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As early as the mid-18th century and as recently as the mid-20th century, Afrikaans was known in standard Dutch as a "kitchen language" (Afrikaans: kombuistaal), lacking the prestige accorded, for example, even by the educational system in Africa, to languages spoken outside Africa. The Afrikaans language arose in the Dutch Cape Colony, through a gradual divergence from European Dutch dialects, during the course of the 18th century. However, it has also been variously described as a Dutch-based creole or as a partially creolised language. It was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" (a term also used to refer collectively to the early Cape settlers) or "kitchen Dutch" (a derogatory term used to refer to Afrikaans in its earlier days). The term is derived from the Dutch term Afrikaansch (now spelled Afrikaans) meaning "African". 8 Influences on Afrikaans from other languages.It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa-the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape-and the first language of 75.8% of Coloured South Africans (4.8 million people), 60.8% of White South Africans (2.7 million people), 4.6% of Indian South Africans (58,000 people), and 1.5% of Black South Africans (600,000 people). It has the widest geographic and racial distribution of all the 11 official languages of South Africa and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language.
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Estimates of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million. With about seven million native speakers in South Africa, or 13.5% of the population, it is the third most spoken language in the country. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form. Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in the more analytic-type morphology and grammar of Afrikaans and a spelling that expresses Afrikaans pronunciation rather than standard Dutch. Īlthough Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages, including German and the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Afrikaans linguistics researchers maintain that Afrikaans, originally being a peasant language, is only partially creole. It is considered by most linguists to be partially, rather than fully, a creole language. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of Holland ( Hollandic dialect) spoken by the European (Dutch, French, and German) settlers and their slaves in South Africa, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the course of the 18th century. Afrikaans ( UK: / ˌ æ f r ɪ ˈ k ɑː n s/, US: / ˌ ɑː f-/, English meaning: African) is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and, to a lesser extent, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.