Melilla, Moroccan Arabic is spoken by nearly half of the population, but without (a much needed) official recognition.
muh n mas okay thanks
the Nguni languages are my favourite African languages by far. I find it interesting that in The Lion King, all the names and words are Swahili (which makes sense because the film is set in something like the Serengeti) but for a language to sing in, they chose Zulu.
wratched they used a South African musician to score the film. That’s why the songs are In Zulu. Fun fact. The Lion King was dubbed into Zulu and released in South Africa in Zulu on the big screen. I actually went to see it.
Lol most of us in South Africa grew up thinking it was an entirely South African production
Despite common belief, my country of the U.S.A. has zero official languages, but individual states and territories are free to declare their own official languages if they see fit. This is often a source of debate in the U.S. as some people believe English should be declared the sole official language, but personally I prefer the individual states deciding linguistic matters as it allows states to be more accountable to their local ethnic groups. While English is the only widely used language in most of the U.S., leaving it open has served well for parts of the country where Spanish, Samoan, Hawaiian, Chamorro, Sioux, Cherokee, etc. are widely used in everyday life and in government. In my state of New Mexico for example, we have no official language, but the state government by law operates in both English and Spanish. All bills, amendments, and government paperwork are presented or made available in both languages, and when you vote, your ballot is printed in both languages. Recently there's also been a push to add Navajo as a third legislative language as well and to add a Navajo song to the list of official New Mexico state songs (We also have English, Spanish, and Spanglish state songs along with an official cowboy state ballot.)
CJ Whitmore in California there is no official language either and say the DMV there are I think pamphlets in about 7 or 8 languages...which is amazing
Really don't know what your point is with this, making something "official" doesn't really mean anything different. All government work (to my knowledge) is done in English, and all schooling, aside from some special schools are done in English. Having something available in both languages is not really like what they have in some countries like Switzerland or Singapore. I wish our country would embrace languages more, many people have little to no interest in learning languages and the way it's taught in schools is absolutely horrendous.
Conquered land from Mexico... and if our officials have an official language we have an official language...
CJ Whitmore I don't think my country, the UK has an official language either but I the individual countries within the UK like Wales and Scotland have Welsh and Gaelic as official languages
I like this just because you mentioned Chamorro. Everyone forgets that Guam is part of the United States.
I lived in South Africa as a child. It's a country so diverse, linguistically and ethnically, that it could almost be it's own planet. A world within a world.
As a South African, that is actually the best way to describe this country🤣🤣.
This episode is more of a closure session for South African. Love it.
The linguistic diversity and history of South Africa is amazing. This was really interesting!
I'm South African.
Really impressed by the accuracy of this video.
I'm Indian and can on;y speak English, although I could probably understand Zulu or Afrikaans if I was spoken to in those languages.
Learned English as an L2 in school and grasped a bit of Zulu from friends.
@Danny Archer my mistake, I meant "I learned Afrikaans as a second language". Good catch. Yes, English was L1.
@@Venolin1 do you speak your native language, Telugu for example?
And South Africa's country motto is in ǀXam, an extinct Khoisan language:
ǃke e꞉ ǀxarra ǁke
"Unity in diversity", although a more literal translation would be "people who are different meet"
I grew up thinking I speak English and Tsonga only to find out that I understood 4 other languages somehow and quickly learned them too(Tsongas are multi lingual by nature)...now I understand 8 of the 9 native languages...Venda is too strong it's like foreign...
My first language is Xhosa. I also speak Zulu. I understand Swazi and Ndebele well. I know and speak English. Thanks for the video as a South African. You forget to mention that Xhosa is the mostly widely distributed language in South Africa. Second biggest in the western cape province. Spoken widely in three metropolitan cities: Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London.
@Siya Manci...Im a Swazi, I speak Siswati, Zulu and Xhosa, I do understand Sesotho and Setswana
Zulu is the most widely spoken language in SA
I wonder if it's due to the more arid regions in the southern and western part of the Eastern Cape, bigger area required per capita? Definitely not the eastern part or Transkei as it was once known, that place is the closest you'll ever get to Narnia.
Impressed by how you nailed the Xhosa pronounciation
I’m a naturalized South African and English is my mother tongue. I often try to speak Afrikaans with Afrikaans speakers, although my British accent often gets in the way.
My mother tongue or rather home language is Afrikaans but my first language is English as I've been educated in English. I have been learning some Xhosa over the past few years as.
