Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and also Argentina, where a group in Sarmiento speaks a Patagonian dialect. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland spoken by the predominantly Dutch settlers and enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony, where in the 17th and 18th centuries it gradually developed characteristics that distinguish it from Dutch.