The Languages of South Africa

South Africa has eleven official languages. Yes, eleven!

In alphabetical order they are: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele (isiNdebele), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa sometimes referred to as Sepedi), Sotho (Sesotho), Swazi (Siswati), Tsonga (Xitsonga), Tswana (Setswana), Venda (Tshivenda), Xhosa (isiXhosa) and Zulu (isiZulu).
I wrote them in alphabetical order in English, with their name in their own language in brackets)

I imagine that not all official documents are published in all the languages. But I can tell you that coins appear in all of them. I know because one day, quite a while back when I was new to South Africa, I was looking at all my coins and even before knowing how many official languages there was I came up with eleven.

What I find interesting is that Zulu speakers in South Africa are like English speakers in the rest of the world: they seldom speak another traditional African language. But most, if not all, speakers of other traditional African language speak Zulu. In fact it is the language they speak among themselves when they are not all from the same background.
Most black African speak at least 3 languages, usually English (or Afrikaan in small communities where people do not speak English), Zulu and their mother tongue. I found that this is usually the minimum, most speak 5 or 7 languages.

This is what the South African website explains about them:
According to the 2011 census, isiZulu is the mother tongue of 22.7% of South Africa's population, followed by isiXhosa at 16%, Afrikaans at 13.5%, English at 9.6%, Setswana at 8% and Sesotho at 7.6%.
isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, and isiNdebele are collectively referred to as the Nguni languages, and have many similarities in syntax and grammar. The Sotho languages – Setswana, Sesotho sa Leboa, and Sesotho – also have much in common.
Many of South Africa's linguistic groups share a common ancestry. But as groupings and clans broke up in search of autonomy and greener pastures for their livestock, variations of the common languages evolved.