Afrikaans is natively spoken by about 8.3 million people, primarily in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller communities in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Australia. It developed from 17th-century Dutch and has absorbed words from various languages, reflecting South Africa's diverse history. Afrikaans culture is intertwined with the history of the Afrikaner people and has a rich tradition in literature and music. The language uses the Latin alphabet and has a simplified grammar compared to Dutch, with a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and minimal use of gendered nouns and verb conjugations.