What I think you failed to mention in the influence of the huge refugee and immigrant population from Congo, Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, China etc.
You came to SA from the UK?
Pan Kiriyan Yes, I was 16 when I left the U.K.
So did I, 14 years ago and have not regretted one minute of it. Lovely country with lovely people of ALL races
Rob Golding, hah, not for long. The blacks really don't seem to like the White South Africans, it's a very sad situation.
I'm South African, and I speak English at home, Afrikaans with my dad's side of the family, and isiZulu with my Zulu friends and acquaintances. I can get by in isiXhosa, and possibly one of the biggest aspects of my comms generally is a lot of code-switching
Great Video that outlines the great diversity of languages spoken in South Africa.
I love South Africa
Albus Dumbledore me too so awesome and cool there.
well I was born there so of course I love my country
Howzit, Paul. South African here. :)
Thank you very much for an interesting, thorough and informative video!
I'm from Cape Town. English is my mother tongue (although many South Africans would be misled by my surname to believe that it is Afrikaans). We had Afrikaans L2 classes at both the schools I went to in my youth, and Xhosa L2 classes at only one of them. Unfortunately, I left the school with Xhosa classes just as they were starting to delve deeply into the grammatical structure (half way through Grade 8). I also went to Stellenbosch University while it was still a dual-medium Afrikaans/English university. There, I received much exposure to Afrikaans from students and lecturers alike. The result is that my Afrikaans ability far surpasses my Xhosa ability.
You have taught me a few things that I myself didn't know, particularly about certain Southern Bantu languages that one does not hear much about if one does not live in certain regions of South Africa, especially if they are relatively less spoken or spoken about. You also cleared up the language classification of these languages for me nicely.
Like you, I live in Japan (特には、京都府の南の隅っこにある南山城村に) and speak Japanese fluently. As you can imagine, my country of origin is very difficult to explain to Japanese people - its complex diversity, history, language situation, society, culture and racial makeup make being South African far, far harder to define than being Japanese. It also doesn't help that many people know very little about SA (if they even know it by name to begin with - 「アフリカちゃうで。南アフリカ。南アフリカ共和国、とういう国があるんですよ。」, I inform them). One middle-aged man politely asked me if there was still apartheid, and even if there was still slavery!
This video has given me a great, nicely-laid-out source to refer to when explaining South Africa's linguistic situation to people, even if I have to simplify it to an extent.
I am also a major languages freak. My Osakan girlfriend and I love your videos, and we would love to meet you in person some day in Osaka. :)
I'm A Proud African!! Were My Zulu Brothas At??🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦
I'm african, moroccan to be more exact, but obviously not zulu xd
I loved being on the train in Johannesburg and reading all the different languages that scrolled through the screen. Thankfully, I am fluent in English, and understand Sesotho, so I didn't have to wait too long for the language I understood to pop up.
Didn't know much about khoisan languages. Very comprehensive video.
I was waiting for this video so bad!!! Thanks Paul!😊
Another excellent video. I am so glad you have touched on languages with clicks. They are absolutely fascinating.
I remember that once I visited the website of the PANSALB (Pan South African Language Board), which was established in 1995, and there was a comment's section and somebody has written there (not unjustified) the question why almost the whole website (of an organizations that has the aim to protect multilingualism) was in English... That was around 2000, guess in the meantime they made some changes in consideration of more diversity.
I speak Sesotho and I understand tswana , pedi & xhosa. I use Sesotho almost everywhere and I speak english only if the person doesn't understand the languages I know.
But sometimes we do not speak english even if the person does not understand local languages , because they seem to look down on African languages. So we just speak Sesotho. I have realised not accommodating people in english it makes people to respect, learn and speak local languages
when I went to South Africa in 1992, I had very little information about the country, because of sanctions against the government. when I landed in Durban, I had no idea that there was no need to learn Afrikaans, as my household workers spoke isiZulu, and I started on that right away! cheers for your proper pronunciation of Xhosa. anyone who says, "I can't make my mouth go that way," should be told we are all made in God's image, and if one person can click, another, like me, can learn to click.
Great video - I'm Afrikaans/English and learnt Northern Sotho when at school and Uni and as a teacher, I taught Northern Sotho too - still love NS, but no opportunity to speak/teach it.
I'm a native Northern Sotho maybe we could have a chat?
Hey Paul, great video! Been waiting for this for a long time! Thanks brus!
Good well informed article! I am a South African, and enjoyed it.
