1.
Culture of South Africa
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The culture of South Africa is known for its ethnic and cultural diversity. The South African majority still has a number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among people, however, that cultural traditions survive most strongly, as South Africans have become increasingly urbanized and Westernised. Urban South Africans usually speak English or Afrikaans in addition to their native language, there are smaller but still significant groups of speakers of Khoisan languages, not included in the eleven official languages, but are one of the eight other officially recognised languages. Members of the middle class often study and work abroad for greater exposure to the markets of the world, the first Indians arrived on the Truro ship as indentured labourers in Natal to work the Sugar Cane Fields, while the rest arrived as traders. A post-apartheid wave of South Asian immigration has also influenced South African Indian culture, there is a much smaller Chinese South African community, made up of early immigrants, apartheid-era immigrants from Taiwan, and post-apartheid immigrants from mainland China. The oldest art objects in the world were discovered in a South African cave, dating from 75,000 years ago, these small drilled snail shells could have no other function than to have been strung on a string as a necklace. South Africa was one of the cradles of the human species, One of the defining characteristics of our species is the making of art. The scattered tribes of Khoisan peoples moving into South Africa from around 10,000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings and they were superseded by Bantu and Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. In the 20th century, traditional forms of art were scattered and re-melded by the divisive policies of apartheid. New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships, a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes, contemporary South Africa has a stellar art scene, with artists receiving international recognition. Contemporary South African artists whose work has met with international acclaim include Marlene Dumas. The architecture of South Africa mirrors the vast ethnic and cultural diversity of the country, in addition, influences from other distant countries have contributed to the variety of the South African architectural landscape. Herbert Baker, among the countrys most influential architects, designed the Union Buildings in Pretoria, other buildings of note include the Rhodes memorial and St Georges Cathedral in Cape Town, and St Johns College in Johannesburg. Cape Dutch architecture was prominent in the days of the Cape Colony. The style has roots in medieval Holland, Germany, France, the rural landscape of South Africa is populated with traditional and European-influenced African architecture. There are 11 national languages in South Africa, many of the first black South African print authors were missionary-educated, and many thus wrote in either English or Afrikaans. One of the first well known novels written by an author in an African language was Solomon Thekiso Plaatjes Mhudi
2.
History of South Africa
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The history of South Africa starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The discoveries also led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and imperial Britain, fought essentially for control over the nascent South African mining industry. The country became a nation state within the British Empire in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The dominion came to an end on 31 May 1961 in consequence of a 1960 referendum, from 1948 to 1994, South African politics were dominated by Afrikaner nationalism. It was an extension of segregationist legislation enacted in 1960, since then the ANC has dominated the politics of the country in an uneasy alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago, Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in the Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves. The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a area of southern Africa. At the Blombos cave Professor Raymond Dart discovered the skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, in further research at the Blombos cave in 2002, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago. This has been interpreted as the earliest example ever discovered of abstract art or symbolic art created by Homo sapiens, many more species of early hominid have come to light in recent decades. The oldest is Little Foot, a collection of footbones of an unknown hominid between 2.2 and 3.3 million years old, discovered at Sterkfontein by Ronald J. Clarke. An important recent find was that of 1.9 million year old Australopithecus sediba, in 2015, the discovery near Johannesburg of a previously unknown species of Homo was announced, named Homo naledi. It has been described as one of the most important paleontological discoveries in modern times, the descendants of the Middle Paleolithic populations are thought to be the aboriginal San and Khoikhoi tribes. The San and Khoikhoi are grouped under the term Khoisan, and are distinguished only by their respective occupations. Whereas the San were hunter-gathers, the Khoikhoi were pastoral herders, archaeological discoveries of livestock bones on the Cape Peninsula indicate that the Khoikhoi began to settle there by about 2000 years ago. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Portuguese mariners, later, English and Dutch seafarers in the late 16th and 17th centuries exchanged metals for cattle and sheep with the Khoikhoi. The initial origin of the Khoikhoi remains uncertain, the establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought the Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership. Cattle rustling and livestock theft ensued, with the Khoikhoi being ultimately expelled from the peninsula by force, the first Khoikhoi-Dutch War broke out in 1659, the second in 1673, and the third 1674–1677. The disease had brought to the Cape by Dutch sailors
3.
Ethnic groups in South Africa
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The Act defines black as referring to Africans, coloureds and Indians. Apartheid and the identification which underpinned it explicitly linked race with differential access to resources. This was the reasoning that led to a question about race or population group in both the 1996 and 2001 population censuses, and in Statistics SAs household survey programme. The 2011 census figures for these categories were African at 76. 4%, White at 9. 1%, Coloured at 8. 9%, Asian at 2. 5%, and Other/Unspecified at 0. 5%. Statistics South Africa provided five racial categories by which people could classify themselves, the last of which, unspecified/other drew negligible responses, and these results were omitted. The 2010 midyear estimated figures for the categories were African at 78. 4%, White at 10. 2%, Coloured at 8. 8%. The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population, bantu-speaking people of South Africa By far the major part of the population classifies itself as African or black, but it is not culturally or linguistically homogeneous. Major ethnic groups include the Zulu, Xhosa, Basotho, Bapedi, Venda, Tswana, Tsonga, Swazi and Ndebele, some, such as the Zulu, Xhosa, and Bapedi are unique to South Africa. Other groups are distributed across the borders with neighbours of South Africa, the Tswana ethnic group constitute the majority of the population of Botswana. The Swazi ethnic group is the ethnic group in Swaziland. A part of the Zulu ethnic group is found in Matabeleland in Zimbabwe. These Ndebele people are the descendants of a Zulu faction under the warrior Mzilikazi that escaped persecution from Shaka during the Mfecane by migrating to their current territory, the Tsonga ethnic group is also found in southern Mozambique, where they are known as the Shangaan. As of the calculations of 2004, there are 34,216,164 Black Africans and 8,625,050 Black African households residing in South Africa, the Black South African population density is 29/km². The density of Black households is 7/km², Black South Africans make up 79. 0% of the total population. The percentage of all Black South African households that are made up of individuals is 19. 9%, the average Black household size is 4.11 members. In South Africa, the Black population is out with 34. 0% under the age of 15,21. 6% from 15 to 24,28. 3% from 25 to 44,11. 8% from 45 to 64. The median age of a Black African is 21 years, for every 100 Black females there are 91.1 Black males. For every 100 Black females age 18 and over, there are 86.2 Black males, overall,22. 0% of Black Africans have completed high school
4.
Afrikaans
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Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Hence, it is a language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as Cape Dutch or kitchen Dutch. Although, it is described as a creole, a partially creolised language the least. The term is derived from Dutch Afrikaans-Hollands meaning African Dutch. It is the first language of most of the Afrikaner and Coloured people of Southern Africa, therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in the more analytic morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and a spelling that expresses Afrikaans pronunciation rather than standard Dutch. There is a degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form. With about 7 million native speakers in South Africa, or 13. 5% of the population and it has the widest geographical and racial distribution of all the eleven official languages of South Africa, and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language. About 1. 5% of black South Africans speak it as their first language, large numbers of speakers of Bantu languages and English-speaking South Africans also speak it as their second language. It is taught in schools, with about 10.3 million second-language students and it, along with German, was among the official languages of Namibia until the country became independent in 1990, 25% of the population of Windhoek spoke Afrikaans at home. Both Afrikaans and German survive as recognised regional languages in the country, estimates of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million. The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony, through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects, there is a degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, particularly in written form. Nevertheless, Dutch speakers are confronted with fewer non-cognates when listening to Afrikaans than the way round. Mutual intelligibility thus tends to be asymmetrical, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch, in general, mutual intelligibility between Dutch and Afrikaans is better than between Dutch and Frisian or between Danish and Swedish. The workers and slaves who contributed to the development of Afrikaans were Asians and Malagasys, as well as the Khoi, San, and Bantu peoples who also lived in the area. African creole people in the early 18th century — documented on the cases of Hendrik Bibault, Only much later in the second half of the 19th century did the Boers adopt this attribution, too. The Khoi and mixed-race groups became collectively referred to as Coloureds, beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with the Arabic alphabet, see Arabic Afrikaans. Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin alphabet, started to appear in newspapers and political, in 1925, Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a real language, rather than simply a slang version of Dutch proper. Before the Boer Wars, and indeed for some time afterwards, rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as ‘a kitchen language’ or as ‘a bastard jargon, suitable for communication mainly between the Boers and their servants
5.
