Afrikaans language overview video
The lowdown on Afrikaans
In this video, Paul gives a great overview of Afrikaans including:
- its history
- where it is spoken (global distribution)
- background on the writing system
- what other languages have influenced it
- what regional Afrikaans varieties exist
- very much more
Paul includes example samples of the Afrikaans language to illustrate the main points of how the language works - super helpful for folks just getting started and interesting in general for language geeks like me.
Words from the videographer
Today's episode is all about the Afrikaans language, its history as a daughter language of Dutch, and I look into the question "How similar are Dutch and Afrikaans?"
Afrikaans speakers
Around 7 million people speak Afrikaans as their mother tongue, with another 8-15 million second language speakers.
Most speakers are concentrated in South Africa and Namibia. Afrikaans is also spoken in Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Germany, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
About LangFocus
I've been a big fan of the LangFocus YouTube channel for quite some time now.
I visit it regularly to deepen my knowledge about languages in general - the videos are both academic and entertaining, a great combo.
The LangFocus creator, Paul, hails from Canada and is a language lover and polyglot who creates a wide variety of videos about languages and language learning. His work is supported by his listeners via Patreon.
Paul @langfocus you rock
Keep up the goods :) I want to interview you for an upcoming podcast.