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Sotho Calendar
The Sesotho language has traditional names for the months of the familiar Gregorian calendar. The names reflect a deep connection that the Basotho people traditionally have with the natural world and the importance of agriculture. Although the month names are often not used by the general public (being considered part of "deep Sesotho"), they are regularly used in news broadcasts and other media and are more common than English imports. Additionally, the names of the seasons and the days of the week are regularly used by all speakers. Months The names of the months () indicate special natural and agricultural events which traditionally happened during the period. Being cattle breeders who lived in the semi-arid regions of southern Africa, a deep understanding of agriculture and the natural world was essential for the survival of the Basotho people. The year begins roughly in the month of August when the seeds are planted in anticipation of the next month's explosion of life.M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesotho
Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a population of about million. It was previously the British Crown colony of Basutoland, which declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is a fully sovereign state and is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community. The name ''Lesotho'' roughly translates to "land of the Sotho". History Basutoland Basutoland emerged as a single body politic, polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor tribal chief, chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1820 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Buth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics during the course of the 18th century. Now spoken in South Africa, Namibia and (to a lesser extent) Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, estimates circa 2010 of the total number of Afrikaans speakers range between 15 and 23 million. Most linguists consider Afrikaans to be a partly creole language. An estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin with adopted words from other languages including German and the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa. Differences with Dutch include a more analytic-type morphology and grammar, and some pronunciations. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form. About 13.5% of the South ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sotho Culture
Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana * Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an official language of both South Africa and Lesotho *Northern Sotho language (''Sesotho sa Leboa''), a group of related Bantu dialects classed together as an official language of South Africa * Sotho–Tswana languages, the S.30 language group, a linguistic classification which groups together the related languages Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tswana, and Lozi *Sotho-Tswana peoples, a group of southern African ethnic groups with a common history, speakers of languages in the Sotho group * Lesotho, a country in southern Africa entirely surrounded by South Africa *Bosotho, a region in Limpopo province, also known as Sekhukhuneland Sekhukhuneland or Sekukuniland ( af, Sekoekoeniland) is a natural region in north-east South Africa, located in the histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North-West University
af , Noordwes-Universiteit , image = https://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/NWU-Logo-SW.png , motto = ''Dit Begin Alles Hier (Afrikaans)'' ''Gotlhe Go Simolola Fano (Setswana)'' , mottoeng = ''It All Starts Here'' , established = 2004(''By merger of existing institutions'') , type = Public university , chancellor = Dr Anna Mokgokong , vice_chancellor = Dr Bismark Tyobeka , students = 53,997 , undergrad = 46,806 , postgrad = 7,191 , affiliations = AAU ACU HESA , former_names = Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher EducationPotchefstroom University University of Bophuthatswana , city = PotchefstroomMahikengVanderbijlpark , country = South Africa , nickname = NWU , colours = Purple, Turquoise and Grey , ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shona Calendar
Days Months The months in Shona are named after relevant events to the Shona. Things involving spiritual activities and agriculture, as well animals and fruits serve as derivatives for month names. For example, November, known as Mbudzi in Shona, means goat. This is a sacred month, many activities such as marriage, eloping, and (''kurova makuva'') tomb rituals are forbidden; this time is also seen as a time when most goats are pregnant. Therefore, killing goats is seen as taboo during this month. Another example would be August, known as Nyamavhuvhu, meaning the windy one, as this is the windiest month of the year. See also * Xhosa calendar * Zulu calendar * Sesotho calendar The Sesotho language has traditional names for the months of the familiar Gregorian calendar. The names reflect a deep connection that the Basotho people traditionally have with the natural world and the importance of agriculture. Although the m ... References *http://www.zambuko.com/mbirapage/s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zulu Calendar
The Zulu calendar is the traditional lunar calendar used by the Zulu people of South Africa. Its new year begins at the new moon of uMandulo(September) in the Gregorian calendar. The Zulu calendar is divided into two seasons, the summer iHlobo and Winter ''ubuSika''. The lunar seasonal calendar has 13 months that do not correspond to the months of the Gregorian calendar. Twelve of the lunar months (''inyanga'') of the Zulu calendar have around 28 days. Zulu names for the lunar months are based on observations of nature and seasonal activities. A 13th intercalary month (') lasts four to five days. According to Keith Snedegar, consensus was used to settle arguments over the correct month, which arose around every three years when the 12 lunar months failed to correspond to their natural markers. The extra month was sometimes referred to as ''Ndid'amDoda'' (the month that puzzles men). Scottish Free Kirk missionary James Macdonald wrote that the confusion was settled with heliacal ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xhosa Calendar