Southern Ndebele language
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The Transvaal Ndebele language is an African language belonging to the Nguni group of Bantu languages, and spoken by the amaNdebele. There is also another language called Zimbabwean Ndebele, or Matabele, spoken in Zimbabwe, king Musi was a polygamist and fathered the following sons, Skhosana, Manala, Ndzundza, Thombeni, Sibasa, Mhwaduba and Mphafuli and others. Ndebele is one of the official languages in the Republic of South Africa. The language is a Nguni or Zunda classification spoken mostly in the Mpumalanga Province, Gauteng, Limpopo, the expression isikhethu can be loosely translated to mean the Ndebele way of doing or saying. Isikhethu means Ndebele the same way that sikitsi will mean Swazi, the language has been severely marginalised over the years. Until the formation of the apartheid Ndebele homeland, speaking the language publicly was discouraged, most Ndebele speakers preferred Zulu especially because the latter was learned at school. Months in Ndebele The two Ndebele groups are part of the Nguni language group and are therefore mutually intelligible to some extent. However, the Zimbabwean Ndebele is part of the Zunda sub-group of the Nguni languages while the South African, while maintaining its Nguni roots, has been influenced by the Sotho languages
6.
Northern Sotho
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Northern Sotho is a Bantu language spoken primarily in South Africa, where it is one of the 11 official languages. According to the 2011 census it was the first language of 4,618,576 people in South Africa, principally in the provinces of Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Urban varieties of Northern Sotho, such as Pretoria Sotho, have acquired clicks in a process of such sounds spreading from Nguni languages. Northern Sotho is one of the Sotho languages of the Bantu family, Northern Sotho is thus most closely related to Sesotho, Setswana, sheKgalagari and siLozi. Lobedu exists only in a form, and the standard Northern Sotho language. The monarch associated with this community is Queen Modjadji. Lobedu is spoken mainly in the area of Modjadjiskloof in the Limpopo Province and its speakers are known as the Balobedu. Sepulana also exists in form and forms part of the standard Northern Sotho. Sepulana is spoken in Bushbuckridge area by the Mapulana people, Northern Sotho has often been equated with its major component Sepedi, and continued to be known as Pedi or Sepedi for some years after the new South African constitution appeared. However, the Pan South African Language Board and the Northern Sotho National Lexicography Unit now specifically prefer, apart from Sepedi itself, the other languages or dialects covered by the term Northern Sotho appear to be a diverse grouping of communal speech-forms within the Sotho-Tswana group. They are apparently united by the fact that they are neither as Southern Sotho nor as Tswana. Maho leaves SePhalaborwa and the East Sotho varieties of SeKutswe, SePai and their precise classification would appear to be a matter for further research. Some examples of Northern Sotho words and phrases, slang jargon Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, world Atlas of Language Structures Online
7.
Sotho language
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Like all Bantu languages, Sesotho is an agglutinative language, which uses numerous affixes and derivational and inflexional rules to build complete words. Within the Sotho-Tswana group, Sesotho proper is most closely related to Lozi, the Northern Sotho group is geographical, and includes a number of dialects also closely related to Sesotho-Lozi. Tswana is also known as Western Sesotho, Sotho is a tribal suffix, i. e. the name of the Sotho people or Basotho, while Sesotho is the term for the language of the Basotho. Use of Sesotho rather than Sotho language in English has seen increasing use since the 1980s, especially in South African English, the Nguni language Phuthi has been heavily influenced by Sesotho, its speakers have mixed Nguni and Sotho–Tswana ancestry. It seems that it is sometimes treated erroneously as a dialect of Sesotho called Sephuthi, however, Phuthi is mutually unintelligible with standard Sesotho and thus cannot in any sense be termed a dialect of it. These were the first peoples to be called Basotho, before many of their descendants, the situation is even further complicated by various historical factors, such as members of parent clans joining their descendants or various clans calling themselves by the same names. According to the South African National Census of 2011, there were almost four million first language Sesotho speakers recorded in South Africa – approximately eight per cent of the population. Sesotho is also the language spoken by the people of Lesotho. The census fails, to record other South Africans for whom Sesotho is a second or third language, such speakers are found in all major residential areas of Metropolitan Municipalities - such as Johannesburg, and Tshwane - where multilingualism and polylectalism are very high. Sesotho is one of the official languages of South Africa. Sesotho is one of the languages from which the pseudo-language Tsotsitaal is derived. Tsotsitaal is not a language, as it is primarily a unique vocabulary. It is a part of the culture in most Southern Gauteng townships and is the primary language used in Kwaito music. The sound system of Sesotho is unusual in many respects and it has ejective consonants, click consonants, a uvular trill, a relatively large number of affricate consonants, no prenasalised consonants, and a rare form of vowel-height harmony. In total, the language contains some 39 consonantal and 9 vowel phonemes and it also has a large number of complex sound transformations which often change the phones of words due to the influence of other sounds. The most striking properties of Sesotho grammar, and the most important properties which reveal it as a Bantu language, are its noun gender, the grammatical gender system does not encode sex gender, and indeed, Bantu languages in general are not grammatically marked for gender. Another well-known property of the Bantu languages is their agglutinative morphology, additionally, they tend to lack any grammatical case systems, indicating noun roles almost exclusively through word order. Sotho calendar Sotho people South African Translators Association Sesotho Online A gentle introduction to the Sesotho language, weblog on Sesotho Translate. org. za Project translating Free and Open Source Software into South African languages, including Sesotho
8.
Swazi language
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The Swazi or Swati language is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Swaziland and South Africa by the Swazi people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 3 million, the language is taught in Swaziland and some South African schools in Mpumalanga, particularly former KaNgwane areas. Swazi is a language of Swaziland, and is also one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. Although the preferred term is Swati among native speakers, in English it is referred to as Swazi. Swazi spoken in Swaziland can be divided into four dialects corresponding to the four regions of the country, Hhohho, Lubombo, Manzini. Swazi has at least two varieties, the standard, prestige variety spoken mainly in the north, centre and southwest of the country, in the far south, especially in towns such as Nhlangano and Hlatikhulu, the variety of the language spoken is significantly influenced by iSiZulu. Many Swazis, including those in the south who speak this variety and this is what may be referred to as the second dialect in the country. The sizeable number of Swazi speakers in South Africa are considered by Swaziland Swazi speakers to speak a form of the language. Unlike the variant in the south of Swaziland, the Mpumalanga variety appears to be influenced by Zulu. However, this Mpumalanga variety is distinguishable by distinct intonation, intonation patterns in Mpumalanga Swazi are often considered discordant to the Swazi ear. This South African variety of Swazi is considered to influence from other South African languages spoken close to Swazi. A feature of the prestige variety of Swazi is the royal style of slow, heavily stressed enunciation. Swazi does not distinguish between places of articulation in its clicks, any of them may be dental or alveolar. It does, however, distinguish five or six manners of articulation and of manner, including tenuis, aspirated, voiced, nasal, other consonants are /ɓ, bʱ, ɡ, kʰ, kʼ, n/. The Swazi noun consists of two parts, the prefix and the stem. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, the following table gives an overview of Swazi noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs. 1 umu- replaces um- before monosyllabic stems, e. g. umuntfu,2 s- and t- replace si- and ti- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e. g. sandla/tandla. 3 The placeholder N in the prefixes iN- and tiN- for m, n or no letter at all, baphiwe ingcondvo nekucondza kanye nanembeza ngakoke bafanele batiphatse nekutsi baphatse nalabanye ngemoya webuzalwane
9.
Tswana language
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The Tswana language, Setswana, is a language spoken in southern Africa by about five million people. Tswana is a language and lingua franca of Botswana. The two South African provinces with largest number of speakers are Gauteng Province and North West Province, until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana, one of the bantustans of the apartheid regime. The first European to describe the Tswana language was the German traveller H. Lichtenstein and he mistakenly regarded Tswana as a dialect of the Xhosa language, and the name he used for the language Beetjuana may also have covered the Northern- and Southern Sotho languages. In the following years he published other books of the Bible. Masego was the first to speak the language, the first grammar of the Tswana language was published in 1833 by the missionary James Archbell, although it was modelled on a Xhosa grammar. The first grammar of Tswana which regarded it as a language from Xhosa was published by the French missionary E. Casalis in 1841. He changed his mind later, and in a publication from 1882 he noted that the Northern-, in 1876 the South African intellectual and linguist Solomon Plaatje was born, and he became one of the first writers to extensively write in and about the Tswana language. The vowel inventory of Tswana can be seen below, some dialects have two additional vowels, the close-mid vowels /e/ and /o/. The consonant inventory of Tswana can be seen below, the consonant /d/ is merely an allophone of /l/, when the latter is followed by the vowels /i/ or /u/. Tswana also has three click consonants, but these are used in interjections or ideophones, and tend only to be used by the older generation. The three click consonants are the dental click /ǀ/, orthographically ⟨c⟩, the lateral click /ǁ/, orthographically ⟨x⟩, there are some minor dialectal variations among the consonants between speakers of Tswana. For instance, /χ/ is realised as either /x/ or /h/ by many speakers, /f/ is realised as /h/ in most dialects, and /tɬ/ and /tɬʰ/ are realised as /t/ and /tʰ/ in northern dialects. Stress is fixed in Tswana and thus falls on the penult of a word. The syllable on which the falls is lengthened. Tswana has two tones, high and low, although the latter has a wider distribution in words than the former. Tones are not marked orthographically which may lead to ambiguity, if a syllable bears a high tone, the following two syllables will also get high tones, unless they are at the end of the word. The nine classes and their respective prefixes can be seen below, some nouns may be found in several classes
10.
