South African Demographic Maps

[Hash]

Grabbed off the Stats ZA website. From the 2001 census

"Population group"



Language



% born outside ZA



Median age



Pop 20+ with no schooling



Household size



Households without improved toilet facilities

[Хahar 🤔]

Can someone explain the African-Coloured divide to me?

[Linus Van Pelt]

"Africans" means black Africans, i.e. everybody in most other countries in Africa, who in South Africa are mostly Bantu and speak African languages.

"Coloured" is a sort of ethnic (for lack of a better word) group that evolved under Dutch colonization who mostly have mixed ancestry of Dutch, Khoisan (the natives of western South Africa who have lighter skin than most Africans - think the Bushmen of the Kalahari) and the various places the Dutch brought slaves from (Indonesia, etc.). As you can see from the map, they speak Afrikaans. So its sort of like Metis in Canada or Mestizo in some of Latin America - originally just meant mixed-race, but over the years has evolved into its own group identity. This separate identity was furthered by Apartheid racial laws which considered Coloured a distinct group, with more rights than blacks but fewer than whites (The schooling map looks like it might reflect this).

[Хahar 🤔]

IIRC, Coloureds had a chamber in the Tricameral Parliament. But why is there such a marked divide?

[Linus Van Pelt]

IIRC, Coloureds had a chamber in the Tricameral Parliament. But why is there such a marked divide?

A geographical divide, you mean? The Dutch Cape Colony was only in the western half.
(There are Afrikaners in the east, but that's cause they fled when the British took over the Cape, in the Voortrek. But since they then wanted a self-sufficient republic rather than a colony for the homeland, they violated the 60's slogan and made war rather than love with the locals).

[Governor PiT]

"Population group"





They should devide the Country in two. Probably East by West.

[Alcon]

Why is the northwest province so educated but so poor?

[Verily]

Why is the northwest province so educated but so poor?

Northern Cape is not that much poorer than Western Cape. It's also sparsely populated and mostly desert, so there are no large cities with concentrations of uneducated internal migrants.

Population density, courtesy Wikipedia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Population_density_ZA.svg

[minionofmidas]

"Coloured" is a sort of ethnic (for lack of a better word) group that evolved under Dutch colonization who mostly have mixed ancestry of Dutch, Khoisan (the natives of western South Africa who have lighter skin than most Africans - think the Bushmen of the Kalahari) and the various places the Dutch brought slaves from (Indonesia, etc.). As you can see from the map, they speak Afrikaans. So its sort of like Metis in Canada or Mestizo in some of Latin America - originally just meant mixed-race, but over the years has evolved into its own group identity. This separate identity was furthered by Apartheid racial laws which considered Coloured a distinct group, with more rights than blacks but fewer than whites (The schooling map looks like it might reflect this).

Yeah. Only thing to add is that many, probably most, Coloreds are pretty pureblood Khoi actually.
But they certainly didn't like it when early ANC propaganda lumped them with the "Natives" (later "Africans"). Note that they speak, for the most part, Afrikaans.

[True Democrat]

And I thought that English was everyone's native language. . . (at least in the east)

[minionofmidas]

And I thought that English was everyone's native language. . . (at least in the east)

English has replaced Afrikaans as South Africa's lingua franca, what, a hundred years ago? But few people speak it as their first language except for the Non-Afrikaner Whites, the Natal Indians, and apparently some Cape Town Coloreds.
(You're right about the East thingy, though - Afrikaans has no presence in Natal, all the Whites and Asians there speak English.)

[True Democrat]

And I thought that English was everyone's native language. . . (at least in the east)

English has replaced Afrikaans as South Africa's lingua franca, what, a hundred years ago? But few people speak it as their first language except for the Non-Afrikaner Whites, the Natal Indians, and apparently some Cape Town Coloreds.
(You're right about the East thingy, though - Afrikaans has no presence in Natal, all the Whites and Asians there speak English.)

What do they speak in Parliament?

[minionofmidas]

Table of language by race...
Black African... 30.1 Zulu, 22.3 Xhosa, 11.9 Pedi, 10.3 Tswana, 10.0 Sotho (using the official South African names but dropping the prefixes that Bantu word formation so loves, ie using the root words only), four minor official languages 13.9 together, Afrikaans 0.7, English 0.5, non-official languages 0.3
Coloured... Afrikaans 79.5, English 18.9, Bantu official languages (mostly Tswana and Xhosa) 1.4, non-official languages 0.2
Indian or Asian... English 93.8, non-official languages 3.8, Afrikaans 1.7, Bantu official languages 0.7 (mostly Zulu and, more surprisingly, Ndebele)
White... Afrikaans 59.1, English 39.3, non-official languages 1.1, Bantu official languages 0.5

Source notes that there is no Census information on ability to speak other languages.

