If I am going to spend 5 months in Cape Town, should I learn Xhosa or Zulu?
I am a student planning on spending a semester studying at the University of Cape Town. English is my first language (being an American) and I intend to study Afrikaans while in South Africa as well. But I am very interested in volunteering in less privileged parts of the Cape and am wondering which would be the more useful language of isiXhosa and isiZulu. I want to be able to connect and communicate with the poorer citizens of the area in their first language, instead of the more common languages of their historical oppressors.
South Africa - 5 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Xhosa is predominantly spoken in the Cape. Zulu is mainly spoken in Kwa-Zulu Natal, on the east side of the country. So you will be doing well learning a smidgen of Xhosa. And will earn a lot of respect from the people if you can speak a few words of their language. You will find that most of the people also can speak some english and afrikaans, and even one or two more of South Africa´s eleven official languages. The Cape Coloureds speak mainly Afrikaans, but more and more are adopting english as their home language. A little tit bit on interesting things: http://users.iafrica.com/a/au/aug/YEP/custom.htm
2 :
Well just about all people in South Africa speak English.As for isiXhosa that would be more of a cultural thing to learn a little .Then there's "Afrikaans" which is known by the locals as "Taal". The Afrikaans language is Germanic deriving from "17th Century Middle Dutch. Afrikaans is the only official language of European origin in the World to have evolved outside the European Continent. You stipulate "opressors" yet remember that during the Anglo-Boers War from 1902-1905 The Dutch (Boers) had tribal blacks fight along side them against the Brits(Anglos) whom had tribal blacks allied with them as well to fight for the country.The Coloreds & Malays wanted to go along with the Apartheid.The word "Apartheid' means separate in Afrikaans.The theory of "Apartheid was written then imputed by JF.Milan in 1948.All of South Africa during the Apartheid had the best health care in all of African nations for all it's citizens.
3 :
The 2 people before me had good info! Colourds speak mostly Afrikaans, mutually inteligible with Dutch and quite similiar to english as well. Xhosa is indeed spoken in the Cape area in the outskirts by the blacks. 99% (my estimate) of the whites speak English and people from over 150 countries attend UCT, thats a fact though. You'll do just fine with english but learning Afrikaans would be a wise idea, especially since it's a simple language to learn for english speakers
4 :
Frankly, for 5 months, it would not be worth your while to learn one of these very complex languages. Most South Africans can speak enough English to get by. Learn a few phrases like greetings, please and thank you.
5 :
Honestly speaking you do not necessarily need to learn Xhosa , Cape town everybody understands English. Xhosa people mix their language with English. So when you want to evaluate Africans who can and cannot speak English, Africans from CPT mix their language with English which they have begin to think it’s part of xhosa where in actual fact itsn't…. Just for knowledge sake you can if you want to not a must
Read more other entries :
