Barbecue

In South Africa, the word used for barbecue is braai. It is derived from the language Afrikaans, which originated in the dialects spoken by Dutch settlers in the early stages of the seventeenth century, during the colonisation of the southern part of the continent. A racist apartheid regime was introduced in 1948, and made Afrikaans the primary school language in 1976. This decision led the poorest ghettos to revolt, resulting in the death of 176 students. After the fall of the regime in 1996, the new constitution established 11 official languages: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and English. English is today the predominant official language, and the phrase braai is a commonly used loan word. South Africa has since September 28, 2005 celebrated its rich barbecue culture on the National Braai Day, with the world-famous anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu as its patron.