From my knowledge there is no official language of the United States, but the two most widely spoken languages are English and Spanish but where things really get crazy is when you actually look at the third most widely spoken languages in the US. For example Italian is the third most widely spoken language in the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey while Korean is the third most widely spoken language in Virginia and Georgia. Vietnamese is third most widely spoken language in Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska while Russian is the third most widely spoken language in Oregon.
I am surprised some version of Chinese didn't show up on that list.
What about German or Dutch language? I'm pretty sure Amish people still speak them.
That doesn't really mean much though. Those populations are more often than not, immigrants, and first generation Americans. Sadly many of those communities that I have seen don't retain their languages for more than a couple generations. I don't know you, but depending on where you go in the world you will see some places have signs and announcements in 2, 3, 4 or more languages, that's a rarity here, usually just Spanish and English, with some exceptions of course. Different immigrants from different countries move to different places and tend to congregate to some degree, I think because it is a bit easier than moving somewhere with no one like yourself.
Brandon Redmond Mandarin Chinese is the third most widely spoken language in New York
EternalBlasphemy German is the third most widely spoken language in the Dakotas.
Great video with super accurate and well-researched content! So happy this is here to inform people around the world.
Accurate report, big up to you. From the first sentence to the last, you did a very wonderful job
I speak Swahili and to an extent I understand the languages of South Africa.
Awesome
I would like to know which of the SA languages was more easy to understand?
This video is a hidden gem. One of my favourites so far
My favourite CZcams Channel. Always love seeing your videos and South Africa is one I've been waiting to see for a while.
So good and informative! As always! Thank you!
Great video. I'm an L1 Afrikaans speaker. Among family and friends we generally speak Afrikaans, even when an English person is present, but in the business environment we tend to default to English in a group unless all are Afrikaans.
When I walk into a shop, my default language would depend on the region. In Cape Town's city centre I would speak English by default, but just 50km away, in Stellenbosch, I would default to Afrikaans. Also, the race of the other person would be a factor. If it's a coloured person, I would generally default to Afrikaans regardless of the region, because their L1 is generally Afrikaans.
Your pronunciation of Xhosa sounded good. The click is in the cheeks and it sounded like you did this correctly. Just try to omit the glottal stop after the click and go straight to the voiced vowel.
On another point, my wife is L1 Afrikaans, but teaches grade 2 to supposedly L1 English. It's true, as you say, that some parents of L1 other languages decide to send their kids to English school from grade 1. We believe it's a hiderance. They tend to speak a poor English and it makes it difficult to teach abstract concepts, eg maths. A second language (and soon a 3rd language) is taught anyway, so I don't see the point of forcing your child to be taught in a language that is not spoken at home, at least not in the first few grades.
I'm so impressed with your pronunciation.
Great video on a complicated subject. Thanks, Paul!
I had been wanting a video like this for a long time. Thank you.
The languages that I want to learn are Zulu, Tswana, Sotho, Tsonga, Venda, and Nama.
Paul, I appreciate so much your videos. Here in Brazil, there are many official languages, but not in a national level. In some towns, there are both Portuguese and some indigenous language. I've come to learn one of those. But, primarily in Rio Grande do Sul, people tend to use Portuguese as a second language, as migration languages such as Hunsrik, Pommerish and Talian are still spoken for several families. It would be really amazing if you did a video about these languages. You can find audio samples of all of them in jw.org, including many of the indigenous ones. Congrats again on your really amazing job!
Sorry if I'm saying something wrong, but isn't Portuguese the only language with official status in Brazil? As far as I know, the other 200+ languages spoken within the brazilian teritorry are only officially recognized as existant immigrant, regional, or indigenous languages.
alvaro junqueira I'm from Rio Grande do Sul and I couldn't agree more. Many towns in Brazil are definitely not monolingual and some of them have given official status to local languages.
I really enjoy Paul's videos because they are well-researched and explained. It would be awesome if he did a video about our minority languages!
That's true, but some of them are co-official languages, alongside Portuguese in a local level. Just an example: www.serafinacorrea.rs.gov.br/site/noticia/noticia_detalhe.php?gCdNoticia=406
I'm not trying to make less of the brazilian ethnolinguistic diversity, but I don't think languages other than Portuguese can be considered as "official" in the country. Sure, there are thousands of people in Brazil that speak Italian, German, Polonese, Japanese, among others (or regional variations of these languages) in their eveyday lives as their first language. There are also some schools that teach these languages (usually as an optional subject), but Portuguese always there. However, no official documents are emitted in any language other than Portuguese, the brazilian legislation is written in Portuguese only, national admission tests are exclusively taken in Portuguese, and so on. So, even though they are officially recognized as regional languages, I don't think one can say that they achieved "official status".
