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Tsonga Language
Tsonga ( ) or Xitsonga as an endonym and exonym, endonym (also known as Changana in Mozambique), is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken by the Tsonga people of South Africa and . It is mutually intelligible with Tswa language, Tswa and Ronga language, Ronga and the name "Tsonga" is often used as a cover term for all three, also sometimes referred to as Tswa-Ronga. The Xitsonga language has been standardised as a written language. Tsonga is an official language of the Republic of South Africa, and under the name ''Shangani'' it is recognised as an official language in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. All Tswa-Ronga languages are recognised in Mozambique. It is not official in Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Language Description by Europeans The first records of studies of Xitsonga by Europeans go back the Switzerland, Swiss missionary, Henri-Alexandre Junod, who between the years 1890 and 1920 hypothesised that the Xitsonga language (which he called the ''Thon ...
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Tsonga People
The Tsonga people () are a Bantu ethnic group primarily native to Southern Mozambique and South Africa (Limpopo and Mpumalanga). They speak Xitsonga, a Southern Bantu language. A very small number of Tsonga people are also found in Zimbabwe and Northern Eswatini. The Tsonga people of South Africa share some history with the Tsonga people of Southern Mozambique, and have similar cultural practices, but differ in the dialects spoken. History The Vatsonga people are native to Southern Africa (Parts of South Africa and Mozambique).Junod, H.A (1912), ''The Life of a South African Tribe: The Social Life'', Imprimerie Attinger Freres, Neuchatel. One of the earliest reputable written accounts of the Tsonga people is by Henri Philipe (HP) Junod titled "''Matimu ya Vatsonga 1498–1650''" which was formally published in 1977, and it speaks of the earliest Tsonga kingdoms. Before this, the older Henri-Alexandre Junod released his work "''The life of a South African Tribe''" which wa ...
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Eswatini
Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where it shares a border with Mozambique. At no more than north to south and east to west, Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa; despite this, its climate and topography are diverse, ranging from a cool and mountainous highveld to a hot and dry lowveld. The population is composed primarily of Swazi people, ethnic Swazis. The prevalent language is Swazi language, Swazi (''siSwati'' in native form). The Swazis established their kingdom in the mid-18th century under the leadership of Ngwane III. The country and the Swazi take their names from Mswati II, the 19th-century king under whose rule the country was expanded and unified; its boundaries were drawn up in 1881 in the midst of the Scramble for Africa. After the Second Boer War, ...
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Ronga Language
Ronga (XiRonga; sometimes ShiRonga or GiRonga) is a Bantu language of the Tswa–Ronga branch spoken just south of Maputo in Mozambique. It extends a little into South Africa. It has about 650,000 speakers in Mozambique and a further 90,000 in South Africa, with dialects including Konde, Putru and Kalanga. The Swiss philologist Henri-Alexandre Junod seems to have been the first linguist to have studied it, in the late 19th century. Phonology Alphabet Its alphabet is similar to that of Tsonga as provided by Methodist missionaries and Portuguese settlers. Grammar Ronga is grammatically so close to Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ... in many ways that census officials have often considered it a dialect; its noun class system is very similar and it ...
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Tswa Language
Tswa (''Xitswa'') is a South-Eastern Bantu language in Southern Mozambique. Its closest relatives are Ronga and Tsonga, the three forming the Tswa–Ronga family of languages. Tswa is mainly spoken in the rural areas west of Inhambane. Its largest dialect, Hlengwe, extends westwards to Southern Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...; Maho (2009) considers this to be a distinct language. The other principal dialects are Dzibi (Dzivi) and Dzonga. According to some estimates, there are perhaps more than one million BaTswa, however not all can communicate in Tswa. Many Mozambicans, including census takers, regard it as a dialect of Tsonga. Alphabet Tswa uses a variant of the Latin alphabet previously used for Tsonga. It is partly based on those developed by ...
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Endonym And Exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their place of origin, or their language. An exonym (also known as xenonym ) is an established, ''non-native'' name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used primarily outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words, or from non-systematic attempts at transcribing into a different writing system. For instance, is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonyms ''Germany'' and in English and Italian, respectively, and in Spanish and French, respectively, in Polish, and and in Finni ...
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South Africa 2011 Tsonga Speakers Proportion Map
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', ), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). South is sometimes abbreviated as S. Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-f ...
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Signed Tsonga
In South Africa, manually coded language is used in education, as a bridge between South African Sign Language (SASL) and the eleven official oral languages of the country. These codes apply the signs of SASL to the grammar of the oral languages, resulting in Signed English, Signed Afrikaans, Signed Xhosa, Signed Zulu, etc. They are not a natural form of communication among deaf people. Manually coded language is commonly used instead of SASL for simultaneous translation from an oral language into sign, for example at the Deaf Forum that is held annually at different locations in the Western Cape. The result is that, while deaf people from different language communities can communicate with each other without difficulty in SASL, they cannot understand "sign language" interpreters unless they have been schooled in the particular manually coded language used by the interpreter. That is, while they share a common language in SASL, they differ in their understanding of Signed Engl ...
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Tsonga Braille
Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (born 1985), French tennis player See also * Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language ..., a Sino-Tibetan language {{disambig, surname Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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Latin Script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was altered by the Ancient Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet. The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet, which are the same letters as the English alphabet. Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the List of writing systems by adoption, most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing the languages of Western and ...
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Tswa–Ronga Languages
The Tswa–Ronga languages (or just Tsonga) are a group of closely related Southern Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa chiefly in southern Mozambique, northeastern South Africa and southeastern Zimbabwe. Languages The group is divided into three main languages: * Tswa–Ronga ** Tswa (''Xitswa''): Hlengwe (Khambana-Makwakwe, Khambani, Lengwe, Lhengwe, Makwakwe-Khambana, Shilengwe), Tshwa (Dzibi-Dzonga, Dzivi, Dzonga-Dzibi, Xidzivi), Mandla, Ndxhonge, Nhayi. Partially intelligible with Ronga ngand Tsonga so ** Ronga (''Xironga''): Konde, Putru, Kalanga. Partially intelligible with Tsonga soand Tswa sc ** Tsonga (''Xitsonga''): Luleke (Xiluleke), Gwamba (Gwapa), Changana (Xichangana), Hlave, Kande, N’walungu (Shingwalungu), Xonga (Ssonga), Jonga (Dzonga), Nkuna, Songa, Nhlanganu (Shihlanganu). "Tsonga" is used to refer to all three languages, although often used interchangeably with Changana, the most prestigious of the three. All are recognized as languages, althou ...
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Southern Bantu
The Southern Bantu or siNtu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92).Tore Janson (1991-92) "Southern Bantu and Makua", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' (''SUGIA'') Vol. 12/13: 63-106, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologn/ref> They are nearly synonymous with Guthrie's '' Guthrie classification of Bantu languages, Bantu zone S'', apart from the debated exclusion of Shona and inclusion of Makhuwa. They include all of the major Bantu languages of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique, with outliers such as Lozi in Zambia and Namibia, and Ngoni in Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi. Languages Language groups are followed by their code in the Guthrie classification. Makhuwa languages are included in this tree. *Southern Bantu languages ** Makua (P30) *** Makhuwa *** Koti *** Sakati (Nathembo) *** Lomwe *** Chuwabu *** Moniga ** Chopi (S60) *** Chopi *** Guitonga **Nguni languages (S40) ***Zunda ****Xhosa **** Zulu ****Ndebe ...
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