With 11 official languages, South Africa is a melting pot of cultures and communities. Born in the 17th century, Afrikaans derives from Dutch and has been spoken in the country for hundreds of years. When South Africa won independence in 1961, Afrikaans replaced Dutch as an official language, along with English, which is still the language of government today. Although Afrikaans is the most commonly spoken language, Xhosa and Zulu are still more widely spoken overall.
Due to the variety of languages spoken in South Africa, there is still a huge demand for Afrikaans translation services, in particular business translation. Afrikaans is largely spoken by the white population of South Africa who are still the country’s most affluent group, meaning the majority of business is conducted in Afrikaans. This engenders a need for translation services to aid communication both nationally and internationally.
South Africa’s troubled past and the upheaval caused by the welcome end of apartheid meant that the country had some serious adjustments to make – which had an effect on the economy. In the last decade South Africa has become far more stable and has formed notable trading relationships with China, Germany and the USA which has helped the country to establish international trade as a major part of the country’s economy.
Cape Town is South Africa’s financial centre and the city has reaped the benefits of the growing market. Cape Town’s main trades of Shipbuilding, manufacturing, construction, real estate and energy are being joined by entrepreneurial young pretenders who are also making their mark in the worlds of fashion, film and computing technology. Due to the rapid growth of South African commerce, the demand for Afrikaans translation services is high both in terms of translating from other South African languages and internationally.
Afrikaans was for many generations viewed as a language of oppression, as it was spoken by the former colonial masters who took over the country. However, in recent years the popularity of the language has enjoyed a resurgence and the younger generation have begun to use the language in order to preserve it. The unexpected rise in the number of Afrikaans speakers amongst young business people demonstrates that the need for translators will continue to grow as the South African economy expands.
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A similar trajectory in Hawai’i with the Hawai’ian language. In one generation, the language was all but obliterated by English. In another, the current one, it has again become widely spoken by Hawai’ians!
I live in Malawi and i always go to South Africa for holidays. It’s still a great country
Great piece. I am a Capetownian and I particularly enjoy the Afrikaans spoken by the Cape Malays. It is so expressive and being the youngest language it deserves to stay alive.
I’ve just read a great new book on South Africa which explores the world of Afrikaans speakers post-apartheid. Addresses how people are adjusting to Afrikaans no longer being the national language and issues such as demands that the majority of South Africans are making on Afrikaans institutions to share what they accumulated in the apartheid era. Recommended
Rooibos Tea and Dust – a travel memoir of post-apartheid South Africa by James Saville (Common Ground, Champaign, Illinois, 2012)
Great recommendation, thanks for sharing! I became very interested in apartheid when studying conflict and mediation (and happening to have a Capetownian roommate at that time) … some of the tactics used to determine ethnicity were absolutely incredible – a pencil in the hair to see if it would stay or fall, for example – and I’m quite sure that members of my very mixed family would have been labeled different things (white, colored, black, etc)…if I lived there, would they have separated our family? I always wondered that. It was also interesting to visit and notice that, on first glance, there is peace but still a LOT of segregation.
Certainly a marvelous topic, thanks for sharing.
…for those who know Dutch, Afrikaans is often considered “baby Dutch” and holds many of the 1700s older Dutch features that no longer exist in the Dutch language (but did of course when the Dutch established the colony). It sounds cute!