Fact 44: what is Afrikaans ?

 

  

Fact 44: what is Afrikaans?

Afrikaans is Pronounced a·fruh·kaans.

Afrikaans is a language.

Afrikaans is a language that is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia.

Afrikaans is spoken by an estimated 17.5 million people.

Afrikaans and English are the only two *Indo-European languages* among the many official languages of South Africa.

*The Indo-European language family has four major living strands Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Italic.*

Afrikaans is a West Germanic language that devolved into the *Dutch Cape Colony*.

*Dutch United East India Company colony in Southern Africa.*

Afrikaans descended from Dutch and *Zulu languages* from the 17th and 18th centuries. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, *the Low Franconian languages.* Other West Germanic languages related (descended or influenced) by Afrikaans are German, English, the *Frisian languages*, and the unstandardized languages of Low German (this is also referred to as Low Saxon) and Yiddish (spoken by Ashkenazi Jews).

*The Zulu language is spoken by 12 million native speakers most of which live in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.*

*The Low Franconian languages is a collective term used for West Germanic languages this can sometimes be referred to as Netherlandic.*

*Frisian people live in the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany*

The related fact that used the Afrikaans word Aardvark.