Indo-European · ISO 639-3 afr · af
Afrikaans Language
Afrikaans is an Indo-European language spoken by about 10 million people in 3 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Afrikaans is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Afrikaans
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Northwest Germanic
- West Germanic
- Macro-Dutch
- Middle-Modern Dutch
- Modern Dutch
- Global Dutch
- Afrikaansic
- Afrikaans
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Afrikaans language
Afrikaans is spoken by about 10 million people, which makes it the 115th most spoken language in the world — just behind Uighur (10 million) and ahead of Min Dong Chinese (10 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Afrikaansic group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Afrikaans spoken?
Afrikaans is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in South Africa (7.9 million), Namibia (2.1 million) and Botswana (5,881). More than half of the population speaks it in Namibia — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Afrikaans: South Africa 13% (7.9 million), Namibia 75% (2.1 million) and Botswana 0.2% (5,881).
Afrikaans is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in South Africa.
Writing system and status
Afrikaans is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Dutch, Vlaams, English, German, Nigerian Pidgin, Bavarian and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 af, ISO 639-3 afr.
Frequently asked questions about Afrikaans
How many people speak Afrikaans?
Where is Afrikaans spoken?
What language family does Afrikaans belong to?
Is Afrikaans an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.