SA Rocks

Earlier this year I had the great pleasure of having dinner with a couple of friends at Aubergine restaurant in Cape Town. I had been eager to try it because because the restaurant has been a regular fixture on the prestigious Diners Club Dine Awards winners lists since its opening. I had also heard that the chef’s style of cooking is a successful marriage of European and Asian techniques, but reworked to incorporate the finest quality authentically South African ingredients. I was intrigued already. Interest piqued, booking made, and off we went.

Like many restaurants in Cape Town, Aubergine is situated in a character-filled old house in Gardens. The house itself has quite a history, having once been the fashionable 19th century home of Sir John Wylde, first Chief Justice of the Cape, and having boasted an estate of several acres. Sir John was a colourful character, to say the least, but his elegant table and fine wines were renowned and it is this spirit which Aubergine seeks to perpetuate. Owner and chef Harald Bresselschmidt (originally from Belgium) comes with an impeccable culinary pedigree, having studied in various European countries before moving to South Africa in the 1990s. He was responsible for getting Bosman’s Restaurant at Grand Roche in Paarl named the best restaurant in South Africa for two years running before opening Aubergine in 1996.

The building has been extensively renovated and is decorated in warm natural materials, with an open plan bar leading to the dining area. There is also a mezzanine area which (I think) is more of a lounge bar than part of the dining area, and a beautiful outside courtyard dining area (sadly, it was too windy to sit outside the night we visited). To accommodate the mezzanine level, the ceilings have been removed which makes for a lovely airy feel but I was worried that, as in many restaurants lacking in soft furnishings and interior partitions, the noise levels would be uncomfortable. But I needen’t have worried – some clever design feature (the beautiful reed ceilings?) made the noise comparatively muted – hurrah! The service, which is often the downfall of high-end South African restaurants, was friendly and excellent all night: nothing was too much trouble and our waiter was charming.

And so, to the food. The menu is of a restrained length but provided an agony of choice, with the East meets West in Africa theme very much in evidence. The wine list was extensive but there was very little that I would have classed as affordable or good value, which is a pity. I must also confess that I did not make a note of what we eventually ordered as I was too busy talking to to my dining companions, bad blogger that I am!

The amuse bouche was a pretty little bite – a rustic terrine (made with pork and mushrooms? Truffles?), served with sweet and sour butternut and pistachios. This was a great combo, with the flavourful and salty terrine contrasting beautifully with the butternut. For my starter I had steamed calamari tubes with a fresh basil dressing, aubergine “caviar” and roasted cherry tomatoes. That translucent red shard was some addictively crispy tomato skin – talk about beauty with a purpose! The calamari tubes were butter-soft and filled (I think) with some kind of forcemeat, and the roasting had exquisitely intensified the flavour of the cherry tomatoes. A winner. My neighbour had one of the Aubergine specialities: an aubergine and goats cheese souffle which was light but intensely flavoured and delicious.

This was followed by a palate-cleansing sorbet – a lovely peach flavour which made a nice change from the usual lemon. Choosing my main course had been agonising as there had been so many delicious contenders, but in the end I had to go for the option that I would never get on a London menu: warthog. Yes, I cannot tell a lie – I ate Pumbaa. My two medallions of warthog came topped with herb mousseline and accompanied by black cherries and homemade spatzle. I must say, I thought (and hoped) that the warthog would be a bit… well, gamier. As it was, the meat may as well have been pork fillet medallions: tasty, but not exactly exotically flavoured. I found the herb mousseline to be tasty but a little stodgy for my taste. The cherries and spatzle, however, were quite divine. No sooner had my main arrived than I was struck by a serious case of menu envy. The first attack came when I had a taste of Sophia’s main of 5 “pralines” of rare beef, each with a different flavoured crust (pesto, parmesan, and various others); or Anthony’s main of ostrich in a Thai green curry sauce – an unexpectedly sublime combination. Nick took a walk on the wild side with perfectly rare kudu steak, and John had the East meets West fish platter – I’m afraid I didn’t take proper notes, but broadly speaking, these was a dish of Asian-inspired fishcakes on noodles (East), and some goujons of white fish in a creamy sauce on asparagus and spinach (West).

