IsiZulu still the dominant language in South Africa

IsiZulu remains the most spoken language in South African households, according to the new Census Report released by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) on Tuesday in Pretoria.

About 24.4 percent of households in the country speak isiZulu. This is an increase compared to the last three censuses conducted in 1996, 2001 and 2011, respectively.

In 2011, the recorded figure for population distribution by language often spoken in most homes stood at 22.7 percent compared to 22.8 percent in 1996.

The second most spoken language in the country is IsiXhosa at 16.3 percent, with the third most spoken language being Afrikaans at 10.6 percent of households speaking the language.

The two least spoken languages in the country include IsiNdebele and Sign Language.

Up to 1.7 percent of households speak IsiNdebele and 0.02 percent of households speak Sign Language which was officially declared as South Africa’s 12th official language in July 2023.

Statistics SA said the proportion of people who speak English, Xitsonga and Tshivenda, remained relatively stable.

On a provincial scale, data shows that KwaZulu-Natal contains the most number of households that speak IsiZulu, followed by Mpumalanga with 27.8 percent of households, while Gauteng has 23.1 percent of households that speak the language.

Meanwhile, for the first time, StatsSA has included select foreign languages in its data.

Up to 1.2 percent of people who speak Shona in South Africa were recorded, while those who speak Portuguese sit at 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent speak Chichewa/Chewa, Nyanja/Chinyanja - Bantu languages often spoken in Malawi and recognised in Zambia and Mozambique.

“Consistently, Zimbabweans have been seen as one of the largest group of foreign immigrants in the country,” said StatsSA head of content development, Mosibudi Nhlapho.

IOL