FIFA World Cup 2010: what language is spoken in South Africa?
The FIFA World Cup is being held this year in the southernmost country of the African continent - the Republic of South Africa (South Africa). Now football fans will be able to discover this mysterious country, with its African exoticism, rich culture and traditions. This 50 million state is striking not only in the coexistence of a developed economy and a high standard of living with shocking customs of shamans, but also in its linguistic and ethnic diversity. It's hard to imagine, but 11 different languages are recognized at the state level in South Africa! Of course, a person with a minimum knowledge of English, who first arrived in this amazing country, will not have problems with communication, since English is among the 11 official languages. However, what alternatives are there if you want to explore the customs and sights of outlying areas between matches?
Afrikaans, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Sepedi, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana and Venda are not spells at all, but the names of South African languages, all written in the Latin script. Fans from the Netherlands are the luckiest ones - they can understand Afrikaans speakers effortlessly. The fact is that the Afrikaans language originated from Dutch, which was spoken by the first Dutch settlers on the Cape Peninsula, its development was influenced by the local tribes of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and many other factors. Now Afrikaans is used by about 6 million people in the Western and Northern Cape provinces, in the west of the Free State, in cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and others. A monument to the Afrikaans language has even been erected in the Western Cape of South Africa. "Sawubona" is the greeting in the Zulu language, which is spoken by about 10 million people in South Africa. The name of this language comes from the Zulu people living in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. The people, in turn, received this name (“amaZulu” - “children of heaven”) at the beginning of the 18th century, when around 1709 the Zulu cantombela, the leader of the tribe, founded his kingdom. Now Zulu is the main language after English and is spoken in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. "KwaZulu" means "the place where the Zulus live" and "Natal" means "Christmas". Vasco da Gama first landed on this coast of South Africa around Christmas, which is why he gave this newly discovered territory such a name. It is still called Zululand. Among South Africans, it is considered the most beautiful part of the country. The capital of this province is the city of Durban, located on the coast of the Indian Ocean. The Xhosa language (Khosa, Isikosa) is spoken by about 7.9 million people (about 18% of the country's population). The Xhosa language belongs to the Nguni group of the northeastern zone of the Bantu language family. Kosa has the Gtsalek and Hayka dialects. You can greet a Xhosa representative with a short "Molo", which means "Hello". Southern Ndebele is a Bantu language (subgroup of Nguni) spoken in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo. Ndebele comes from the Zulu language. When one of Chaka's Zulu warlords, Mzilikazi, with his Ndebele clan rebelled against him and established his own kingdom of Matabeleland, his people also used the Zulu language. Part of the clan settled in the region of modern Pretoria, where the southern Ndebele was formed on the basis of the Zulu language and the Sotho-Tswana languages. Most of the Ndebele settled in the territory of modern Zimbabwe and gave rise to the northern Ndebele. The painted houses of the Ndebele are most famous. In 1997, British Airways used Ndebele patterns to decorate several aircraft. And it was the Ndebele style that was used to create the flag of South Africa.
This is only a small amount of information about the diversity of languages and peoples of South Africa, all the wealth can only be imagined when meeting on the spot. And since the Russian team is not participating in the World Cup this year, GS Translation and the Center for Simultaneous Translation wish more goals for the hosts of the Championship.