After this, everyone was too full for individual desserts, but we ordered two to share among the five of us. The first was a tuille-topped pannacotta with stewed cherries and mango sorbet. Not only was this gorgeous but each individual element was perfectly executed – particularly the sorbet which tasted quite simply like unadulterated frozen mango flesh. The panacotta itself was perfectly trembly, and I loved the crunchy contrast of the tuille. Our other dessert was a platter of thinly sliced pear with Camembert and pistachios - simple and delicious. Coffee was accompanied by a complimentary plate of petit fours that were bite-sized works of art, particularly the little jewelled fruit tarts.

Check out my Flickr album if you want to see pics of most of the above dishes.

All in all, it was a delightful evening. And at R1,280 for five people (about £85) with wine, water and service, I thought the price was far less than the restaurant’s reputation might suggest. When we had questions, our charming waiter was able to answer them; when we needed an extra cushion, our charming waiter supplied one. Everything we ate spoke of excellent local ingredients and well-though out combinations of flavour and texture. The food was unfussy and not garnished to death, but every element on the plate clearly had a role to play and played it to perfection. Fusion food these days has become almost a derogatory term and a byword for bizarre and ill-considered combinations. But Aubergine manages to fuse authentically South African ingredients with European and Asian cooking styles, without any jarring cluture clash.

In brief: If you are in Cape Town or planning a visit soon, Aubergine is a wonderful introduction to how good South African fusion food can be. The price is surprisingly reasonable given its stellar reputation, and both the service and food are world-class.

Aubergine
39 Barnet Street
Gardens
Cape Town
South Africa

Tel. +27 – 021 465 4909
Fax. +27 – 021 461 3781
e-mail info@aubergine.co.za

Popularity: 5% [?]

I will be attending a very interesting debate on Wednesday. It is being held and hosted by Epiphany.

Let me quickly jump back for a second. I have recently joined Zoopy.com as the GM of Gauteng and have spent the last week or so in Cape Town. Along the way I met some fantastic people, one of whom is Max Kaizen.

Max is a contributor here on SA Rocks and we have been threatening to bump in to one another for a while now. Eventually, Tuesday night we managed to get in touch with one another at Asoka in Kloof, CT.

Firstly let me just say what an absolutely fantastic venue Asoka is. Great jazz, cool people, mixed crowd, good cocktails and good company made the evening top notch.

But back to the Unexpected Business Case.

Max and I got talking about SA, as it happens fairly often with me. Then she mentioned a debate that is taking place in JHB on Wednesday and I couldn’t refuse the chance to attend.

Here’s the press release:

The UNEXPECTED business case affecting SA’s best and brightest
-a provocative public debate - why staying may be smart strategy
at the South African Business Schools Expo,

Sandton Sun, Johannesburg
Wednesday, 3 September 17h00 – 19h00

JOHANNESBURG – Amongst the financial doom & gloom, xenophobia, political incompetence and exit strategies traded over dinner; a question must be asked:
“Is there a business case for using South Africa as a platform in a global economy?”

Think tank engineers, Epiphany in collaboration with Huddlemind, executive education specialists, will be facilitating a dynamic debate at the South African Business School Expo to interrogate the perception that South Africans have to go elsewhere in the world to “make it big”.

Respected industry leaders: Branko Brkic (Editor, Maverick), Mike Stopforth (CEO, Cerebra), Paul Jacobson (New Media lawyer, Jacobson Attorneys) and Joshin Raghubar (Aspen Global Leadership fellow/ CEO, iKineo) present their opinion on the flight of human capital out of South Africa; and how the changes in technology, media, global economics and local politics have opened up gaps that the swift and smart can take advantage of now.

This is not a lecture by talking heads. Epiphany is tackling the question in a fresh way, through provocative public debate with powerful thought leaders – not only from the expert panel – but the audience too. Among them, social media powerhouse Nic Haralambous (editor, SA Rocks) will be on the floor to offer rich perspectives on opportunities most of us miss in our misery. The group session will be facilitated by David Donde (journalist, GQ and presenter 567/702).

Are there practical strategies to leveraging world-scale success from the bottom of Africa? There are companies and industries booming despite the downturn.
What are they doing that may be a little unusual?

