Language contact influences multilingualism. South Africa is a country with nine provinces. Limpopo is one of those provinces. This province has four indigenous languages: Sepedi, Tshivenḓa, Xitsonga and isiNdebele. These languages were the centre of focus during the University of South Africa Multilingual Spelling Bee Competition in 2023. They are in constant contact as the speakers interact. It is typical for these languages to influence one another. Hence, this study intends to discuss the impact of language contact on multilingualism and the orthography of these indigenous languages. This study is guided by a qualitative approach. The inception of this study focused on the following objectives: (1) to discuss the impact of language contact; and (2) to discuss the advantages of multilingualism. To achieve these objectives, the Spelling Dictation Achievement Test (SDAT) was used as an instrument to collect data during the competition. The population of the study was 25 high school learners from Grades 8–11. The participants were purposively selected in terms of their native language. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The outcomes indicated that learners confuse sounds when required to spell in any language other than their native language. This is caused by the fact that learners use their first language as their language of reference. The second outcome indicated that in most cases, the sounds of the word sound similar to those of their native language, only to find that the orthography of the word is different, and the third outcome indicated that these learners are multilingual for the reason that they come from a multilingual society and they attend multilingual schools.