Other languages spoken here and mentioned in the Constitution are the Khoi, Nama and San languages, sign language, Arabic, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu. Its democratic Constitution, which came into effect on 4 February 1997, recognises 11 official languages, to which the state guarantees equal status.īesides the official languages, scores of others – African, European, Asian and more – are spoken in South Africa, as the country lies at the crossroads of southern Africa. South African English, for example, is littered with words and phrases from Afrikaans, Zulu, Nama and other African languages.
South Africa’s population diversity means all 11 languages have had a profound effect on each other.