Tsonga language
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Tsonga is a southern African Bantu language spoken by the Tsonga people. It was officially created in 1875 at the Valdezia Mission Station, the Swiss Missionaries refused to recognise Tswa and Ronga as independent languages from Xitsonga because, according to them, Tswa and Ronga are 99% related to Xitsonga. At Valdezia Mission Station and the Elim Mission Station, Tswa, but in Mozambique, Tswa, Ronga and Xitsonga continue to exist as independent languages. The name Tsonga is the root of Xitsonga, Mutsonga, Vatsonga, in the language of the Vatsonga themselves, the root never appears by itself. It is Tsonga for the ease and accessibility of the international community. As for the origins of the name, there are three theories, the first states that Tsonga is another pronunciation for Dzonga, which means south and also the name of one of the dialects of Xitsonga. The second theory is that is comes from Thonga, the Zulu way of saying slave, why the people would be called slaves is unclear. The other Zulu explanation is that Zulu people have difficulty pronouncing r, however, rh in Tsonga becomes th in Zulu. An example is rhuma becomes thuma, the third and most accepted is that it is another pronunciation for Rhonga, the root for the word vurhonga for east or the direction where the sun rises. Vurhonga also means morning in Xitsonga, Rhonga is one of the Tsonga languages. The physical evidence of most Tsonga people residing along the eastern coast of Africa in the south, extending inland in a westward direction, Tsonga people and languages are, Chopi, Gwamba, Ndau, Ronga, Tonga and Tswa. Among these languages, three groups can be identified. These are S50, S60, and Ndau language, currently falling under the Shona group, in total there are six recognised languages. Chope Group Chopi dialects are Copi, Khambani, Lambwe, Lenge, Ndonge, Ndau Group Ndau dialects are Changa, Danda, Dondo, Gova, Ndau, and Tswa-Ronga Group Ronga dialects are Kalanga, Konde, Putru, and Ssonge. Gwamba dialects are Bila, Changana, Djonga, Hlanganu, Hlave, Kande, Khosa, Luleke, Nwalungu, Nkuma, Songa, Valoyi, Xika, Tswa dialects are Dzibi, Dzibi-Dzonga, Tshwa, Hlengwe, Khambani, Makwakwe-Khambani, Mandla, Ndxhonge, and Nhayi. Some dialects are subdialects but have been mentioned here for completeness, for example, Valoyi and Luleke comprise the Nwalungu dialect. There is no Gwamba dialect as Gwamba is another name for Xitsonga itself, formally Xitsonga has been called Gwamba. Tswa-Ronga dialects not considered part of the family include Pulana and it has been said that the two dialects that unite all Tswa-Ronga languages are Nkuna and Khosa
11.
Venda language
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Venda, also known as Tshivenḓa or Luvenḓa, is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. It is mainly spoken by the Venda people in the part of South Africas Limpopo Province. The Venda language is related to Kalanga which is spoken in Botswana, during the Apartheid era of South Africa, the bantustan of Venda was set up to cover the Venda speakers of South Africa. The total number of speakers in Vhembe district currently stands at 844,000, in Gauteng province, there are 275,000 Venda speakers. The Venda language uses the Latin alphabet with five additional accented letters—there are four dental consonants with circumflex below the letter, five vowel letters are used to write seven vowels. The letters C, J and Q are used only in quoting foreign words, the sintu writing system Isibheqe Sohlamvu/Ditema tsa Dinoko, known technically in Venda as Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo, is also used for the Venda language. Venda distinguishes dental ṱ, ṱh, ḓ, ṋ, ḽ from alveolar t, th, d, n, l, as well as f, v from bilabial fh. There are no clicks, x has the sound of ch in loch or Bach, as in other South African languages like the Zulu, ph, ṱh, th, kh are aspirated, p, ṱ, t, k ejective. There is fortition of /ɸ β s ʃ x h l̪ l r w/ after nasal prefixes, Venda has a single specified tone, HIGH, with unmarked syllables having a low tone. Phonetic falling tone occurs, but only in sequences of more than one vowel, or on the penultimate syllable, tone patterns exist independently of the consonants and vowels of a word, that is, they are word tones
12.
Xhosa language
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The Xhosa language is a Bantu language with click consonants and one of the official languages of South Africa. It is spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, or about 18% of the South African population, like most other Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings, depending on intonation. Xhosa has two tones, high and low, Xhosa is written with the Latin alphabet. Three letters are used to indicate the basic clicks, c for dental clicks, x for lateral clicks, tones are not normally indicated in writing. Xhosa is the southernmost branch of Nguni languages, which include Swazi, Northern Ndebele, there is some mutual intelligibility with other Nguni languages, all of which share many linguistic features. Nguni languages are, in turn, part of the larger group of Bantu languages. Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole. A minority of Xhosa speakers lives in Quthing District, Lesotho, maho lists Mpondo, Xesibe, Bomwana, Gaika, Gcaleka, Thembu, Mpondomise, Ndlambe, and Hlubi. Hlubi is the dialect in the former Ciskei, there is the more distinct Hlubi language further north, where Xhosa meets Sotho. Xhosa has an inventory of ten vowels, and, all occurring both long and short, they are written a, e, i, o and u. Xhosa is a language with two inherent, phonemic tones, low and high. Tones are rarely marked in the language, but they can be indicated a, á, â, ä. Xhosa is rich in uncommon consonants, besides pulmonic egressive sounds, which are found in all spoken languages, it has 18 clicks. Also, Xhosa has ejectives and an implosive, although 15 of the clicks also occur in Zulu, they are used less frequently than in Xhosa. The first six are dental clicks, made with the tongue on the back of the teeth, the next six are lateral, made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and they are similar to the sound used to call horses. The last six are alveolar, made with the tip of the tongue at the roof of the mouth, and they sound somewhat like a cork pulled from a bottle. The following table lists the consonant phonemes of the language, with the pronunciation in IPA on the left and the orthography on the right, Two additional consonants, Two additional consonants, and, are found in borrowings. Two additional consonants, and, are found in loans, an additional consonant, is found in loans. In addition to the affricate, the spelling tsh may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates
13.