That's why I said those languages are not official in a national level. Even though, many of those languages are exclusively spoken in Brazilian, so they ARE Brazilian languages despite there is not a paper with government's seal saying so. Since these are videos that spread information about languages, I thought it would not be wrong to suggest that topic.
Thanks Lang for this educational and insightful video on the languages of South Africa.
One of your best videos, thank you so much for providing this amazing content
always a good moment to see a new video
your research was on point, its as if you grew up here.
Good job. It's a complicated mix of languages and ethnicities, yet you managed to explain it very clearly.
Hi, Paul. Thanks for the content. I am an English speaking South African because I was born in Kwazulu-Natal, but I am considered bilingual because I speak Afrikaans very well and I actually studied my first 2 years of school in Afrikaans. Then I moved to an English school. I also had the opportunity to learn Zulu and Sotho at school. Now I live in South America and I appreciate languages much more. One thing that can be mentioned is that the RP-based South African English has helped me a lot in my line of work and in my travels. English could be considered the main lingua franca in South Africa and the world.
I speak IsiZulu at home and I usually mix it with English (especially with friends).. I also speak a little Afrikaans - learnt it at school as a first additional language. I want to be fluent in the language though because I think it's beautiful ❤
I understand Sesotho and speak it a little since my dad would instruct me in it when I was a kid, and also because I live in the eastern part of Gauteng (just east of Johannesburg) where you find a lot of people from different cultures living in one area.
Other languages I understand include IsiXhosa, Setswana and Sepedi.
Us South Africans (more especially black South Africans from Gauteng) have a tendency of using 3 or more languages in a single sentence 😂
Wow. I am a South African and I must say that your video was really good. You really did a good job not only to do the research, but to know how to pronounce some words. To answer your question, I am an afikaaner and prefer to speak English to everyone I speak to but will speak Afrikaans if the other struggles to be understand English and I know they can understand Afrikaans.
I loved this one! As always, thank you for sharing. 👍😊
I love the fact you paid attention to detail, especially when you come to the language I speak i.e Tsonga/Xitsonga and for that I thank you.
Some few interesting facts:
1) The Xhosas are the Nguni tribe that makes use of the clicks more than any Bantu Tribe. It has about 20% of the San language.
2) The name 'Xhosa' comes from the San language, it means ' Fierce '. Xhosa was a Xhosa King.
3) The first Bantu tribe to fight against colonialism was the Xhosa tribe in 1789 after the cape expansion by the Boers. At that time some Khoisans had already migrated to the Eastern Cape and were allies of the Xhosa who fought together against the British.
4) The longest lasting battles against colonialism in the whole of Africa were the Xhosa wars, named 'Africa's 100 year wars'.
5) The Xhosas did not migrate from the Zulu during the 'Mfecane wars' like the Mpondo, Bhaca, Hlubi and others did.
Just one correction there, Man Tazz. There was never any king called Xhosa, it's a word that was used to describe their appearance. Some traditions say it is from the root word, "qhosha", to describe someone with a "proud bearing".
South African here:
Native: Afrikaans
Fluent: English, Xhosa
Can have a simple conversation: Zulu, Dutch
I use Afrikaans at home and with Afrikaners, I use isiXhosa when I meet amaXhosa (Xhosa people), Zulu with amaZulu, and English with people I don't know the language. And also the TV is mostly in English, and I'm in an English sleaking college (like most colleges in South Africa)
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for presenting so clearly and simply. Easy to follow and understand
Hi from Cape Town :D Great vid.
QOTD:
First language English, white South African. Living in Cape Town/Western Cape I feel like many many first language English speakers get away with only knowing English, and have very little pressure at all to learn other languages. We learn Afrikaans in school, but not enough to achieve fluency. I know a little bit of xhosa. I use it when talking to ethnic xhosas I meet, and other people who have learnt is as well. I also know a fair amount of Afrikaans but I always get told I have a terrible accent. Thanks for the video!
I’m fluent in both Afrikaans and English, I grew up in a very Afrikaans area farmlands.
I also went to an English only school for half of my primary school and then the other half Afrikaans only school.
When I went to high school my school was dual medium as well as bi- lingual and all my classes were in both languages.
