Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from Dutch and thus classified as Low Franconian West Germanic. It is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers living in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, Taiwan and Argentina. Due to emigration and migrant labour, there are possibly over 100,000 Afrikaans speakers in the United Kingdom, with other substantial communities found in Brussels, Amsterdam, Perth, Mount Isa, Toronto and Auckland. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaners and the Coloureds or kleurlinge or bruinmense (including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua).

Geographically, the Afrikaans language is the majority language of the western one-third of South Africa (Northern and Western Cape, spoken at home by 69% and 58%, respectively). It is also the largest first language in the adjacent southern third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 44% and 40%, respectively).

Afrikaans and Dutch are largely mutually intelligible. more...

케이프타운 여행 Capetown Tour		2009-02-27