"Even though South Africa has 11 official languages, this initial step demonstrates 8ta's interest and effort to accommodate the most popular languages with the greatest geographical reach," says Amith Maharaj, 8ta's senior managing executive.
isiZulu is the most widely spoken home language, with 24% of South Africans speaking it at home, and over 50% of South Africans able to understand it. Afrikaans is South Africa's third most spoken home language, with about six million speakers. Sesotho as a home language is spoken by eight percent of South Africans, or four million people, and is also closely related to Setswana and Sepedi. Just 8.2% of South Africans speak English as a mother tongue but it is the primary language of business, commerce and government.
Once a language option has been selected, customers will be informed of the approximate waiting time. They can choose to be assisted in English if they feel the queue for their preferred language is too long. 8ta will consider using Xitsonga and Tshivenda as service languages in the next two years, once the first four languages have been adequately integrated.
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