🇿🇦 Country

South Africa

South Africa is home to 47 languages, spoken across Southern Africa. Explore them on the map or in the full list below.

Capital Pretoria (administrative); Cape Town (legislative); Bloemfontein (judicial)

Nationality South African

Currency South African Rand (ZAR)

Languages 47

Independence Apr 26, 1994

38 active 6 endangered 3 extinct

Where the languages are spoken

Each bubble marks where a language is centred in South Africa; its size reflects how many people speak it there. Click a bubble for the source.

Active Endangered Extinct fewer / more speakers

Bubbles show a language's approximate centre, not its full extent. Speaker figures are our own estimates where a language lives in one country, and sourced per-country estimates where it crosses borders.

All languages in South Africa

Filter by name, or click any language for its dictionary.

No languages match that search.