This session is highly recommended if you’re considering a great trek of your own, or rapidly losing some of your company’s best and brightest.

Tickets are R250 (including admission to the Expo) available online (click here) at www.epiphany.usgeni.us
or contact Max Kaizen 082 832 6434 or max@usgeni.us

And for a bit more on each of the participating personalities:

Branko Brkic
Described as the guardian of the higher mind, Branko is the owner of Business Century, publisher and editor of business magazines Maverick and Empire.

David Donde
David will be facilitating the session for Epiphany. He is a talkshow host on 702/Cape Talk and journalist at GQ on cars and lifestyle. He is a founder of Origin Coffee Roasting (singularly the best artisan roasted coffee in the country). Recognised as a global expert on the matter, David does talks on coffee; but also on branding, fair trade economics and the collapse of the middle market. He voices his strident opinion out in the web at daviddonde.com

Paul Jacobson
Paul is a new media lawyer working in Johannesburg. He has a general commercial legal practice, Jacobson Attorneys and focusses on new media and the law. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council on The Open Knowledge Definition Project, Sub-Committee 71L (Document description and processing languages) and is the legal advisor to a number of non-profit organisations. Paul speaks at universities and conferences globally about new media and the law and writes about these issues (and others) on his blog.

Joshin Raghubar
Joshin serves as a director of the Cape Information Technology Initiative (CITi). Chairman of the Bandwidth Barn which is Africa’s leading non-profit business incubator and accelerator for technology businesses. He has also recently joined the board of the South African Chamber of Commerce in America. Has has recently become a Global Leadership Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (African Leadership Initiative). Somewhere between all of this, he is also CEO of marketing and communications firm iKineo.

Mike Stopforth
Mike is perhaps one of the most quoted people on social media in South Africa, helped set up Afrigator, is the brains behind Cerebra, and co-founded the 27Dinners. He’s an acclaimed public speaker, columnist and tells the likes of Toyota, Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, Samsung Mobile, ABSA, Converse and Calvin Klein what they should be doing online. For kicks he is an associate of the Institute of Technology Strategy and Innovation (ITSI), the Center for Complexity Studies

Popularity: 4% [?]

From the user off Zoopy:

This is the national anthem of South Africa. I’ve read that there is not a set standard arrangement for this song, so I’ve made my own arrangement to sing. I hope you like it. I did this song because I find it to be very moving and beautiful.

Popularity: 6% [?]

This was filmed by Jason Von Berg:

Popularity: 5% [?]

After weeks, nay, months of rallying, blogging, Facebooking and more the voters were cast and the announcement has been made: Cape Town made it to 3rd on the World Monopoly Board!!!

I covered this extensively earlier in the year, blogging it often and calling people to action. Strange that so many answered the calls of so many to vote for CT on the board.

In a matter of weeks we went from nowhere in the rankings to top 20, top 10 and finally 3rd!

I am proud to say that I voted, I blogged it and I punted it to friends, family, at dinner parties, rugby matches and more! Apparently EA is launching the World Monopoly board as a console game across the board. The launch is somewhere in Sandton today and I am assuming globally too.

So head over to the Monopoly website and the SA Rocks blog posts for a current update and a history of the event!

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Yes, it’s a stretch that a ringtone could make a person “Condomise”. But what if it can? What if it makes a difference?

I think that some sort of exposure to the cause of safe sex is more than necessary in today’s day and age. Teenage pregnancy, HIV/Aids, and STDs just to name a few issues that arise through unprotected sex. South Africa is no exception and in fact I’d be willing to argue that we need something like this more than India.

Why I think this is a great idea is that it has potential to “go viral” amongst the right age groups and those who need some sort of awareness raised.

Here’s the advert from India:

Popularity: 4% [?]

I have posted a few fact-focused posts on SA Rocks before. But here’s another one that I was sent by a reader.