Zulu language
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Zulu is the language of the Zulu people, with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken language in South Africa. It became one of South Africas 11 official languages in 1994, according to Ethnologue, it is the second most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Shona. Like many other Bantu languages, it is written with the Latin alphabet, even in English, the language is often referred to by using its native form, isiZulu. Zulu migrant populations have taken it to adjacent regions, especially Zimbabwe, Xhosa, the predominant language in the Eastern Cape, is often considered mutually intelligible with Zulu. Maho lists four dialects, central KwaZulu-Natal Zulu, northern Transvaal Zulu, eastern coastal Qwabe, the Zulu, like Xhosa and other Nguni people, have lived in South Africa for a long time. The Zulu language possesses several click sounds typical of Southern African languages, the Nguni people have coexisted with other Southern tribes like the San and Khoi. Zulu, like most indigenous Southern African languages, was not a written language until the arrival of missionaries from Europe, the first grammar book of the Zulu language was published in Norway in 1850 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder. The first written document in Zulu was a Bible translation that appeared in 1883, in 1901, John Dube, a Zulu from Natal, created the Ohlange Institute, the first native educational institution in South Africa. He was also the author of Insila kaShaka, the first novel written in Zulu, another pioneering Zulu writer was Reginald Dhlomo, author of several historical novels of the 19th-century leaders of the Zulu nation, U-Dingane, U-Shaka, U-Mpande, U-Cetshwayo and U-Dinizulu. Other notable contributors to Zulu literature include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi and, more recently, the written form of Zulu was controlled by the Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal. This board has now disbanded and superseded by the Pan South African Language Board which promotes the use of all eleven official languages of South Africa. English, Dutch and later Afrikaans had been the official languages used by all South African governments before 1994. However, in the Kwazulu bantustan the Zulu language was widely used, all education in the country at the high-school level was in English or Afrikaans. Since the demise of apartheid in 1994, Zulu has been enjoying a marked revival, zulu-language television was introduced by the SABC in the early 1980s and it broadcasts news and many shows in Zulu. Zulu radio is very popular and newspapers such as isoLezwe, Ilanga and UmAfrika in the Zulu language are available, mainly available in Kwazulu-Natal province, in January 2005 the first full-length feature film in Zulu, Yesterday, was nominated for an Oscar. South African matriculation requirements no longer specify which South African language needs to be taken as a second language, and some people have made the switch to learning Zulu. However people taking Zulu at high-school level overwhelmingly take it as a first language, according to statistics, in the 1994 film The Lion King, in the Circle of Life song, the phrases Ingonyama nengw enamabala, Nans ingonyama bakithi Baba and Siyonqoba were used
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South African cuisine
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The cuisine of South Africa can be generalised as, Cookery practised by indigenous people of Africa such as the Sotho- and Nguni-speaking people. The pre-colonial diet consisted primarily of cooked grains, especially sorghum, fermented milk, people also kept sheep and goats, and communities often organised vast hunts for the abundant game, but beef was considered the absolutely most important and high status meat. The ribs of any cattle that were slaughtered in many communities were so prized that they were offered to the chief of the village, in many ways, the daily food of South African families can be traced to the indigenous foods that their ancestors ate. A typical meal in a South African family household that is Bantu-speaking is a stiff, traditional rural families often ferment their pap for a few days – especially if it is sorghum instead of maize – which gives it a tangy flavor. The Sotho-Tswana call this fermented pap, ting, the vegetable is often some sort of pumpkin, varieties of which are indigenous to South Africa, although now many people eat pumpkins that originated in other countries. Rice and beans are very popular even though they are not indigenous. Another common vegetable dish, which arrived in South Africa with its many Irish immigrants, for many South Africans meat is the centre of any meal. The Khoisan ate roasted meat, and they also dried meat for later use, the influence of their diet is reflected in the common Southern African love of barbecue and biltong. As in the past, when men kept cattle as their possession in the rural areas. Today, South Africans enjoy not only beef, but mutton, goat, chicken, on weekends, many South African families have a braai, and the meal usually consists of pap and vleis, which is maize meal and grilled meat. Eating meat even has a significance in both traditional and modern South African culture. Participants often say that spilling the blood of the animal on the ground pleases the ancestors who invisibly gather around the carcass. On holiday weekends, entrepreneurs will set up pens of animals along the main roads of townships—mostly sheep and goats—for families to purchase, slaughter, cook. Beef being the most prized meat, for weddings, affluent families often purchase a live steer for slaughter at home, vegetarianism is generally met with puzzlement among Black South Africans, although most meals are served with vegetables such as pumpkin, beans and cabbage. During the pioneering days of the 17th century, new foods such as biltong, droëwors, a very distinctive regional style of South African cooking is often referred to as Cape Dutch. This cuisine is characterised by the use of such as nutmeg, allspice. The Cape Malay influence has brought spicy curries, sambals, pickled fish, Bobotie is a South African dish that has Cape Malay origins. It consists of spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping, of the many dishes common to South Africa, bobotie is perhaps closest to being the national dish, because it isnt commonly found in any other country
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Religion in South Africa
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South Africa is a secular state. Its constitution guarantees freedom of religion, many religions are represented in the ethnic and regional diversity of the population, with Christianity overall being dominant. The African Traditional Religion of the Khoisan and Bantu speakers during apartheid were succeeded in predominance by Christianity introduced by the Dutch, during apartheid there was sustained persecution of African Traditional Religion and forced conversions during that era. In 1930 the majority of Afrikaners were Calvinists and they assisted Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama who first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and 1497 respectively. However, Jewish settlers only began to arrive in numbers from the 1820s, the Baháí Faith was introduced in 1911. The Baháí community decided to limit membership in its national assembly to black adherents when an assembly was prohibited under Apartheid. The Census 2001 provided the most recent national statistics for religious denominations, the Census 2011 form did not include any questions about religion due to low priority. A2015 study estimated some 6,500 believers in Christ from a Muslim background residing in the country, Christianity is the dominant religion in South Africa, with almost 80% of the population in 2001 professing to be Christian. No single denomination predominates, with mainstream Protestant churches, Pentecostal churches, African initiated churches, importantly, there is significant and sustained syncretism with African Traditional Religion among most of the self-professed Christians in South Africa. Of the total population of 44.8 million,35.8 million or 79. 8% identified as members of a Christian denomination. The history of Protestantism in South Africa dates back to the initial European settlement on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, since then, Protestantism has been the predominant religion of the European settlers and today, of South Africa as a whole. The largest Protestant denomination in the country is Pentecostalism, followed by Methodism, Dutch Reformed, the Zion Christian Church is the largest African initiated church in Southern Africa. The churchs headquarters are at Zion City Moria in Limpopo Province, according to the 1996 South African Census, the church numbered 3.87 million members. By the 2001 South African Census, its membership had increased to 4.97 million members and it is made up of 26 dioceses and archdioceses plus an apostolic vicariate. In 1996, there were approximately 3.3 million Catholics in South Africa making up 6% of the total South African population, currently, there are 3.8 million Catholics. 2.7 million are of various black African ethnic groups, such as Zulu, Xhosa, coloured and white South Africans each account for roughly 300,000. Most white Catholics are English speaking, and the majority are descended from Irish immigrants, many others are Portuguese settlers who left Angola and Mozambique after they became independent in the 1970s, or their children. The proportion of Catholics among the predominantly Calvinist white Afrikaans speakers, islam in South Africa is a minority religion, practiced by less than 1. 5% of the total population, according to estimates
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South African art
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South African art is the visual art produced by the people inhabiting the geographical location of South Africa. The oldest art objects in the world were discovered in a South African cave, archaeologists have discovered two sets of art kits thought to be 100,000 years old at a cave in South Africa. Also, dating from 75,000 years ago, they found small drilled snail shells could have no other function than to have been strung on a string as a necklace, South Africa was one of the cradles of the human species. The scattered tribes of Khoisan and San peoples moving into South Africa from around 10000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings and they were superseded by Bantu and Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. In the present era, traditional forms of art were scattered and re-melded by the divisive policies of apartheid. New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships, a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes, the pre-Bantu peoples migrating southwards from around the year 30,000 BC were nomadic hunters who favoured caves as dwellings. Before the rise of the Nguni peoples along the east and southern coasts and it is thought they entered South Africa at least 10 years ago. They have left lots of signs of life, people toilets and rocks depicting hunting, domestic and magic-related art. There is a stylistic unity across the region and even more ancient art in the Tassili nAjjer region of northern Africa. The figures are dynamic and elongate, and the colours combine ochreous red, white, grey, black, the last of these works are poignant in their representation of larger, darker people and even of white hunters on horseback, both of whom would supplant the Bushman peoples. Many of the figures are decorated with unusual patterns and may be wearing masks. Other paintings, depicting patterned quadrilaterals and other symbols, are obscure in their meaning, similar symbols are seen in shamanistic art worldwide. The contemporary art scene in South Africa is as diverse and vibrant as the population, contemporary artists in South Africa have adopted new media technologies to produce varied and creative bodies of work, as seen in the work of Dineo Seshee Bopape and CUSS Group. Their art gives insight into the issues of South African society. On a global scale, contemporary South African art is relevant, a charcoal and oil on canvas work by leading South African contemporary artist William Kentridge was sold on auction for R3,5 million in London in 2012
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Cinema of South Africa
