Afrikaans (/ˌæfrɪˈkɑːns/ AF-rih-KAHNSS, /ˌɑːf-, -ˈkɑːnz/ AHF-, -⁠KAHNZ)[3][4] is a West Germanic language, spoken in South Africa, Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In the 19th century Boer republics, proto-Afrikaans was not yet widely seen by the Afrikaner population itself, nor by its leaders, as a separate language to standard Dutch.

Most of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands),[19] with up to one-sixth of the community of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany.

[20] African and Asian workers, Cape Coloured children of European settlers and Khoikhoi women,[21] and slaves contributed to the development of Afrikaans.

Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script, started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850 (alongside the already established Dutch).

Rather, Afrikaans was described derogatorily as 'a kitchen language' or 'a bastard jargon', suitable for communication mainly between the Boers and their servants.

"[25][better source needed] In 1925 Afrikaans was recognised by the South African government as a distinct language, rather than simply a vernacular of Dutch.

The main modern Afrikaans dictionary in use is the Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT).

[update] The official orthography of Afrikaans is the Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls, compiled by Die Taalkommissie.

While significant advances had been made in the textual criticism of the Bible, especially the Greek New Testament, the 1933 translation followed the Textus Receptus and was closely akin to the Statenbijbel.

C. P. Hoogehout, Arnoldus Pannevis [af], and Stephanus Jacobus du Toit were the first Afrikaans Bible translators.

The first official translation of the entire Bible into Afrikaans was in 1933 by J. D. du Toit, E. E. van Rooyen, J. D. Kestell, H. C. M. Fourie, and BB Keet.

[49] Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto.

[51] Some of these parents, in part supported by provincial departments of education, initiated litigation which enabled enrolment with English as language of instruction.

Meanwhile, the constitution of the Western Cape, which went into effect in 1998, declares Afrikaans to be an official language of the province alongside English and Xhosa.

[56] When the British design magazine Wallpaper described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages" in its September 2005 article about the monument,[57] South African billionaire Johann Rupert (chairman of the Richemont Group), responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine.

[75] The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach, attempting to visualise the language distance for Anglophones once remarked that the differences between (Standard) Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English.

Nevertheless, Afrikaans remains more prevalent in the media – radio, newspapers and television[82] – than any of the other official languages, except English.

[78] The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) projects that a growing majority of Afrikaans speakers will be Coloured.

[84] Afrikaans speakers experience higher employment rates than other South African language groups, though as of 2012[update] half a million were unemployed.

[85] Despite the challenges of demotion and emigration that it faces in South Africa, the Afrikaans vernacular remains competitive, being popular in DSTV pay channels and several internet sites, while generating high newspaper and music CD sales.

A resurgence in Afrikaans popular music since the late 1990s has invigorated the language, especially among a younger generation of South Africans.

Such media also prove popular with the extensive Afrikaans-speaking emigrant communities who seek to retain language proficiency in a household context.

[1] Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside South Africa, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia and the United States.

[119] The revoking of the Edict of Nantes on 22 October 1685 was a milestone in the history of South Africa, for it marked the beginning of the great Huguenot exodus from France.

The Afrikaans writing system is based on Dutch, using the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet, plus 16 additional vowels with diacritics.

For example, geëet ("ate") instead of the 3 e's alongside each other: *geeet, which can never occur in Afrikaans, or sê, which translates to "say", whereas se is a possessive form.

The acute is only placed on the i if it is the only vowel in the emphasised word: wil ('want' (verb)) becomes wíl, but lui ('lazy') becomes lúi.

Hy lei my op die regte paaie tot eer van Sy naam.

Lord's Prayer (Afrikaans New Living Version translation):[128] Ons Vader in die hemel, laat u Naam geheilig word.