Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It was originally the dialect that developed among the Afrikaner Protestant settlers and the indentured or slave workforce brought to the Cape area in southwestern South Africa by the Dutch East India Company (Dutch language: Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie - VOC) between 1652 and 1705. A relative majority of these first settlers were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands), though there were also many from Germany, a considerable number from France, a few from Scotland, and various other countries. The indentured workers and slaves were Malays, and Malagasy in addition to the indigenous Khoi and Bushmen.
Research by J. A. Heese indicates that until 1807, 36.8% of the ancestors of the White Afrikaans speaking population were Dutch, 35% were German, 14.6% were French and 7.2% non-white (of African and/or Asian origins). Heese's figures are questioned by other researchers, however, and especially the non-white component quoted by Heese is very much in doubt.
A sizeable minority of those who spoke Afrikaans as a first language were not white. The dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch" or "Kitchen Dutch". Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until the early 20th century, when it began to be widely recognized as a distinct language. The name Afrikaans is simply the Dutch word for African, i.e. the African form of the Dutch language.