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The cinema of South Africa, often metonymously referred to as Joziwood, refers to the films and film industry of the nation of South Africa. Although few local productions are known outside South Africa itself, many films have been produced about South Africa. One exception was the film The Gods Must Be Crazy in 1980 and this is about how life in a traditional community of Bushmen is changed when a Coke bottle, thrown out of an aeroplane, suddenly lands from the sky. Leon Schusters You Must Be Joking, Films are in the same genre, and hugely popular among South Africans. Arguably, the most high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was District 9, the film was a critical and commercial success worldwide, and was nominated for Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards. The first film studio in South Africa, Killarney Film Studios, was established in 1915 in Johannesburg, during the 1910s and 1920s, many South African films were made in or around Durban. These films often use of the dramatic scenery available in rural KwaZulu-Natal. KwaZulu-Natal also served as the location for historical films such as De Voortrekkers. American filmmaker Lorimer Johnston directed several films in the area in the late 1910s which starred American actresses Edna Flugrath, despite the participation of Johnson, Flugrath and Cooke, these were South African productions featuring local actors and stories. Sarie Marais, the first Afrikaans-language sound film, was released in 1931, subsequent sound releases such as Die Wildsboudjie, a 1949 Sarie Marais remake, and Daar doer in die bosveld continued to cater primarily to white, Afrikaans-speaking audiences. The 1950s saw a use of South African locations and talent by international filmmakers. British co-productions like Coast of Skeletons and American co-productions like The Cape Town Affair reflected the a growing trend of shooting in real locations, listed alongside each distributor are the studios they represent, Nu Metro, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. New Line Cinema, Bollywood Films, Miramax Films, Universal Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks Animation SKG
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Sport in South Africa
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South Africans have a passionate following, although they remain largely divided along ethnic lines. Soccer, Cricket and Rugby are the most popular sports, Rugby Union has traditionally been the most popular sport in South Africa amongst White South Africans. The national rugby team is nicknamed The Springboks, South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the first one hosted in Africa. Cricket is traditionally the popular sport among the white British diaspora and Indian South African communities, the national cricket team is nicknamed The Proteas. Soccer has historically been popular amongst persons of African descent and is South Africas most popular sport. The South Africa national soccer team, Bafana Bafana, has not enjoyed considerable success since the early 20th Century, other popular sports include, boxing, hockey, tennis, golf, surfing, netball, running and also obstacle course racing. South Africa was absent from international sport for most of the apartheid era due to sanctions, South Africa hosts the Saddle Seat World Cup every four years, which includes the American Saddlebred, Morgan horse, and South African Boerperd horse breeds. It is the highest level of competition for Saddle seat Equitation riders, South Africa was banned from the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to the apartheid policies. This ban effectively lasted until 1992, during this time, some sports people left for other countries in order to compete internationally. Some athletes continued their sports careers in South Africa in isolation, some sports teams toured South Africa as Rebel Tours and played the Springbok rugby and Proteas cricket teams in South Africa during the isolation period. Sport in South Africa is still seen as the domain of men. In 1997, one writer described massive gender inequalities in the structures of the country. South Africa went on to win a medal in the finals with the team of Victor, Mogawane, de Beer. In 2012 Caster Semenya won a medal in the womens 800m of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Also in 2012, Oscar Pistorius became the first double amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympic Games, but did not win a medal. Pistorius won a medal and a bronze medal in the T44 class at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens. He also won two medals at the 2012 Paralympic Games and remained the T43 world record holder for the 200 and 400 metres events. The South African team of Pistorius, Arnu Fourie, Zivan Smith and Samkelo Radebe won a gold medal, Fourie also set a world record in the heats of the T44 200m event and won a bronze medal in the 100m event
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National symbols of South Africa
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1910 coat of arms – granted by King George V in 1910, and used until 2000. 2000 coat of arms – introduced by the Mbeki administration in 2000, Great Seal of the Union – authorised by King George V in 1910, and used until 1937 on state documents signed by the Governor-General. Royal Signet of the Union – authorised by the Royal Executive Functions and Seals Act 1934, governor-Generals Great Seal – authorised by King George VI in 1937, and used until 1961 on state documents signed by the Governor-General. Seal of the Republic – authorised by the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act 1961, the use of the seal has not been a constitutional requirement since 1997, but its use continues nevertheless. National Flag of the Union – authorised by the Union Flags and Nationality Act 1927, renamed the National Flag of the Republic in 1961, it was used until 1994. National Flag – the current flag, introduced in 1994, red Ensign defaced with the shield of the coat of arms – authorised by the Admiralty in 1910, for use on South African-registered merchant ships, and also used as an unofficial national flag. From 1912, the shield was placed on a white disc, the ensign was discontinued in 1960. Since 1960, the flag has been used as the merchant ensign. Blue Ensign defaced with the shield of the coat of arms – authorised by the Admiralty in 1910, superseded by the National Flag of the Union. Union Jack defaced with the coat of arms surrounded by acacia leaves. Governor-Generals flag – blue, displaying the royal crest between two bearing the name of the country. State Presidents flag – blue, displaying the coat of arms below the letters SP. State Presidents flag – orange, white, and blue triangles, god Save the King – used from 1910 to 1957. Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika – used from 1994 to 1997 as joint anthem with Die Stem, National Anthem of South Africa – shortened versions of Nkosi sikelel iAfrika and Die Stem, with altered words, combined into a single anthem, and used since 1997. Coat of arms of South Africa Flag of South Africa List of South African flags National anthem of South Africa National flower of South Africa Brownell, F. G
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Flag of South Africa
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The flag of South Africa was adopted on 27 April 1994, at the beginning of South Africas 1994 general election, to replace the flag that had been used since 1928. The new national flag, designed by the then State Herald of South Africa Frederick Brownell, was chosen to represent the new democracy after the end of Apartheid. The flag has horizontal bands of red and blue, of width, separated by a central green band which splits into a horizontal Y shape. The Y embraces a black isosceles triangle from which the arms are separated by yellow bands. The stripes at the fly end are in the 5,1,3,1,5 ratio, at the time of its adoption, the South African flag was the only national flag in the world to comprise six colours in its primary design. The other three – red, white and blue – are displayed on the Dutch tricolour and the British Union flag and are said represent the white population. The green pall is commonly interpreted to mean the unification of the ethnic groups. The design therefore represents a converging of paths, the merging of both the past and the present, the Anglo-Boer War between 1899 and 1902 ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902 and resulted in what is now South Africa falling under the British Union Flag. The former Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek became British colonies along with the existing Cape, each was also entitled to a colonial flag following in the British tradition. On 31 May 1910 these four colonies came together to form the Union of South Africa, once again, as a British dominion the British Union Flag was to continue as the national flag and the standard British ensign pattern was used as a basis for distinctive South African flags. These ensigns were not intended to be used as the Unions national flag, although these ensigns were primarily intended for maritime use, they were also flown on land. These flags never enjoyed popular support due to the animosities lingering after the Anglo-Boer War. This provoked often violent controversy that lasted for three years based on whether the British Union Flag should be included in the new design or not. The Natal Province even threatened to secede from the Union should it be decided to remove it, finally, a compromise was reached that resulted in the adoption of a separate flag for the Union in late 1927 and the design was first hoisted on 31 May 1928. The design was based on the so-called Van Riebeeck flag or Prinsenvlag that was originally the Dutch flag, it consisted of orange, white, a version of this flag had been used as the flag of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape from 1652 until 1795. The South African addition to the design was the inclusion of three smaller flags centred in the white stripe, the miniature flags were the British Union Flag towards the hoist, the flag of the Orange Free State hanging vertically in the middle and the Transvaal Vierkleur towards the fly. The position of each of the flags is such that each has equal status. That the Orange Free State flag, since it hangs vertically, is higher than the two, is a plus factor
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Coat of arms of South Africa
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The present coat of arms of South Africa was introduced on Freedom Day 27 April 2000. It replaced the national arms, which had been in use since 1910. The motto ǃke e, ǀxarra ǁke is written in the Khoisan language of the ǀXam people, the previous motto, in Latin, was Ex Unitate Vires, translated as From unity, strength. The design process was initiated when, in 1999, the Department of Arts, Culture, Science, a brief was then prepared based on the ideas received, along with input from the Cabinet. The Government Communication and Information System then approached Design South Africa to brief ten of the top designers, three designers were chosen to present their concepts to the Cabinet. The new arms were introduced on Freedom Day,27 April 2000, the change reflected governments aim to highlight the democratic change in South Africa and a new sense of patriotism. The coat of arms is a series of elements organised in distinct symmetric egg-like or oval shapes placed on top of one another, the completed structure of the coat of arms combines the lower and higher oval shape in a symbol of infinity. In the symbolic sense, this is the rebirth of the spirit of the great. The coat of arms is also a part of the Seal of the Republic. Absolute authority is given to every document with an impression of the Seal of the Republic on it, since 1997, however, the use of the Seal of the Republic has not actually been required by the Constitution, but it continues to be used. One commentator on heraldry has criticized the coat of arms for being more the work of a studio than real heraldry. Above the head of the bird an arc of seven rays facetted Or and Orange. Upon a riband Vert, the motto. KE E, /XARRA //KE in letters Argent, the first element is the motto, in a green semicircle. Completing the semicircle are two symmetrically placed pairs of elephant tusks pointing upwards, within the oval shape formed by the tusks are two symmetrical ears of wheat, that in turn frame a centrally placed gold shield. The shape of the shield makes reference to the drum, the figures are depicted facing one another in greeting and in unity. Above the shield are a spear and a knobkierie, crossed in a single unit and these elements are arranged harmoniously to give focus to the shield and complete the lower oval shape of foundation. The motto The motto is. ke e, /xarra //ke, written in the Khoisan language of the /Xam people and it addresses each individual effort to harness the unity between thought and action. On a collective scale it calls for the nation to unite in a sense of belonging
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Northern Sotho language
