South africa
The country's democratic constitution, which came into effect on 4 February 1997, recognises 11 official languages, to which the state guarantees equal status.
|SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGES 2001 |
|Language |Number of speakers* |% of total |
|Afrikaans |5 983 420 |13.35% |
|English |3 673 206 |8.2% |
|IsiNdebele |711 825 |1.59% |
|IsiXhosa |7 907 149 |17.64% |
|IsiZulu |10 677 315 |23.82% |
|Sesotho sa Leboa |4 208 974 |9.39% |
|Sesotho |3 555 192 |7.93% |
|Setswana |3 677 010 |8.2% |
|SiSwati |1 194 433 |2.66% |
|Tshivenda |1 021 761 |2.28% |
|Xitsonga |1 992 201 |4.44% |
|Other