South Africa and its Ethnolinguistic Composition

    What interested me the most when familiarizing myself with Africamap and its system of layers was the ethnic and linguistic composition of South Africa. South Africa is an incredibly ethnically diverse country with eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northen Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu, not to mention the huge number of unofficial languages and dialects. This is clearly illustrated by the map linked below (which also happens to show the fact that the different languages and ethnic groups are found in reasonably distinct geographic locations):

Wikipedia Map of South African Municipalities by Language  

     Furthermore, the ethnic make up has been complicated by a significant population of both European (predominantly English and Dutch) and African immigrants, which has blurred the distinct ethno-geographic regions. However, there does tend to be a vast oversimplification when people think about the country, with people generally tending to only remember the larger and more powerful Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and English groupings. Consequently, it is this oversimplification and ignorance that has led to the recent xenephobic attacks on immigrants in 2008, a sobering and ironic fact considering South Africa's troubled past and the fact that it is supposed to have one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. I thus think that, perhaps not only a deeper study into the ethnic make up of the country would prove interesting and informative but also an examination of the immigration patterns and their effects on the current landscape.

Picture taken in Soweto Township during the 2008 spate of Xenephobic attacks