[[File:South Africa 2011 English speakers proportion map.svg|thumb|Geographical distribution of English in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks English at home

]]

thumb|Geographical distribution of English in South Africa: density of English home-language speakers. The four high-density clusters correspond to the locations of [[Pretoria and Johannesburg, Durban, Gqeberha and Cape Town (clockwise).

]]

South African English (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.

History

British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding operation at the Cape Colony. The goal of this first endeavour was to gain control of a key Cape sea route, not to establish a permanent settler colony. Full control of the colony was wrested from the Batavian Republic following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806. The first major influx of English speakers arrived in 1820. About 5,000 British settlers, mostly rural or working class, settled in the Eastern Cape. After 1994, these two languages along with nine other Southern Bantu languages achieved equal official status. This feature is not present in Conservative SAE, and may have resulted from a vocalic chain shift in White SAE. BSAE is considered a "new" English because it has emerged through the education system among second-language speakers in places where English is not the majority language.

The local native language of Black South African "new" English would lean more on the syllable side and would lean less on stress timing; due to this, the speech of the language would be affected by the length of vowel deduction in "new" English.

Phonology

BSAE emerged from the influence of local native languages on the British English variety often taught in South African schools. After dispersing BSAE has been seen as three distinct subvarieties: the basilect, mesolect, and acrolect. Not much has yet been studied on the subvarieties of BSAE, and the distinctions between them are not yet fully defined. However, there are some notable pronunciation differences in the mesolect and acrolect.

The vowels in BSAE can be realised as five key phonemes: /i/, pronounced in words like "FLEECE" or KIT, /u/ in "FOOT" or "GOOSE", /ɛ/ in "TRAP", "DRESS", or "NURSE", /ɔ/ in LOT or FORCE, and /a/ as in CAR. /i/ may occasionally be pronounced [ɪ] in the acrolectal variety, though there is no consistent change among speakers. One difference in the acrolect in comparison to the mesolect is that it often uses [ʌ] in place of [a]. Due to English being an official language of South Africa, dialects that have contrary methods in language and pronunciation to English become isolated from the speech in that area. For instance, "it lacks the tense/lax contrast and central vowels in the mesolectal variety."

History

Historically, BSAE has been considered a "non-standard" variety of English, perceived as inappropriate for formal contexts, and influenced by indigenous African languages.

BSAE, or Black South African English, has its roots in European colonialism of the African continent in the 19th century. As a result of English being pushed by the colonisers of the region, the British, English became widespread in the South African region after it became necessary for indigenous African communities to use for success under the British. Much like in other colonies of the British, English became a necessity for advancement and economic security in the colony for indigenous Africans. As this language declined throughout the 20th century and speakers shifted to English, SABh likely served as a substrate, influencing the phonology, lexicon, and syntax of the emerging Indian South African English variety, alongside influences from other Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, and Gujarati spoken by other immigrant groups

ISAE resembles Indian English in some respects, possibly because the varieties contain speakers with shared mother tongues or because early English teachers were brought to South Africa from India, or both.

Many people from these regions migrated to Durban and Pietermaritzburg, where the most Anglophone coloureds can be found.

Anglophone coloureds with European heritage have ancestry mostly from the British Isles, which, along with originating in regions with very few Afrikaans speaking people, contributed to English being the main language of the coloured people in the region.

Lexicon

History of SAE dictionaries

In 1913, Charles Pettman created the first South African English dictionary, entitled Africanderisms. This work sought to identify Afrikaans terms that were emerging in the English language in South Africa. In 1924, the Oxford University Press published its first version of a South African English dictionary, The South African Pocket Oxford Dictionary. Subsequent editions of this dictionary have tried to take a "broad editorial approach" in including vocabulary terms native to South Africa, though the extent of this inclusion has been contested.

  • tekkies (trainers, sneakers, or tennis shoes)

British lexical items

SAE also contains several lexical items that demonstrate the British influence on this variety:

  • arse, bum (ass) This is influenced by the Afrikaans phrase hulle kom saam, literally "they come together", with saam being misinterpreted as with. "Come with?" is also encountered in areas of the Upper Midwest of the United States, which had a large number of Scandinavian, Dutch and German immigrants, who, when speaking English, translated equivalent phrases directly from their own languages.
  • The use of the "strong obligative modal" must as a synonym for the polite should/shall. "Must" has "much less social impact" in SAE than in other varieties.
  • Kiff, as in "this ice cream is kiff." Used to express approval or joy from something, or to describe something that is in fashion.
  • A large amount of slang comes from British origin, such as "naff" (boring, dull or plain), or "China" (mate, friend) from cockney rhyming slang.

Demographics

The South African National Census of 2011 found a total of 4,892,623 speakers of English as a first language, making up 9.6% of the national population.