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South African English is the variety of English used in the Republic of South Africa. Since the early 19th century it has been the mother tongue of settlers of British origin and a second language, in varying degrees, of indigenous Afrikaners, Africans, and Asians. Since 1994, the nation has had 11 official languages: English, Afrikaans, Ndebele, Sotho (Northern and Southern), Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. South African English tends not to pronounce r in words such as art, door, and worker, and, among Africans, generally has full vowels in all syllables (e.g., seven is pronounced "seh-ven" not "sev'n"). In the speech of middle-class British South Africans distinctive usages are common: e.g., the vowels in park and trap are heard by outsiders as "pork" and "trep," and in fair hair as "fay hay." A curiosity of the grammar is the affirmative "no," as in How are you? - No, I'm fine, probably adopted from Afrikaans. With its parent Dutch, this language has provided the bulk of local borrowings: e.g., Afrikaner "a white South African of Dutch or Huguenot origin," apartheid "former policy of separate racial development," bakkie "pickup truck," braai "barbecue," drift "ford," kloof "ravine," the now internationalized trek "journey," and veld, pronounced /felt/, "open country," with its hybrid extensions highveld and backveld. Words from African languages include impala, muti (medicine), sangoma (diviner), and tshwala (sorghum beer). Distinctive English words are the now-archaic bioscope (movie), location (district set aside for a particular group), and robot (traffic light).
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