Enjoy:

Economy

1. The rand was the best performing currency against the US Dollar between 2002 and 2005 (Bloomberg Currency Scoreboard)
2. South Africa has 48,000 high net-wealth individuals holding at least US$1million in financial assets (World Wealth Report 2007)
3. South Africa has the 27th biggest economy in the world, with a Gross Domestic Product of US$254 billion (World Bank)
4. South Africa accounts for almost 25% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy more than twice the size of the second biggest – Algeria.(World Bank)
5. Gauteng is South Africa’s smallest province but produces 34% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (Stats SA)
6. The JSE Securities Exchange is the 14th largest equities exchange in the world, with a total market capitalisation of some R2.3 trillion (JSE) 7. More than 12,000 ‘Black Diamond’ families (South Africa’s new black middle class)-or 50,000 people-are moving from the townships into the suburbs of South Africa’s metro areas every month (UCT Unilever Institute)
7. The black middle class grew by 30% in 2005, adding another 421,000 black adults to SA’s middle-income layer and ramping up the black population’s share of SA’s total middle class to almost a third. Between 2001 and 2004, there were 300,000 new black entrants to the middle class (Financial Mail)

Infrastructure

1. South Africa generates two-thirds of Africa’s electricity (Eskom)
2. South African power supplier provides the fourth cheapest electricity in the world
3. Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto is the biggest hospital in the world
4. Durban is the largest port in Africa and the ninth largest in the world.
5. There are 39 million cell phone users in South Africa (International Telecommunication Union)

Social

1. Over thirteen million South Africans (a quarter of the population) have access to social grants (Department of Social Development)
2. Since 1994, 500 houses have been built each day for the poor and 1,000 houses per day have received electricity
3. Seventy percent of South Africa’s population is urbanised
4. Our population is set to stabilise at around 45 million people for the next 20 years

Tourism

1. The number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown by 188% since 1994, from 3 million to 8.4 million in 2006 (Department of Environment and Tourism)
2. The Singita game reserve was voted the best hotel in the world by the readers of a leading travel magazine (Conde Nast Traveller)
3. The world’s best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus in the Western Cape.
4. In 2002, South Africa was the world’s fastest growing tourist destination. In 2006, South Africa’s tourism grew at three times the global average.

Sport

1. South Africa hosts the largest timed cycle race in the world (the Cape Argus Cycle Tour), the world’s oldest and largest ultra-marathon (the Comrades Marathon) and the world’s largest open water swimming event (the Midmar Mile).
2. South Africa will become the first African country to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010 … and the first country in the world to have
   hosted the Cricket, Rugby and Soccer World Cups.
3. Since the 1940s, South African golfers have won more golf majors than any other nation, apart from the United States.
4. In 1994, we won 11 medals in the Commonwealth Games. In 2002, we won 46.

SA Teaching the World

1. South Africa houses one of the three largest telescopes in the world at Sutherland in the Karoo

2. South Africa is the first, and to date the only, country to build nuclear weapons and the voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme
3. South Africa Constitution is widely regarded as being one of the most progressive in the world, drawing from the experiences of the world’s most advanced democracies
4. The South African oil company Sasol has established the only commercially proven oil-from-coal operations in the world.
5. Two of the world’s most profoundly compassionate philosophies originated in South Africa – Ubuntu (the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity) and Gandhi’s notion of “passive resistance” (Satyagraha), which he developed while living in South Africa.

Education

1. Almost a quarter of South Africa’s non-interest budget is spent on education
2. The University of South Africa UNISA is a pioneer of tertiary distance education and is the largest correspondence university in the world with 250,000 students.
3. Our learner to teacher ratio has improved from 1:50 in 1994 to 1:34 in 2004
4. South Africa’s matric pass rate has improved from 49% in 1994 to 70% in 2004, but student’s receiving university exemptions has remained at 18%

Environmental

1. The Kruger National Park supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent
2. The Cango Caves near Oudsthoorn is the world’s longest underground cave sequence
3. South Africa is home to both the largest land mammal (elephant)and the smallest mammal (shrew)
4. South Africa is the only country to house an entire floral kingdom (fynbos), one of only 6 on the planet
5. In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.
6. South Africa has the oldest meteor scar in the world, at the Vredefort Dome near Parys. The scar is 2 billion years old.
7. South Africa has the third highest level of biodiversity worldwide (SA Tourism)
8. The Cape Hyrax’s (dassie) closest relative is the African elephant
9. South Africa has embraced the concept of trans-frontier ‘peace parks’, linking ecological reserves across national borders

