Editing South African English (section)

== History ==
[[British Empire|British]] settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding operation at the [[Cape Colony]]. The goal of this first endeavour was to gain control of a key Cape sea route, not to establish a permanent [[settler colony]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=Language in South Africa |date=2002 |publisher=University Press |isbn=9780521791052 |editor-last=Mesthrie |editor-first=Rajend |location=Cambridge |oclc=56218975}}</ref> Full control of the colony was wrested from the [[Batavian Republic]] following the [[Battle of Blaauwberg]] in 1806. The first major influx of English speakers arrived in [[1820 Settlers|1820]]. About 5,000 British settlers, mostly rural or working class, settled in the [[Eastern Cape]].<ref name=":0" /> Though the British were a minority colonist group (the Dutch had been in the region since 1652 when traders from the [[Dutch East India Company]] developed an [[Dutch Cape Colony|outpost]]), the Cape Colony governor, [[Lord Charles Somerset]], declared English an official language in 1822.<ref name=":0" /> To spread the influence of English in the colony, officials began to recruit British schoolmasters and Scottish clergy to occupy positions in the education and church systems.<ref name=":0" /> Another group of English speakers arrived from Britain in the 1840s and 1850s, along with the [[Colony of Natal|Natal settlers]]. These individuals were largely "standard speakers" like retired military personnel and aristocrats.<ref name=":0" /> A third wave of English settlers arrived between 1875 and 1904, and brought with them a diverse variety of [[English dialects]]. These last two waves did not have as large an influence on South African English (SAE), for "the seeds of development were already sown in 1820".<ref name=":0" /> However, the Natal wave brought nostalgia for British customs and helped to define the idea of a "standard" variety that resembled Southern British English.<ref name=":0" />

When the [[Union of South Africa]] was formed in 1910, English and Dutch were the official state languages, although [[Afrikaans]] effectively replaced Dutch in 1925.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Mesthrie|first=R.|pages=539–542|language=en|doi=10.1016/b0-08-044854-2/01664-3|title = Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics|year = 2006|isbn = 9780080448541|chapter = South Africa: Language Situation}}</ref> After 1994, these two languages along with nine other [[Southern Bantu languages]] achieved equal official status.<ref name=":1" />

SAE is an extraterritorial (ET) variety of English, or a language variety that has been transported outside its mainland home. More specifically, SAE is a Southern hemisphere ET originating from later English colonisation in the 18th and 19th centuries (Zimbabwean, Australian, and New Zealand English are also Southern hemisphere ET varieties).<ref name=":0" /> SAE resembles British English more closely than it does [[American English]] due to the close ties that South African colonies maintained with the mainland in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the influence of American pop culture around the world made American English more familiar in South Africa, with some American lexical items becoming alternatives to comparable British terms.<ref name=":0" />