Note not all schools are like that but my school was the exception!
Today I use English more as I now live overseas due to crime and BEE policies that restrict me from getting jobs due to race.
But when I call home I speak only Afrikaans to my friends as to not loose the language.
Afrikaans is such a beautiful language to express yourself with, it’s also very poetic in the way it describes scenes and words using synonyms and sayings to express feelings and thoughts!
Glad you were able to escape. Good luck to you. Hopefully all the whites can get evacuated to safe countries soon.
So, basically, to undo racism in the past, South-Africa has again become racist agian, but this time against the whites? that's stupid.
MrWheelman82 it's just Zimbabwe 2: cutting them whity boogaloo
Live by the sword, die by the sword. The pale-skinned so called "whites" apparently can´t take what they´ve been dishing out for the last 500 years. Boo-hoo!
RickyboyH last time I checked, almost all of Africa was conquered by whity. You wouldn't be typing shit on a piece of Western/East Asian technology if the Europeans had the same mindset as you, you'd be part of the tribes that disappeared long ago. Also, keep crying oppression and "help, gibs!" whenever other "brothers" of yours start mowing you down. I'm sure there will be plenty of people left to help you
There are 23 officially recognized languages in India at the last count, including English as a second language. A very small percentage of the population also speaks English as a first language, mainly the fast diminishing mixed parentage community called Anglo Indians, a relic from the British colonial days. Most of us are bilingual if not multilingual.
Of these 23 officially recognized languages, 17 appear in native script on every rupee note. These are: Hindi and English (main texts) and the denomination mentioned in a list on the obverse side in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In addition to these 17, six others also have official status: Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Santali and Sindhi.
Hindi is by far the majority language with 42.2% native speakers across the country. This is followed by English as a second language with varying degrees of proficiency at 12.6%. Then come Bengali (8.3%), Telugu (7.4%), Marathi (7.2%), Tamil (7.0%) and Urdu (5.1%). With a total population of 1324 million and counting, those percentages work out to very large numbers.
I'm Venda. A very good summary there Paul. I can and do converse in all eleven languages quite well, in fact my work in social research even reinforced what was already there. One even switches from one language to another without it registering.
I guess like everywhere else it is often those from there more dominant linguistic groups that tend to expect the smaller groups to adapt and assimilate. Hola Mzansi.
Well researched video, thank you 😊 my family are from SA and can speak English and Afrikaans. My cousins are also orally fluent in Zulu from the staff that took care of them as young children. A very interesting linguistic mélange.
In Brazil there's only Portuguese, and most people speak it. But there are needing of promote indigenous languages and european dialects evolved in Brazil like german Pomeranian and Hünsrik and italian Venetian (Talian)
South Africa is one of countries has the most first languages I've known :-0
Hoàng Kim Việt I swear I saw your comments on a lot of videos though, not just this one... strange
Khang Nguyễn Quốc Thì đúng rồi :-0
He said one of, he didnt say it was the country with the most. Lmao, calm down jeez
OMG, TIL this about S.Africa as I only assumed 4-6 main languages colonial and native
the Philippines has over 150 different languages that arent even mutually inteligible
Very cool video Paul, one of the best youtubers on this site :)
Great video !!! Well researched ! As a south african I endorse this video 👌awesome xhosa pronunciation (It's my first language)👍
Props for actually pronouncing the click in Xhosa
Really love your videos!
Cheers, Kold!
Langfocus Likewise Paul! Your videos are always a pleasure to watch. Very informative. Keep up the outstanding work!
I spent two years learning isiZulu for my line of work. While I am far from conversational, I did have to learn to pronounce the clicks correctly. Your pronunciation is pretty good :) The 'h' following a click sound like a 'c', 'x' or 'q' softens the click, and you have to breathe through the sound a little more. Great video!
Though this is 5 years after posting, this was brilliant!! Thank you
I'm South African, my mother tongue is a dialect of Northern Sotho called Seroka. I speak Northern Sotho, Sesotho, isiZulu, TshiVenda, SiSwati English, Afrikaans and Setswana fluently. I communicate fairly in all other languages and I understand them clearly
that is very good
This video felt more like a history lesson, anyway great job as always keep it up 👍
Nicu Nicul yes, but history not many know !
thanks for posting! i'm suprised this video doesn't have more views, though! the language diversity of SA is what peaked my interest in languages. once again thanks for the video.
*piqued
Your knowledge is unmatched. Well presented