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Northern Sotho is a Bantu language spoken primarily in South Africa, where it is one of the 11 official languages. According to the 2011 census it was the first language of 4,618,576 people in South Africa, principally in the provinces of Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Urban varieties of Northern Sotho, such as Pretoria Sotho, have acquired clicks in a process of such sounds spreading from Nguni languages. Northern Sotho is one of the Sotho languages of the Bantu family, Northern Sotho is thus most closely related to Sesotho, Setswana, sheKgalagari and siLozi. Lobedu exists only in a form, and the standard Northern Sotho language. The monarch associated with this community is Queen Modjadji. Lobedu is spoken mainly in the area of Modjadjiskloof in the Limpopo Province and its speakers are known as the Balobedu. Sepulana also exists in form and forms part of the standard Northern Sotho. Sepulana is spoken in Bushbuckridge area by the Mapulana people, Northern Sotho has often been equated with its major component Sepedi, and continued to be known as Pedi or Sepedi for some years after the new South African constitution appeared. However, the Pan South African Language Board and the Northern Sotho National Lexicography Unit now specifically prefer, apart from Sepedi itself, the other languages or dialects covered by the term Northern Sotho appear to be a diverse grouping of communal speech-forms within the Sotho-Tswana group. They are apparently united by the fact that they are neither as Southern Sotho nor as Tswana. Maho leaves SePhalaborwa and the East Sotho varieties of SeKutswe, SePai and their precise classification would appear to be a matter for further research. Some examples of Northern Sotho words and phrases, slang jargon Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, world Atlas of Language Structures Online
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South African Sign Language
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South African Sign Language is the standard sign language used by Deaf people in South Africa. It is not a language of South Africa. The South African government added a National Language Unit for South African Sign Language in 2001, there are as many as twelve distinctly different dialects of sign language in South Africa. In addition to South African sign languages, American Sign Language is also used by some Deaf people in South Africa, most local sign languages in South Africa show the influence of American sign language. SASL is the language that is used during television news casts in South Africa. Sign language is used in the South African parliament. There are around 40 schools for the Deaf in South Africa, Sign language is mentioned in the South African constitution, and the South African Schools Act permits the study of sign language in lieu of an official language studied at school. A total of 7 SASL interpreters have actually been accredited by SATI/DeafSA, SASL interpreters can apply for accreditation without having completed any formal training in SASL. South African Sign Language is not entirely uniform and continues to evolve, due to the geographical spread of its users and past educational policies, there are localised dialects of South African Sign Language and signs with many variants. Earlier efforts to create material and standardise the language, such as books. Daily TV broadcasts in sign language give todays South African Sign Language its national cohesion, Sign language is mentioned in four South African laws, namely the Constitution, the Use of Official Languages Act, the South African Schools Act, and the Pan South African Language Board Act. The Constitution states that a board named the Pan South African Language Board should be established to promote, and create conditions for, in terms of the Use of Official Languages Act, Act No. Neither South African Sign Language nor any sign language is an official language of South Africa. South African Sign Language is accepted as one of the languages of instruction in the education of Deaf learners, the number of deaf people in South Africa does not give an accurate depiction of the number of people who communicate in South African Sign Language. There is currently no estimate for the number of people who communicate in South African Sign Language in South Africa, estimates vary greatly, from 700,000 to 2 million users. A request was made to the Human Sciences Research Council to measure this as part of the 2011 census, fingerspelling is a manual technique of signing used to spell letters and numbers. Therefore, fingerspelling is a sign language technique for borrowing words from languages, as well as for spelling names of people, places. It is a tool to refer to the written word
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South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
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First language
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A first language is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. If there are multiple L1, the designation first language is used for the L1 spoken the best or the one that is the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the native language or mother tongue refers to the language of ones ethnic group rather than ones first language. Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, by contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than ones first language. Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language. That is achieved by interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every rule of the language. Sometimes, the mother tongue or mother language is used for the language that a person learned as a child at home. Children growing up in homes can, according to this definition, have more than one mother tongue or native language. It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a dominant language. According to Ivan Illich, the mother tongue was first used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of Latin. That is, the mother the Church introduced this term. J. R. R. Tolkien, in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, on 17 November 1999, UNESCO designated 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The first language of a child is part of the personal, social and cultural identity, another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting and that has implications on the education of non-native speakers. The topic of native speaker also gives way to discussion about what exactly bilingualism is, one definition is that a person is bilingual by being equally proficient in both languages. A person who grows up speaking English and begins learning Spanish for four years is not necessarily bilingual unless he speaks the two languages with equal fluency, one can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency
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Multilingualism
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Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the worlds population, more than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one other language in addition to their mother tongue. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization, people who speak several languages are also called polyglots. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the first language is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called simultaneous bilinguals, even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals, one language usually dominates the other. People who know more than one language have been reported to be adept at language learning compared to monolinguals. Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization, the definition of multilingualism is a subject of debate in the very same way as the definition of language fluency. On one end of a sort of continuum, one may define multilingualism as complete competence. The speaker would presumably have complete knowledge and control over the language so as to sound native, on the opposite end of the spectrum would be people who know enough phrases to get around as a tourist using the alternate language. Since 1992, Vivian Cook has argued that most multilingual speakers fall somewhere between minimal and maximal definitions, in addition, there is no consistent definition of what constitutes a distinct language. For instance, scholars disagree whether Scots is a language in its own right or a dialect of English. Many small independent nations schoolchildren are today compelled to learn multiple languages because of international interactions, for example, in, all children are required to learn at least two foreign languages, the other national language and one alien language. Many Finnish schoolchildren also select further languages, such as German or Russian, in some large nations with multiple languages, such as India, school children may routinely learn multiple languages based on where they reside in the country. In major metropolitan areas of Central, South and East India, thus a child of Telugu parents living in Bangalore will end up speaking his or her mother tongue at home and the state language, Hindi and English in school and his or her surroundings. Many myths and much prejudice has grown around the notions of bi- and these are all harmful convictions which have long been debunked, yet still persist among many parents. A multilingual person is someone who can communicate in more than one language, more specifically, the terms bilingual and trilingual are used to describe comparable situations in which two or three languages are involved. A multilingual person is referred to as a polyglot. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the first language is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed
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Dutch language
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
28.
African National Congress
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The African National Congress is the Republic of South Africas governing social democratic political party. It has been the party of post-apartheid South Africa on the national level, beginning with the election of Nelson Mandela in the 1994 election. Today, the ANC remains the dominant political party in South Africa and its leader Jacob Zuma is the incumbent head of state, with Atul Gupta being the official head of government. On 8 April 1960, the administration of Charles Robberts Swart, banned the ANC, after the ban, the ANC formed the Umkhonto we Sizwe to fight against apartheid utilizing guerrilla warfare and sabotage. On 3 February 1990, State President F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, on 17 March 1992, the apartheid referendum was passed by the voters removing apartheid and allowing the ANC to run in the 1994 election. Since the 1994 election the ANC has performed better than 60% in all general elections, the founding of the SANNC was in direct response to injustice against black South Africans at the hands of the government then in power. It can be said that the SANNC had its origins in a pronouncement by Pixley ka Isaka Seme who said in 1911, Forget all the past differences among Africans, the SANNC was founded the following year on 8 January 1912. The government of the newly formed Union of South Africa began a systematic oppression of people in South Africa. The Land Act was promulgated in 1913 forcing many non-whites from their farms into the cities and towns to work, by 1919, the SANNC was leading a campaign against passes. However, it became dormant in the mid-1920s. During that time, black people were represented by the ICU. In 1923, the became the African National Congress. By 1927, J. T. Gumede proposed co-operation with the Communists in a bid to revitalise the organisation and this led to the ANC becoming largely ineffectual and inactive, until the mid-1940s when the ANC was remodelled as a mass movement. The ANC responded to attacks on the rights of black South Africans, as well as calling for strikes, boycotts and this led to a later Defiance Campaign in the 1950s, a mass movement of resistance to apartheid. The government tried to stop the ANC by banning party leaders and enacting new laws to stop the ANC, the government claimed that this was a communist document, and consequently leaders of the ANC and Congress were arrested. 1960 saw the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 people were killed when police opened fire on anti-apartheid protesters, in 1961, partly in response to the Sharpeville massacre, Umkhonto we Sizwe was established as the military wing to launch bomb attacks. It was considered as terrorist group by South African government, later the United States government, MK commenced the military struggle against apartheid with acts of sabotage aimed at the installations of the state, and in the early stages was reluctant to target civilian targets. MK was responsible for the deaths of civilians and members of the military
29.
