Afrikaans descended from Dutch dialects in the 17th century. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages. Other West Germanic languages related to Afrikaans are
German, English
, the Frisian languages, and the unstandardised languages Low German and Yiddish.
Is Afrikaans easier than English?
You'll Have an Easy Time Learning
Afrikaans is actually quite simple to learn
, and many language learners consider it one of the easiest languages to master. … English speakers often find that the spelling of words in Afrikaans is intuitive, and words can usually be sounded out to discover the proper pronunciation.
Are Afrikaans and English similar?
Afrikaans descended from Dutch dialects in the 17th century. It belongs to a West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages. Other West Germanic languages related to Afrikaans are
German, English
, the Frisian languages, and the unstandardised languages Low German and Yiddish.
Do most Afrikaners speak English?
Afrikaners speak English with an Afrikaans accent
, which according to some people makes them sound a bit slow. Also, despite having seen all the Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal movies, they still make fairly elementary errors in speech.
Is Afrikaans closer to Dutch or English?
3. Closest Major Language:
Dutch
. … As a bonus, English is also quite similar to Afrikaans, a South African language that's based on Dutch but includes more indigenous vocabulary.
Is Afrikaans a dying language?
About the Afrikaans Language. The Afrikaans language is one of South Africa's official languages and a large proportion of the local population uses it as their first or second language. …
Some believe that Afrikaans is a dying language
, however, it remains spoken all over the country and respected for its origins.
What is the youngest language in the world?
Rich in idiom and emotion,
Afrikaans
was born 340 years ago in the homes of South Africa's white Dutch, German and French settlers. Not only is it the world's youngest national language, it is one of the smallest, with just 13 million speakers.
Is Afrikaans a beautiful language?
“Afrikaans is
one of the most beautiful languages
in the world.
What is the hardest language to learn?
- Mandarin. Number of native speakers: 1.2 billion. …
- Icelandic. Number of native speakers: 330,000. …
- 3. Japanese. Number of native speakers: 122 million. …
- Hungarian. Number of native speakers: 13 million. …
- Korean. …
- Arabic. …
- Finnish. …
- Polish.
Are Afrikaans white?
| Province | Mpumalanga | Afrikaners | 164,620 | % Afrikaners | 83.5% | All whites | 197,078 |
|---|
Do people speak Afrikaans or English?
According to the census,
about a two-thirds of white people speak Afrikaans as their first language
, and the other third speak English. Afrikaans is home language of 2.7-million white South Africans, or about six in every 10 (60.8%) white people.
What is South Africa's first language?
The most common language spoken as a first language by South Africans is
Zulu
(23 percent), followed by Xhosa (16 percent), and Afrikaans (14 percent). English is the fourth most common first language in the country (9.6%), but is understood in most urban areas and is the dominant language in government and the media.
Which language is closest to Dutch?
Its closest relative is the mutually
intelligible daughter language Afrikaans
. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German, English and the Frisian languages and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish.
Which language is the easiest to learn?
- Norwegian. This may come as a surprise, but we have ranked Norwegian as the easiest language to learn for English speakers. …
- Swedish. …
- Spanish. …
- Dutch. …
- Portuguese. …
- Indonesian. …
- Italian. …
- French.
Should I learn Dutch or Afrikaans?
Afrikaans
is useful in South Africa and Namibia. Afrikaans is easier than Dutch because it's grammar simplified. Dutch is more complicated. Once you can speak and write Dutch you will be able to read Afrikaans newspapers and will be able to have a conversation with an Afrikaans person if you speak slow.