General

1. South Africa is the cradle of mankind
2. Afrikaans is the youngest official language in the world
3. The Western Deep Levels is the world’s deepest mine at 3777 metres
4. South Africa has the world’s largest deposits of gold, chromium, platinum and manganese
5. The only street in the world to house two Nobel Peace Prize winners is in Soweto. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street, Orlando West.
6. South Africa has the world’s second oldest air force, established 1920.
7. South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China’s beer.
8. South Africa has the second oldest film industry in the world
9. In 2005, Time Magazine hailed President Thabo Mbeki as the Most Powerful Man in Africa and in 2007 South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa was included in the Time 100, an annual list, assembled by Time magazine, of the 100 most influential people in the world
10. Cape Town has the fifth-best blue sky in the world according to The UK’s National Physical Laboratory

If you know that some of these facts are questionable please let me know, but many of them have references and sources listed. If you have any more interesting, strange or fun stats or facts about SA please email them through to me!

compiled by SA Good News

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It seems as though the incredibly smart, wonderfully tasteful and gently subtle geniuses from the South Africa Sucks blog (now known as zahell.something.or.another) have discovered publicity.

That means that the rest of us have to deal with their racist slurs, genius non-innuendos and flat our bigoted racism while we read quality content. I wont stand for it. I will, and am, doing all that I can to shut down every new domain/blog/website that these people may use. I have been reporting this group of people for a long time and my efforts have occasionally worked. This is why the “website” has had to move numerous times and rename itself. All the while maintaining the same theme, contributors and wonderful approach to plagiarism (they rip off content from every and any source they can and claim it as their own).

But I desperately digress to a topic that riles me and inflames my tongue and fingers as I type.

The point of this post is to tell you about Blogger.com’s interesting approach to me reporting zahell as defamatory and libellous content as well as offensive and hate speech.

After I clicked the “Flag This” button in the header bar of blogger blogs I received this email from the team at Google.

Hi there,

Thank you for your message. Please note that Blogger is a provider of
content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users
to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these
pages. We strongly believe in freedom of expression, even if a blog
contains unappealing or distasteful content or presents unpopular
viewpoints. We realize this may be frustrating and we regret any
inconvenience this may cause you. Given these facts, and pursuant with
section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, Blogger does not remove
allegedly defamatory, libelous, or slanderous material from Blogger.com or
BlogSpot.com. In cases where contact information for the author is listed
on the page, we recommend you working directly with this person to have
the content in question removed or changed.

In cases where the author is anonymous, please note that in accordance
with US state and federal law, it is Blogger’s policy to only provide a
user’s contact information pursuant to a valid third party subpoena or
other appropriate legal process.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

What a load of rubbish is that? OK wait, don’t answer that because I know the story. They have to cover themselves, they can’t moderate each and every blog, they can’t be held responsible for the content on their platform, they don’t publish these blogs they simply host the software that the people use to publish their own content. Yet all of these are just too simple for me.

Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation and there is no excuse for a message like the above. If you don’t want to take charge of your platform don’t give me the option to report questionable content if you don’t actually intend on acting on my complaint. Rather let me find other means. I am sorely disappointed in their approach and will be looking for other ways to permanently remove the zahell drivel.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Khotso Mokoena finally put SA on the Beijing Olympics medals table with a silver in the men’s long jump on Monday.

He was 10cm behind winner Irving Saladinho of Panama, jumping 8.24m to the winner’s 8.34m.

I am very excited that Long Jump was the event to give SA a silver medal at this years Olympics as it was my best and favourite track event when I was still an active sportsman!

Popularity: 7% [?]

We all know that there are 11 national languages in SA. But can you name them all? I couldn’t until I had researched and written this post.

So let me list them for you:

• Afrikaans
• English
• IsiNdebele
• IsiXhosa
• IsiZulu
• Sepedi
• Sesotho
• Setswana
• SiSwati
• Tshivenda
• Xitsonga

Before I delve in to the intricacies of each language above I’d like to point out a fantastic resource over at southafrica.info: A local slang word dictionary.

