There are eleven official
languages of South Africa:
Afrikaans,
English,
Ndebele,
Northern Sotho,
Sotho,
Swazi,
Tsonga,
Tswana,
Venda,
Xhosa and
Zulu. Fewer than two percent of South Africans speak a
first language other than an official one. Most South Africans
can speak more than one language.
Dutch and English were the first
official languages of
South Africa from 1910 to 1925. Afrikaans was
added as a part of Dutch in 1925, although in practice, Afrikaans effectively replaced Dutch, which fell into disuse. When South Africa became a republic in 1961 the official relationship changed such that Afrikaans was considered to include Dutch, and Dutch was dropped in 1984, so between 1984 and 1994, South Africa had two official languages: English and Afrikaans.