Veiligheid is van belang.

In Afrikaans, abstract nouns often appear without an article when you are talking about the idea in general.

So veiligheid means safety in a general sense, not the safety of one specific thing.

• Veiligheid is van belang. = safety in general is important
• If you were talking about specific safety, you might use die:
  • Die veiligheid van die kinders is van belang. = the safety of the children is important

Yes, van belang is a very common expression in Afrikaans.

Literally, it is something like of importance or of interest/value, but in normal English it is usually translated as important or significant.

So:

• Veiligheid is van belang.
• More literally: Safety is of importance
• Natural English: Safety is important

This is a standard, idiomatic phrase in Afrikaans.

Is is the present tense of wees, the verb to be.

Because veiligheid is a singular noun, the correct form here is is:

• Veiligheid is van belang.

Afrikaans does not change the verb much for different persons the way English does. In the present tense, is stays the same:

• Ek is
• Jy is
• Hy is
• Ons is

So in this sentence, is simply links the subject veiligheid to the description van belang.

Yes. Veiligheid is belangrik is perfectly correct and very natural.

There is a small style difference:

• Veiligheid is belangrik = straightforward, direct
• Veiligheid is van belang = a little more formal or weighty

Both mean roughly the same thing, but van belang can sound slightly more official, written, or emphatic.

Yes, veiligheid can cover both safety and security, depending on context.

For example, it can refer to:

• physical safety
• public safety
• security measures
• protection from danger

So in a sentence like Veiligheid is van belang, the exact English wording depends on context:

• Safety is important
• Security is important

Both can be possible translations.

This is a basic main clause in Afrikaans:

• Veiligheid = subject
• is = verb
• van belang = complement

Afrikaans usually follows subject-verb-rest order in ordinary statements, just like English:

• Veiligheid is van belang.

So for an English speaker, the word order here is very familiar.

It can, but that would be marked and much less neutral.

The normal version is:

• Veiligheid is van belang.

If you move van belang to the front, you create emphasis or a more literary tone:

• Van belang is veiligheid.

That is not the usual everyday way to say it. A learner should stick with the standard order unless there is a special reason for emphasis.

A rough guide for an English speaker:

• veiligheid sounds approximately like FAY-likh-hate
• belang sounds approximately like buh-LUNG or buh-LAHNG

A few helpful notes:

• v in Afrikaans is often close to an English f
• ei often sounds like the vowel in day
• g in -heid and belang is the guttural Afrikaans g, made at the back of the throat
• -heid is a very common ending meaning something like English -ness or -ity

So veiligheid is related in meaning to safe + -ty, even though the form is different.

Veiligheid is a noun.

It is formed from veilig meaning safe plus the noun ending -heid, which often corresponds to English -ness or sometimes -ity.

Examples:

• veilig = safe
• veiligheid = safety

This pattern is very common in Afrikaans:

• moontlik = possible
• moontlikheid = possibility

So learning -heid as a noun-forming ending is very useful.

No. Afrikaans does not capitalize all nouns.

In Veiligheid is van belang, Veiligheid is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

If it appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would normally be lowercase:

• Die veiligheid is van belang.

This is different from German, where all nouns are capitalized.