English as mother-tongue is a minority language although it is very important in cultural terms. Most of the population speak a Bantu language as their mother-tongue. Afrikaans speakers also outnumber English speakers (Wells, 1982: 610). The first thing one notices when listening to South African English is that it sounds like English spoken by a Dutch person. This is due to the influence of Afrikaans, a language which is similar to Dutch spoken in this country.

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