An awareness of haiku began to spread among poets and literary scholars in the Republic of South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s largely as a result of contacts with European specialists and travel by local academics and public figures to East Asia. Poets writing in English and Afrikaans are not numerous, nor have they enjoyed the benefits of dedicated haiku journals or regular gatherings, but several have had their work included in national and international publications. There has been very little haiku activity in the indigenous languages of South Africa or, possibly excluding Zimbabwe, in other countries in Southern Africa.