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Sport: South Africans learn national anthem ahead of World Cup

South Africans are being given lessons in the national anthem Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika (God bless Africa) ahead of the World Cup football tournament in June and July, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reports.

Adopted in 1997, three years after the end of apartheid and the first democratic elections in 1994, the anthem uses five of the 11 languages officially spoken in South Africa: IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English.

The first phase of the nationwide campaign saw members of the Cape Town-based African Dream Initiative teaching black South Africans the part in Afrikaans. Now the focus has shifted to teaching white South Africans the parts in the three African languages.

According to the 2001 census, IsiZulu is the mother tongue of 23.8 per cent of South Africans, followed by IsiXhosa at 17.6 per cent, Afrikaans at 13.3 per cent, English at 8.2 per cent and Sesotho at 7.9 per cent.

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