Afrikaans is an official national language of South Africa. It belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is used as a language of instruction in education.
At a Glance
Geography
Clickable world globe showing country outlines
Population
1M to 1B
Details
This graph provides a simplified visual comparison between the number of users of this language and the global population. The following are the possible population ranges displayed in Starter Ethnologue:
1 billion plus - this language has more than 1 billion total users
1 million to 1 billion - this language has between 1 million and 1 billion total users
10K to 1 million - this language has between 10 thousand and 1 million total users
10 thousand or less - this language has between 1 and 10 thousand total users
None - this language has no users
Language Vitality
Details
This graph shows the vitality of Afrikaans.
Institutional — The language has been developed to the point that it is used and sustained by institutions beyond the home and community.
Stable — The language is not being sustained by formal institutions, but it is still the norm in the home and community that all children learn and use the language.
Endangered — It is no longer the norm that children learn and use this language.
Extinct - The language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language.
These four summary levels have been derived by grouping levels in the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), which is the more fine-grained scale that Ethnologue uses to assess the status of every language in terms of development versus endangerment; see Language Status for a description of the levels of that scale. See also the pages on Development and Endangerment for more discussion.
Digital Language Support
Details
This graph shows the level of digital support for this language (as measured by the method described here.
Still — this language shows no signs of digital support
Emerging — the language has some content in digital form and/or encoding tools
Ascending — the language has some spell checking or localized tools or machine translation as well
Vital — the language is supported by multiple tools in all of the above categories and as well as some speech processing
Thriving — the language has all of the above plus virtual assistants
This section reports contributions that have been received for the Ethnologue description of this language. Please read the community norms page for more information on contributing.