West Germanic languages
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The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages. The three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch, additionally, several creoles, patois, and pidgins are based on Dutch and English as they were languages of colonial empires. The West Germanic languages share many lexemes not existing in North Germanic and/or East Germanic—archaisms as well as common neologisms, most scholars doubt that there was a Proto-West-Germanic proto-language common to the West Germanic languages and no others, though a few maintain that Proto-West-Germanic existed. Although there is quite a bit of knowledge about North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian, linguists know almost nothing about Weser-Rhine Germanic, in fact, these two terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archeological findings rather than linguistic features. Only later were these terms applied to hypothetical dialectal differences within both regions, the rhotacism of /z/ to /r/. The development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to English this, rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic at a time when North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic, the debate on the existence of a Proto-West-Germanic clade was recently summarized, That North Germanic is. A unitary subgroup is completely obvious, as all of its dialects shared a series of innovations. Several scholars have published reconstructions of Proto-West-Germanic morphological paradigms and many authors have reconstructed individual Proto-West-Germanic morphological forms or lexemes, the first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West-Germanic language was published in 2013 by Wolfram Euler. If indeed Proto-West-Germanic existed, it must have been between the 3rd and 7th centuries, after that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. It has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, over the course of this period, the dialects diverged successively. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift, in fact, many dialects of Limburgish and Ripuarian are still mutually intelligible today. The High German consonant shift distinguished the High German languages from the other West Germanic languages, by early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South to Northern Low Saxon in the North. Although both extremes are considered German, they are not mutually intelligible, the southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift. Of modern German varieties, Low German is the one that most resembles modern English, the district of Angeln, from which the name English derives, is in the extreme northern part of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast. The area of the Saxons lay south of Anglia, the Anglo-Saxons, two Germanic tribes, were a combination of a number of peoples from northern Germany and the Jutland Peninsula. Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely defined, most form dialect continua, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible. Also note that English is part of the North Sea Germanic branch of the West Germanic languages, some may only appear in the older languages but are no longer apparent in the modern languages
30.
Nguni languages
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The Nguni languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni people. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Swati, Hlubi, Phuthi, Bhaca, Lala, Nhlangwini, the appellation Nguni derives from the Nguni cattle type. Ngoni is an older, or a shifted, variant and it is sometimes argued that use of Nguni as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of the peoples in question, where in fact the situation may have been more complex. The linguistic use of the label is relatively stable, within a subset of Southern Bantu, the label Nguni is used both genetically and typologically. On more than one occasion, proposals have been put forward to create a unified Nguni language, in scholarly literature on southern African languages, the linguistic classificatory category Nguni is traditionally considered to subsume two subgroups, Zunda Nguni and Tekela Nguni. Spreading of high tones to the antepenultimate syllable, a distinction between high and low tones on noun prefixes, indicating different grammatical roles, accompanied in some cases by an overt pre-prefix called the augment. Development breathy-voiced consonants, acting as depressor consonants, compare the following sentences, Note, Xhosa ⟨tsh⟩ = Phuthi ⟨tjh⟩ = IPA, Phuthi ⟨tsh⟩ =, Zulu ⟨sh⟩ = IPA, but in the environment cited here /ʃ/ is nasally permuted to. Phuthi ⟨jh⟩ = breathy voiced = Xhosa, Zulu ⟨j⟩, proto-Nguni is the reconstructed ancestor of the Nguni languages. The sintu writing system, Isibheqe Sohlamvu, for Southern Bantu languages, is used to represent all Nguni languages consistently under one orthography and this includes Tekela languages, which, with the exception of Swati, are unstandardised in the Latin alphabet. Ngoni separated from all other Nguni languages subsequent to the political and social upheaval within southern Africa. IsiNgqumo is a spoken by the homosexuals of South Africa who speak Bantu languages, as opposed to Gayle. IsiNgqumo is based on a Nguni lexicon, aspects of Tone and Voice in Phuthi. Some features of the phonetic and grammatical structure of Baca, early Nguni History, The Linguistic Evidence and Its Correlation with Archeology and Oral Tradition. Wright, J. Politics, ideology, and the invention of the nguni, resistance and ideology in settler societies. Shaw, E. M. and Davison, P, the Southern Nguni South African Museum, Cape Town Ndlovu, Sambulo
31.
Nguni language
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The Nguni languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni people. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Swati, Hlubi, Phuthi, Bhaca, Lala, Nhlangwini, the appellation Nguni derives from the Nguni cattle type. Ngoni is an older, or a shifted, variant and it is sometimes argued that use of Nguni as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of the peoples in question, where in fact the situation may have been more complex. The linguistic use of the label is relatively stable, within a subset of Southern Bantu, the label Nguni is used both genetically and typologically. On more than one occasion, proposals have been put forward to create a unified Nguni language, in scholarly literature on southern African languages, the linguistic classificatory category Nguni is traditionally considered to subsume two subgroups, Zunda Nguni and Tekela Nguni. Spreading of high tones to the antepenultimate syllable, a distinction between high and low tones on noun prefixes, indicating different grammatical roles, accompanied in some cases by an overt pre-prefix called the augment. Development breathy-voiced consonants, acting as depressor consonants, compare the following sentences, Note, Xhosa ⟨tsh⟩ = Phuthi ⟨tjh⟩ = IPA, Phuthi ⟨tsh⟩ =, Zulu ⟨sh⟩ = IPA, but in the environment cited here /ʃ/ is nasally permuted to. Phuthi ⟨jh⟩ = breathy voiced = Xhosa, Zulu ⟨j⟩, proto-Nguni is the reconstructed ancestor of the Nguni languages. The sintu writing system, Isibheqe Sohlamvu, for Southern Bantu languages, is used to represent all Nguni languages consistently under one orthography and this includes Tekela languages, which, with the exception of Swati, are unstandardised in the Latin alphabet. Ngoni separated from all other Nguni languages subsequent to the political and social upheaval within southern Africa. IsiNgqumo is a spoken by the homosexuals of South Africa who speak Bantu languages, as opposed to Gayle. IsiNgqumo is based on a Nguni lexicon, aspects of Tone and Voice in Phuthi. Some features of the phonetic and grammatical structure of Baca, early Nguni History, The Linguistic Evidence and Its Correlation with Archeology and Oral Tradition. Wright, J. Politics, ideology, and the invention of the nguni, resistance and ideology in settler societies. Shaw, E. M. and Davison, P, the Southern Nguni South African Museum, Cape Town Ndlovu, Sambulo
32.
Botswana
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Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens refer to themselves as Batswana, formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has maintained a tradition of stable representative democracy. Botswana is topographically flat, with up to 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert and it is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula is poorly defined, a mid-sized country of just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated nations in the world. Around 10 percent of the lives in the capital and largest city. The economy is dominated by mining, cattle, and tourism, Botswana boasts a GDP per capita of about $18,825 per year as of 2015, which is one of the highest in Africa. Its high gross national income gives the country a modest standard of living, Botswana is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations. The country has been among the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the death rate due to AIDS or AIDS-related causes has fallen sharply from 2005 to 2013, and the number of new infections in children has also fallen. As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, the history of Botswana starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The original inhabitants of southern Africa were the Bushmen and Khoi peoples, both speak Khoisan languages and lived as hunter-gatherers. About a thousand years ago, large chiefdoms emerged that were later eclipsed by the Great Zimbabwe empire, around 1300 CE, peoples in present-day Transvaal began to coalesce into three main linguistic and political groups, including the Batswana. The Batswana, a term used also to all citizens of Botswana. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule, as groups broke off and moved to new land, new tribes were created. Some human development occurred before the colonial period, during the 1700s, the slave and ivory trades were expanding. To resist these pressures, Shaka, the king of the Zulu Empire, conquered tribes began to move northwest into Botswana, destroying everything in their path. In their efforts to re-establish themselves at the end of period, tribes began to exchange ivory and skins for guns with European traders. Christian missionaries sent from Europe also spread to the interior, often at the invitation of tribal chiefs who wanted guns, by 1880 every major village had a resident missionary, and their influence became permanent
33.
