The World Socialist Web Site is proud to introduce a new section devoted to articles published in the Afrikaans language. The site can be accessed at wsws.org/af/.

Afrikaans is the third most common home language in South Africa, with approximately 7 million native speakers, or 13.5 percent of the population. It is one of eleven official languages in the country and is spoken with varying degrees of fluency by about 20 million South Africans.

The language is also widely spoken in neighboring Namibia, where it is the native language of 11 percent of the population.

Afrikaans is the majority language in the western half of South Africa, including both black and white populations in the Western Cape and Northern Cape. It is the main language of the Western Cape farm workers, who have been engaged in recent months in a number of bitter strikes.

South Africa as a whole is an important center of working class struggle. Last year, a struggle of miners erupted in opposition to the African National Congress (ANC) government and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). This sparked a wave of strikes throughout the country, including among the farm workers.

The Afrikaans language section will include articles on South Africa as well as translations of other WSWS articles on critical political, social, cultural and historical issues. Click here to access the Afrikaans page.