South Africa was a Dutch colony from 1652. The first large-scale settlements of English speakers were only set up from about 1820. Consequently, South African English has had relatively little time to 'disassociate' from British English.

The mother-tongue languages of South Africa are as follows:-

English has become something of a lingua franca, being the second language of large segments of the population.

South African English varies greatly:

• 'Conservative', similar to English RP;
• 'Extreme', with a strong accent;
• 'Afrikaans English', the second language of many Afrikaaners.

Outsiders often say that South African English sounds nasal, with 'flat' vowel sounds and 'sharp' consonants:

• 'p', 'b' and 't' consonant sounds tend to be very hard, almost "spat out";
• South African English is non-rhotic and even avoids using linking 'r' as in "care of";
• the RP long 'aah' becomes a 'eh', therefore "car" sounds a bit like "care";
• the usual 'a' sound becomes more like 'eh', a very distinctive flat vowel: "Africa" sounds more like "Efrike";
• all diphthongs tend to become monophthongs, hence "who'd" sounds like 'hood", and "been" like "bin".

South Africans use the all-purpose question tags: 'isn't it?' and 'is it?'. The three areas of unique South African vocabulary are shown in the following lists:-