What language are you speaking??!

Lucky for us, English is the official language of South Africa - along with 10 other 'official languages.'  Zulu, afrikaans, and many others are spoken everywhere and it's fun to hear although I don't understand. Most of the time, I'm not certain I understand the English here either. 

Many Afrikaans, British, Zulu, Indian and other words, phrases and idioms are part of the lexicon. Plus, pronunciation is very different. A bird is a 'bhuuuurd' and the 'ko-mun huert-a-beeyast' is a common hartebeest. It's actually fun to see other people on our safari trying to learn these new names - and then figure out what the American pronunciation is ('oh, for the last two days I thought we were seeing VELvet monkeys, but these are the VERvet monkeys listed in the guide book!').

Adding to that confunderation is the fact that there is no single South African' accent. By the time you figure out this person's Zulu accent, you have to switch gears to try to understand the guy with the Afrikaaner accent and so on. I think the South African word I use most is 'what?' 'what?'