Where Afrikaans is spoken
Afrikaans is spoken in 6 countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and 2 more. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.
| Country | Share of population | Estimated speakers |
|---|---|---|
| South Africa | 13% | 7,857,538 |
| Namibia | 75% | 2,102,745 |
| Botswana | 0.2% | 5,882 |
| Mozambique | Not given | Not given |
| Zambia | Not given | Not given |
| Zimbabwe | Not given | Not given |
Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.
On the map, Afrikaans is drawn as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007. The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18613195), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks Afrikaans.
How many people speak Afrikaans?
Wikidata gives about 7.2 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2016). It also lists about 10.3 million second-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2002). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.
Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.
Where Afrikaans sits in the language family tree
Glottolog classifies Afrikaans as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Northwest Germanic
- West Germanic
- Macro-Dutch
- Middle-Modern Dutch
- Modern Dutch
- Global Dutch
- Afrikaansic
- Afrikaans
Related languages
Other languages in the Afrikaansic group:
More about Afrikaans
- Read about Afrikaans on Wikipedia
- Indo-European languages map
- Languages spoken in South Africa
- All languages, A to Z
Codes: ISO 639-3 afr, Glottolog afri1274. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.
Questions about Afrikaans
Where is Afrikaans spoken?
Afrikaans is spoken in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and 2 more. Unicode CLDR puts it at 13% of the population of South Africa, which is about 7,857,538 people. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.
How many people speak Afrikaans?
Wikidata gives about 7.2 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2016). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled. It also lists about 10.3 million second-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2002).
Which language family is Afrikaans in?
Glottolog places Afrikaans in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, Macro-Dutch, Middle-Modern Dutch, Modern Dutch, Global Dutch and Afrikaansic.