SA Language Info Wanted

I will be going on a Tauck escorted tour of South Africa in April. I'll
be visiting Cape Town, Pilgrims Rest, Sabi Sabi, Johannesburg, and
Victoria Falls.

When I visit a country I like to buy a foreign language phrase book and make
some attempt to speak to people in their own language. When I went to
Australia I even learned some "Strine" (Australian slang for their dialect).

In researching SA, I learned that eleven languages are spoken there. Which
one(s) would be most useful to learn a few phrases in?

I saw a listing of phrases in Afrikaans and isiXhosa. The Afrikaans looked
learnable (I speak a little German). The isiXhosa looked almost unpronounceable
for an English speaker. BTW, why do the names of SA native languages
begin with a lower case letter? I'm not ridiculing them; I'm just curious.

Odysseus wrote:

> BTW, why do the names of SA native languages
> begin with a lower case letter? I'm not ridiculing them; I'm just curious.

As I recall colonialism, we brought the capital letters with us.
I'm not ridiculing you; I'm just reminding all of us why
some things seem unusual that really aren't.

In article <41EC0417.9CBD727D@africasafari.com>, dave@africasafari.com says...
>
>
>Odysseus wrote:
>
>> BTW, why do the names of SA native languages
>> begin with a lower case letter? I'm not ridiculing them; I'm just curious.
>
>As I recall colonialism, we brought the capital letters with us.
>I'm not ridiculing you; I'm just reminding all of us why
>some things seem unusual that really aren't.
>

The colonists also brought the latin alphabet and with them the punctuation
rules. I guess the native people were free to make their own rules when
adapting the latin alphabet to their language.