Quoting from some paper I found over the net "The
Constitution enshrines plurilingualism: the former language dispensation based on
official bilingualism has been replaced by official multilingualism. Equal rights are
entrenched for the 11 languages used by 99% of the South African population. These
languages are the two former official languages, English and Afrikaans, and nine
African languages (list). The Constitution prescribes affirmative action for the African
languages that were marginalised in the past: these languages "must enjoy parity of
esteem and must be treated equitably. (...)  the Constitution furthermore –
• prohibits discrimination against anyone on the grounds of language;
• prescribes that everyone has the right to education in any official language(s) of
their choice;
• enshrines the right of linguistic communities to use their cultures and languages;
• prescribes that every person has the right to access to interpreting during a trial,
and arrested and accused persons to information in a language that they
understand."

The paper goes on to describe something called the National Language Policy Framework.
"The aim of the NLPF is to -
• promote the equitable use of the 11 official languages;
• facilitate equitable access to government services, knowledge and information;
• ensure redress for the previously marginalised official indigenous languages;
• initiate and sustain a vibrant discourse on multilingualism with all language
communities;
• encourage the learning of other official indigenous languages to promote national
unity, and linguistic and cultural diversity; and
• promote good language management for efficient public service administration to
meet client expectations and needs.

The policy targets all government structures (national, provincial and local government)
and institutions exercising public power, as well as the national legislature and the nine
provincial legislatures (where regional circumstances determine the configuration of
languages used). The private sector is not bound by the policy, but government has
expressed its intent to encourage and support the development and implementation of
language policies by private enterprises.
The provisions for language use in the state administration are as follows:
• Each government department must designate a working language(s) for both intra and
interdepartmental communication.
• Communication with the public via official correspondence must take place in the
language of the citizen's choice.
• Official documents by national government departments must be published in all 11
languages where the effective and stable operation of government would require such
action (example). In cases where the use of all official languages is not required, documents must be published according to the principle of "functional multilingualism". According to
this principle, a selection of languages may be used by government, depending on the
intended function or purpose of a document and its target audience. In accordance
with this principle, a minimum requirement for government was set: official
documents must be published simultaneously in at least six languages:
o English;
o Afrikaans;
o Tsonga;
o Venda;
o At least one language from the Nguni group (isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu
and SiSwati); and
o At least one from the Sotho group (Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana).
The language from the Nguni and Sotho groups must be selected according to
rotation.[the principle here is, presumably, that there is a degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages. Venda is one of the smallest official languages and spoken only in the far northeast corner.] (...)
• Communication at international level will be in English or the preferred language of
the country concerned."

Note that this describes the state they aim at reaching someday ("over a reasonable period"), not current state of affairs effective immediately.

So much for that. Scrolling down further, I find...
"Language planning experts and language stakeholders alike are increasingly arguing that
recent language practice in South Africa has been decidedly retrogressive in nature
(references). An overview of the flurry of analyses on South Africa's first decade of liberation
confirms the low priority of "the language issue" on the national agenda (ditto, followed by this newspaper quote: ) "We find that our 10-year-old democracy has been the greatest enemy of
indigenous languages. All the lofty pronouncements made in the early days of
transition seem to have been thrown out of the window and the authorities have
paid token attention to the issue. (...) The work of government is conducted virtually entirely in English and the language of our culturally diverse Parliament is almost exclusively English. Many senior politicians stay away from African language radio stations, presumably
because they perceive those audiences as not sophisticated enough. ….
Universities are battling to keep African language departments open as student
numbers dwindle, … book publishing in indigenous languages is on its deathbed,
and … the use of these languages among urban native speakers is becoming
unfashionable."

I'll close out with this quote: "The renowned Nigerian language planner, Ayo Bamgbose, rated South Africa's language policy as not "conforming to the ideal", but at least "better designed and formulated than those of most African countries" South Africa's NLPF is indeed in
many respects an exemplary attempt to address the slow and somewhat fragmented
implementation of policy in South Africa. This has resulted in a retrogressive situation
which, notwithstanding the admirable aims of the NLPF, has delivered the following
outcomes in the first decade of democracy:
(a) Language domination with no delivery in respect of language equity for the
indigenous official languages.
b) Inequality of opportunity as regards access to government services, knowledge
and information, and
(c) The marginalisation of the indigenous languages, and arguably also increasing
marginalisation of Afrikaans."

So presumably you can speak all eleven official languages in Parliament, but hardly anybody ever does speak anything but English.
It's kind of understandable - the Apartheid regime always put a lot of ressources into maintaining a strong role for Afrikaans. If these ressources were essentially distributed among ten languages, it's going to be too much to starve, too little to live for any single one.

[k-onmmunist]

How come so little of it is English?

[Hash]

How come so little of it is English?

Most South African whites are Afrikaners.

[k-onmmunist]

How come so little of it is English?

Most South African whites are Afrikaners.

Yeah.. I thought there were more than that though.

[Verily]

How come so little of it is English?

Most South African whites are Afrikaners.

Yeah.. I thought there were more than that though.

They all moved back to Britain shortly before or shortly after 1910. JRR Tolkien's story was pretty typical of British settlers in South Africa.

[minionofmidas]

There are a lot of Anglos among the Whites (no majority, but still).

It's just that all of them (and most Afrikaners too) live in a handful of cities. The Afrikaans you see on the map is Coloreds, not Afrikaners.

And that is why there's no English on the map.

[Hash]

More maps!

Sex Ratio



Dwelling type



WC Language



WC ethnic group