The 11 languages form part of the constitution of South Africa. The Constitution enshrines the right of citizens to receive government services in their own language. People also talk of the 14 languages - this includes Sign Language, Khoi and San to the 11. And some people even say that Tsotsitaal will become an official language, but we doubt that this is likely for numerous reasons. The Constitution also explicitly mentions a number of non-official languages that recognise the diversity of people in South Africa. Languages here include Arabic, Hindu, Yiddish and others.

The government also works on a six language policy, which was formulated as some of the languages are part of distinct groups which are mutually intelligible. So for instance Xhosa, Zulu, Swati and Ndebele are all languages in the Nguni group. While Tswana, Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho are all Sotho languages. With the six language policy government is required to translate material into: English, Afrikaans, Tsonga, Venda, one of the Sotho languages and one of the Nguni languages on a rating basis.

 

The following table makes it easier to understand:

 

English Language	Language Name	Group	% Speakers
Afrikaans	Afrikaans	West Germanic	13,3
English	English	West Germanic	8,2
Ndebele	isiNdebele	Nguni	1,6
Northern Sotho	Sesotho sa Leboa	Sotho-Tswana	9,4
Sotho	Sesotho	Sotho-Tswana	7,9
Swati/Swazi	Siswati	Nguni	2,7
Tsonga	Xisonga	Narrow Bantu	4,4
Tswana	Setswana	Sotho-Tswana	8,2
Venda	Tshivenda	Narrow Bantu	2,3
Xhosa	isiXhosa	Nguni	17,6
Zulu	isiZulu	Nguni	23,8

 

The languages are listed in English with their mother tongue name, their language group and the percentage of South Africa's population that speak that language.
 

Language are divided into groups at a very high level. English and Afrikaans form part of the Indo-European languages, which can be traced back to the Black Sea. They both descend from the West Germanic group  of languages, although they are from quite different families.

 

Our other languages are part of the Narrow Bantu group which all fall under the Niger-Congo languages that originated from the Congo River basin. The term Bantu is used here in its linguistic sense, referring to the group of languages across Africa that use variants of the root word bantu to refer to people.  Both Venda and Tsonga are direct decendents of the Narrow Bantu group. The remaining languages are further classified into the Nguni group (Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu and Swati) and the Sotho-Tswana group (Tswana, Sotho and Northern Sotho).