Afrikaans language

A West Germanic language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. Sometimes called "African Dutch".

Although the grammatical structure of Afrikaans reflects its origins in 17th century Dutch, its vocabulary contains words loaned from [San dialects]?, English, isiXhosa? and many other languages.

A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative, something that is absent from the other West Germanic languages. Both French and San origins for this have been proposed.

Afrikaans is spoken by approximately 60% of South Africa's whites, and by over 90% of the "coloured" (mixed-race) population. Large numbers of black and Indian South Africans also speak it as a second language and it has been influential in the development of South African English.

In 1976, rioting broke out in Soweto as the result of the apartheid government's implementation of Afrikaans rather than English as the medium of instruction in black schools.