The recent FIFA World Cup in South Africa has had an unexpected side effect: participants across the globe encountered African languages for the first time via their television sets and computer screens. South Africa has no less than ten official languages beside English: Afrikaans, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Sotho, Tswana, Swazi, Venda and Tsonga. According to UNESCO, one-third of all of the world's languages are spoken in sub-Saharan Africa. Not all of them are written or widely used, but there are between 1,500 and 2,000 languages that may be heard in that corner of the world ... To read this entire article you must be a MultiLingual subscriber. For immediate access to the current issue, subscribe to the digital version. Already a subscriber?

Above excerpt taken from the July/August 2010 issue of MultiLingual published by MultiLingual Computing, Inc., 319 North First Avenue, Suite 2, Sandpoint, Idaho 83864-1495 USA, 208-263-8178, Fax: 208-263-6310. Subscribe