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Minority language rights in Namibia: An international human rights perspective

Magister Legum - LLM / Namibia is home to a number of linguistic minorities. According to the 2011 census, the
Owambo constitute 49.35 per cent of the population, accounting for almost half of the country’s
total population.1
The rest of the linguistic groups include the Bushman (San) (0.95 per cent),
Caprivians (4.5 per cent), Herero (8.99 per cent), Kavango (10.42 per cent), Damara/Nama
(11.32 per cent), Setswana (0.26 per cent), Afrikaans (8.72 per cent), German (0.54 per cent),
English (2.43 per cent), other European languages (0.69 per cent), other African languages (1.74
per cent), Asian languages (0.08 per cent) and other unidentified languages (0.02 per cent).2
English is, however, the only official language in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of
Namibia, 1990 (“Constitution”).3

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/7562
Date January 2019
CreatorsMorwe, Clement Shane
ContributorsFessha, Yonatan
PublisherUniversity of Western Cape
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsUniversity of Western Cape

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