The following is a list of timekeeping terminology in the isiXhosa language. Month names Traditionally The traditional isiXhosa names for months of the year poetically come from names of stars, plants, and flowers that grow or seasonal changes that happen at a given time of year in Southern Africa. The Xhosa year traditionally begins in June and ends in May when the brightest star visible in the Southern Hemisphere, Canopus, signals the time for harvesting. In urban areas today, anglicized versions of the months are used, especially by the younger generation, but in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape, the old names still stand. Month by month they are, in relation with: gregorian ones Seasons * Autumn - eKwindla * Winter - uBusika * Spring - iNtlako hlaza/iNtwasahlobo * Summer - iHlobo Days of the week * Sunday - iCawa * Monday - uMvulo * Tuesday - uLwesibini * Wednesday - uLwesithathu * Thursday - uLwesine * Friday - uLwesihlanu * Saturday - uMgqibelo S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IsiXhosa
Xhosa (, ) also isiXhosa as an endonym, is a Nguni language and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8.2 million people and by another 11 million as a second language in South Africa, mostly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click. Classification Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele. Nguni languages effectively form a dialect continuum of variously mutually intelligible varieties. Xhosa is, to some extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Nguni languages are, in turn, classified under the much larger abstraction of Bantu languages. Geographical distribution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Bantu
Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon.Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (2011). ''Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages'', pp. 337ff. About 5,000 years ago, it split off from Proto-Southern Bantoid when the Bantu expansion began to the south and east. Two theories have been put forward about the way the languages expanded: one is that the Bantu-speaking people moved first to the Congo region and then a branch split off and moved to East Africa; the other (more likely) is that the two groups split from the beginning, one moving to the Congo region, and the other to East Africa. Like other proto-languages, there is no record of Proto-Bantu. Its words and pronunciation have been reconstructed by linguists. From the common vocabulary which has been reconstructed on the basis of pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sesotho Orthography
The orthography of the Sotho language is fairly recent and is based on the Latin script, but, like most languages written using the Latin alphabet, it does not use all the letters; as well, several digraphs and trigraphs are used to represent single sounds. The orthographies used in Lesotho and South Africa differ, with the Lesotho variant using diacritics. As with almost all other Bantu languages, although the language is a tonal language, tone is never indicated. For an overview of the symbols used and the sounds they represent, see the phoneme tables at Sotho phonology. :''Note that often when a section discusses formatives, affixes, or vowels it may be necessary to view the IPA to see the proper conjunctive word division and vowel qualities.'' History The original orthography was developed in the early 19th century by missionaries from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society to aid in translating the Bible. The earliest orthographies were more like French spelling, st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tropical Savanna Climate
Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of precipitation and also less than 100-\left (\frac \right)mm of precipitation. This latter fact is in a direct contrast to a tropical monsoon climate, whose driest month sees less than of precipitation but has ''more'' than 100-\left (\frac \right) of precipitation. In essence, a tropical savanna climate tends to either see less overall rainfall than a tropical monsoon climate or have more pronounced dry season(s). In tropical savanna climates, the dry season can become severe, and often drought conditions prevail during the course of the year. Tropical savanna climates often feature tree-studded grasslands due to its dryness, rather than thick jungle. It is this widespread occurrence of tall, coarse grass (called savanna) which has led to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many others are used as fodder plants, either cultivated in warm climates worldwide or naturalized in pasture lands. Taxonomy ''Sorghum'' is in the Poaceae (grass) subfamily Panicoideae and the tribe Andropogoneae (the same as maize, big bluestem and sugarcane). Species Accepted species recorded include: Distribution and habitat Seventeen of the 25 species are native to Australia, with the range of some extending to Africa, Asia, Mesoamerica, and certain islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Toxicity In the early stages of the plants' growth, some species of sorghum can contain levels of hydrogen cyanide, hordenine, and nitrates, which are lethal to grazing animals. Plants stressed by drought or heat can also contain toxic lev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
