---
name: locale-af-za
description: Use when working with the Afrikaans (South Africa) locale (`af-ZA`) — its endonym Afrikaans (Suid-Afrika), Latin script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
---

# Locale: Afrikaans (South Africa) (af-ZA)

Reference data for the **Afrikaans (South Africa)** locale — endonym **Afrikaans (Suid-Afrika)**, written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

## Identifiers

- **BCP 47 tag:** `af-ZA`
- **ISO 639-1:** `af`
- **ISO 639-3:** `afr`
- **Script:** Latn (Latin)
- **Region:** ZA (South Africa)
- **Text direction:** ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

## Speakers (approximate)

- **L1 (native):** 7,000,000
- **L2 (additional):** 10,000,000
- **L1+L2 (total):** 17,000,000

## Base locale

This is a regional variant of [[locale-af-001]] (Afrikaans), the base/macro locale for this language.

## Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: **one**, **other** (2 forms).

- **one** — `n = 1` (e.g. 1)
- **other** — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)

See [[unicode-messageformat]] for writing plural messages using these categories.

## Translating into this locale

Apply [[locale-af-001]] to Afrikaans in South Africa.

- **Context:** Afrikaans is one of eleven official languages; most readers also know English, so code-switching is common in speech. In formal text keep the Afrikaans consistent and gloss English terms only when needed.
- **Formats:** rand ("R12,50"), day-month-year, 24-hour clock, decimal comma.
- **Register:** "u" for public and formal text; "jy" for friendly consumer text.

## Common pitfalls

- Mixing Afrikaans and English in formal copy.
- Using Dutch forms for loanwords.
- The general pitfalls in [[locale-af-001]] also apply.

## Learn more

- [[locale]] for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- [[unicode-messageformat]] for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Die Afrikaanse Taalkommissie