Lesotho
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Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is an enclaved, landlocked country in southern Africa completely surrounded by South Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 in size and has a slightly over two million. Its capital and largest city is Maseru, previously known as Basutoland, Lesotho declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the name Lesotho translates roughly into the land of the people who speak Sesotho. About 40% of the population lives below the poverty line of US$1.25 a day. The original inhabitants of the now known as Lesotho were the San people. Examples of their art can be found in the mountains throughout the area. The present Lesotho, then called Basutoland, emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822, Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Casalis, acting as translator and providing advice on foreign affairs, helped to set up diplomatic channels and acquire guns for use against the encroaching Europeans and the Griqua people. Trekboers from the Cape Colony showed up on the borders of Basutoland and claimed land rights, beginning with Jan de Winnaar. As more Boers were moving into the area tried to colonise the land between the two rivers, even north of the Caledon, claiming that it had been abandoned by the Sotho people. Moshoeshoe subsequently signed a treaty with the British Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Thomas Napier and these outraged Boers were suppressed in a brief skirmish in 1848. In 1851 a British force was defeated by the Basotho army at Kolonyama, after repelling another British attack in 1852, Moshoeshoe sent an appeal to the British commander that settled the dispute diplomatically, then defeated the Batlokoa in 1853. In 1854 the British pulled out of the region, and in 1858 Moshoeshoe fought a series of wars with the Boers in the Free State–Basotho War, the last war in 1867 ended when Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria, who agreed to make Basutoland a British protectorate in 1868. Moshoeshoe died on 11 March 1870, marking the end of the traditional era and he was buried at Thaba Bosiu. In the early years of British rule between 1871 and 1884, Basutoland was treated similarly to territories that had been forcefully annexed. This led to the Gun War in 1881, Basutoland gained its independence from Britain and became the Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966. In January 1970, the ruling Basotho National Party lost the first post-independence general elections, Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan refused to cede power to the Basotho Congress Party, declared himself Tona Kholo, and imprisoned the BCP leadership
34.
Gauteng
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Gauteng, which means place of gold, is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africas first all-race elections on 27 April 1994. It was initially named Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging and was renamed Gauteng in December 1994, situated in the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, accounting for only 1. 5% of the land area. Nevertheless, it is highly urbanised, containing the countrys largest city, Johannesburg, its capital, Pretoria. As of 2015, it has a population of nearly 13.2 million, the name Gauteng is derived from the Sotho name, gauta meaning gold with the locative suffix -eng. There was a thriving industry in the province following the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg. In Sesotho, the name Gauteng was used for Johannesburg and surrounding areas long before it was adopted in 1994 as the name of a province. Gauteng, formerly known as Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging, was carved out of the old Transvaal province in 1994, although the terminology PWV, after the discovery of gold in 1886, the region proceeded to become the single largest gold producer in the world and the city of Johannesburg was founded. The older city Pretoria was not subject to the same attention, Pretoria grew at a slower rate and was highly regarded due to its role in the Second Boer War. The Cullinan Diamond which is the largest diamond ever mined was mined near Pretoria in a town called Cullinan in the year 1905. Gauteng has only been documented since the 1800s and as a result. At the Sterkfontein caves, some of the oldest fossils of hominids have been discovered, such as Mrs. Ples, today, the Apartheid Museum stands testament to these struggles in Johannesburg. Gauteng is governed by the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, a 73-person unicameral legislature elected by party-list proportional representation. The most recent election of the legislature was held on 7 May 2014, and the African National Congress won 53. 59% of the vote. The official opposition is the Democratic Alliance, which won 30. 78% of the vote and 23 seats, other parties represented are the Economic Freedom Fighters with eight seats and the Freedom Front Plus and the Inkatha Freedom Party with one seat each. Premier David Makhura of the ANC was elected on 21 May 2014, the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa, which has seats in Pretoria and Johannesburg, is a superior court with general jurisdiction over the province. Johannesburg is also home to the Constitutional Court, South Africas highest court, Gautengs southern border is the Vaal River, which separates it from the Free State. It also borders on North West to the west, Limpopo to the north, Gauteng is the only landlocked province of South Africa without a foreign border
35.
Western Cape
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The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated in the south-western part of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces in terms of area and population, with an area of 129,449 square kilometres and 5.8 million inhabitants. About two-thirds of these live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province, the Western Cape Province is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about 400 kilometres northwards along the Atlantic coast and about 500 kilometres eastwards along the South African south coast and it is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape. The total land area of the province is 129,462 square kilometres and it is roughly the size of England or the State of Louisiana. Its capital city and largest city is Cape Town, and some major cities include Stellenbosch, Worcester, Paarl. The Garden Route and the Overberg are popular tourism areas. The Western Cape is the southernmost region of the African continent with Cape Agulhas as its southernmost point, the coastline varies from sandy between capes, to rocky to steep and mountainous in places. The only natural harbour is Saldanha Bay on the west coast, however a lack of fresh water in the region meant that it has only recently been used as a harbour. But fresh water coming off Table Mountain and Devils Peak allowed the early European settlers to build Cape Town on the shores of this less than satisfactory anchorage, the province is topographically exceptionally diverse. Most of the province falls within the Cape Fold Belt, a set of parallel ranges of sandstone folded mountains of Cambrian-Ordovician age. The valleys between ranges are very fertile as they contain the weathered loamy soils of the Bokkeveld mustones. The far interior forms part of the Karoo and this region of the Province is generally arid and hilly with a prominent escarpment that runs close to the Provinces most inland boundary. The Escarpment marks the edge of South Africas central plateau. The principal rivers of the province are the Berg and Olifants which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, and the Breede and Gourits which drain into the Indian Ocean. The vegetation is extremely diverse, with one of the worlds seven floral kingdoms almost exclusively endemic to the province, namely the Cape Floral Kingdom. These evergreen heathlands are extremely rich in diversity, with at least as many plant species occurring on Table Mountain as in the entire United Kingdom
36.
Northern Cape
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The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up and it includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the mining regions in Kimberley. The Namaqualand region in the west is famous for its Namaqualand daisies, the southern towns of De Aar and Colesberg, in the Great Karoo, are major transport nodes between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. In the northeast, Kuruman is famous as a mission station, the Orange River flows through the province, forming the borders with the Free State in the southeast and with Namibia to the northwest. The river is used to irrigate the many vineyards in the arid region near Upington. Native speakers of Afrikaans comprise a higher percentage of the population in the Northern Cape than in any other province, the Northern Capes four official languages are Afrikaans, Tswana, Xhosa, and English. Minorities speak the official languages of South Africa, and a few people speak indigenous languages such as Nama. The provincial motto, Sa ǁa ǃaĩsi uĩsi, is in the Nǀu language of the Nǁnǂe people and it was given in 1997 by one of the languages last speakers, Ms. Elsie Vaalbooi of Rietfontein, who has since died. It was South Africas first officially registered motto in a Khoisan language, subsequently, South Africas national motto, ǃKe e ǀxarra ǁke, was derived from the extinct Northern Cape ǀXam language. The Northern Cape was one of three carved out of the Cape Province in 1994, the others being Western Cape to the south. Politically, it had dominated since 1994 by the African National Congress. Ethnic issues are important in the politics of the Northern Cape, for example, it is the site of the Orania settlement, whose leaders have called for a Volkstaat for the Afrikaner people in the province. They were awarded a settlement in Platfontein in 1999 by the Mandela government, the precolonial history of the Northern Cape is reflected in a rich, mainly Stone Age, archaeological heritage. Cave sites include Wonderwerk Cave near Kuruman, which has a long sequence stretching from the turn of the twentieth century at the surface to more than 1 million years in its basal layer. Many sites across the province, mostly in open air locales or in sediments alongside rivers or pans, document Earlier, Middle and they occur on hilltops, slopes, rock outcrops and occasionally, in a river bed. In the north part of the province there are sites attributable to the Iron Age such as Dithakong. The copper mines of Namaqualand and the rush to the Kimberley area resulted in industrial archaeological landscapes in those areas which herald the modern era in South African history
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