South Africa has 12 official languages and a multilingual population fluent in at least two. IsiZulu and isiXhosa are the largest languages. English is spoken at home by under 9% of the population, two-thirds of them not white.
Mixed with over a dozen African languages for over two centuries, spiced by imports from British, Dutch and Portuguese colonies, South African English has its own rich, varied and sometimes weird flavour.
It took one day for young South Africans to change the course of the country’s history. The day was 16 June 1976. Here is an hour-by-hour account of the 1976 Soweto students’ uprising.
Key facts on South Africa’s currency, time, geography, population, languages, provinces, government and education.
You must be logged in to post a comment.