Here a couple that I enjoyed:

bagel (bay-gell) – An overly groomed materialistic young man, and the male version of a kugel.

hey - The popular expression hey can be used as a standalone question meaning “pardon” or “what” – “Hey? What did you say?” Or it can be used to prompt affirmation or agreement, as in “It was a great film, hey?”

is it (as one word: izit) – An expression frequently used in conversation and equivalent to “Is that so?”

just now – If a South African tells you they will do something “just now”, they mean they’ll do it in the near future – not immediately: “I’ll do the dishes just now.”

shame – Broadly denotes sympathetic feeling. Someone admiring a baby, kitten or puppy might say: “Ag shame!” to emphasise its cuteness.

Now let’s get back in to it:

The 2001 census is widely used at the moment as the main source of information relating to languages in SA.

Let’s break it down language by language:

ISIZULU

Zulu has 10 677 000 speakers in SA and that makes up 23.8%. It is widely spoken in KwaZulu-Natal (81% of the province’s population are Zulu first language speakers), Mpumalanga (26%) and Gauteng (21%).

ISIXHOSA

Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population.

Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, while the most widely spoken is Zulu. Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole. As of 2003 the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 5.3 million, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225)[3].

AFRIKAANS

Afrikaans is spoken by 5 983 000 people in SA or about 13.3% of the population.

A majority of South Africa’s population uses this as their first or second language. The language is widely spoken in Namibia and spoken partly in Zimbabwe, Botswana and other countries. According to many English South Africans, Afrikaans is said to be a language that is dying, but this language has made its mark in society and the culture backing this language is rich.

The word Afrikaans in Dutch means “African”. Afrikaans was created in Cape Town, which is home to various nationalities.

NORTHERN SOTHO / SEPEDI

Sepedi is spoken by nearly five million—4,208,980 people (2001 Census Data)—in the South African provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo Province and Mpumalanga.

ENGLISH

English is spoken by 3 673 000 people in SA or about 8.2% of the population.

English has been both a highly influential language in South Africa, and a language influenced, in turn, by adaptation in the country’s different communities. Estimates based on the 1991 census suggest that some 45% of the population have a speaking knowledge of English.

SESOTHO

SeSotho is spoken by 3 555 000 people in SA or about 7.9% of the population.

Sesotho, or Southern Sotho, is spoken in the country of Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South African territory, as well as in the Free State province, southern Gauteng, and in the vicinity of Pretoria and Brits.

XITSONGA

XiTsonga is spoken by 1 992 000 people in SA or about 4.4% of the population.

Xitsonga is spoken in eastern Limpopo and Mumalanga, areas near the border of the country of Mozambique, as well as in southern Mozambique and southeastern Zimbabwe.

SISWATI

SiSwati is spoken by 1 194 000 people in SA or about 2.7% of the population. SiSwati, the language of the Swazi nation, is spoken mainly in eastern Mpumalanga, an area that borders the country of Swaziland.

TSHIVENDA

Venda is spoken by 1 022 000 people in SA or about 2.3% of the population. Venda is generally regarded as a language isolate. Its is the language of the Venda people, who are culturally closer to the Shona people of Zimbabwe than to any other South African group.

Spoken mainly in northern Limpopo, an area bordering the country of Zimbabwe, Tshivenda shares features with Shona and Sepedi, with some influence from Nguni languages. The Tshipani variety of Tshivenda is used as the standard.

ISINDEBELE

Ndebele is spoken by 712 000 people in SA or about 1.6% of the population.

IsiNdebele is mainly spoken in the provinces of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng, around the towns of Mokopane, Polokwane, Pretoria, Bronkhorstspruit, Middelburg, Witbank, Delmas, Standerton, Marble Hall, Groblersdal, Hendrina, Belfast and Bethal.

SETSWANA

Setswana is spoken by 3 677 000 people in SA or about 8.2% of the population. The language of the Tswana people is spoken mostly in Botswana, a country on the northwestern border of South Africa, as well as in the Northern Cape province, the central and western Free State and in North West.

And there you have it. Those are our eleven national languages. Now you should know what percentage of the population speaks which language and where those people are situated in SA!

References: Wikipedia, southafrica.info, sa-venues.com
Maps: Human Sciences Research Council

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