Phuthi (''Síphùthì'') is a

Nguni Nguni may refer to: *Nguni languages *Nguni cattle *Nguni people *Nguni sheep, which divide into the Zulu sheep, Zulu, Pedi (sheep), Pedi, and Swazi sheep, Swazi types *Nguni stick-fighting * Nguni shield * Nguni homestead *Nguni (surname) {{disam ...

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

spoken in southern

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 Sou ...

and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati (or ''Siswati''), spoken in

Eswatini Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...

and the

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Although there is no contemporary sociocultural or political contact, Phuthi is linguistically part of a historic

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

with Swati. Phuthi is heavily influenced by the surrounding

Sesotho Sotho () or Sesotho () or Southern Sotho is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken primarily by the Basotho in Lesotho, where it is the national and official language; South Africa (particularly the Free Sta ...

and

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

languages, but retains a distinct core of lexicon and grammar not found in either Xhosa or Sesotho, and found only partly in Swati to the north. The documentary origins of Phuthi can be traced to Bourquin (1927), but in other oblique references more than 100 years from the present (Ellenberger 1912). Until recently, the language has been very poorly documented with respect to its linguistic properties. The only significant earlier study (but with very uneven data, and limited coherent linguistic assumptions) is

Godfrey Mzamane Godfrey Isaac Malunga Mzamane (7 March 1909 – 1977) was a novelist, literary historian, academic and intellectual pioneer of African studies in South Africa. Early life and education GGodfrey Mzamane was born in Fobane in the Mt. Fletcher d ...

(1949).

Geography and demography

It has been estimated that around 20,000 people in South Africa and

use Phuthi as their home language, but the actual figures could be much higher. No census data on Phuthi-speakers is available from either

. The language is certainly endangered.Donnelly 1999:114–115. Phuthi is spoken in dozens (perhaps many dozens) of scattered communities in the border areas between where the far northern

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

meets

: from Herschel northwards and eastwards, and in the

Matatiele Matatiele is a town located in the northern part of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. According to the South African National Census of 2011, its 12,466 residents (1,113.44 per km²) and 4,107 households (366.83 per km²) make Matatiel ...

area of the northeastern

Transkei Transkei (, meaning ''the area beyond he riverKei''), officially the Republic of Transkei ( xh, iRiphabliki yeTranskei), was an unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa from 1976 to 1994. It was, along with Ciskei, a Ban ...

; and throughout southern

, from

Quthing Moyeni is the capital city or camptown of Quthing District in Lesotho. Quthing was established in 1877, abandoned in the Gun War of 1880, and then rebuilt at its present site – the southernmost town in Lesotho.Mount Moorosi Mount Moorosi (or Moorosi's Mountain) is a mountain in the Drakensberg mountain range on the banks of the Orange River in southern Basutoland (modern Lesotho). It acquired the name Moorosi's Mountain after Moorosi, the Chief of a local tribe, who, ...

, to mountain villages west and north of Qacha (

Qacha's Nek Qacha's Nek is, since 1888, the camptown (capital) of Qacha's Nek District in Lesotho, only two kilometers from the South African border at above sea level. It has a population of approximately 15,900 (2016). It is home to Machabeng Gove ...

). Within Phuthi, there are at least two dialect areas, based on linguistic criteria: Mpapa/Daliwe vs. all other areas. This taxonomy is based on a single (but very salient) phonological criterion (presence/absence of secondary labialisation). Mpapa and Daliwe (

''Taleoe'' ) are villages in southern Lesotho, southeast of

Mount Moorosi Mount Moorosi (or Moorosi's Mountain) is a mountain in the Drakensberg mountain range on the banks of the Orange River in southern Basutoland (modern Lesotho). It acquired the name Moorosi's Mountain after Moorosi, the Chief of a local tribe, who, ...

, on the dust road leading to Tosing, then on to Mafura (itself a Phuthi-speaking village), and finally Mpapa/Daliwe. Other Phuthi-speaking areas (all given in

orthography) include Makoloane akolwaniand Mosuoe usuwe near

Quthing Moyeni is the capital city or camptown of Quthing District in Lesotho. Quthing was established in 1877, abandoned in the Gun War of 1880, and then rebuilt at its present site – the southernmost town in Lesotho.Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

''Zingxondo'', Phuthi ''Sigxodo'' ); Makoae (Phuthi ''Magwayi'') further to the east; and a number of villages north and west of

. (Qacha is the main southeastern town in Lesotho, in the

Qacha's Nek District Qacha's Nek is a district of Lesotho. Qacha's Nek is the capital or camptown, and only town in the district. In the south, Qacha's Nek borders on the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, and it has a short border with KwaZulu-Natal Province i ...

). Phuthi-speaking diaspora (that is, heritage) areas include the far northern

villages of Gcina /ina(on the road to the Tele Bridge border post) and Mfingci fiᵑ/i(across the Tele River, opposite Sigxodo, approximately).

Political history

The most famous Phuthi leader in the historical record was the powerful chief, Moorosi (born in 1795). It seems that approximately the land south of the Orange River in present-day Lesotho was Phuthi-speaking during the time of the greatest historical figure in the history of the Basotho people,

Moshoeshoe I Moshoeshoe I () ( – 11 March 1870) was the first king of Lesotho. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bamokoteli lineage, a branch of the Koena (crocodile) clan. In his youth, he helped his father gain power over som ...

– just seven years older than Moorosi—whose authority in the 1830s, however, was far from covering the present-day territory of Lesotho. Until 1820, there were only "a few isolated villages of Basotho, and a small clan of Baphut , over which Moshoeshoe exercised ill-defined sovereignty". Most Phuthis, with Moorosi, were far to the south of Thaba Bosiu, south of the

Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north ...

, well out of Moshoeshoe's way. Moorosi was to die in unclear circumstances on

(

''Thaba Moorosi'') in 1879, after a protracted nine-month siege by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...

(i.e. Afrikaner farmers) and

Basotho The Sotho () people, also known as the Basuto or Basotho (), are a Bantu nation native to southern Africa. They split into different ethnic groups over time, due to regional conflicts and colonialism, which resulted in the modern Basotho, who ...

forces (including the military participation of the

Cape Mounted Riflemen The Cape Mounted Riflemen were South African military units. There were two separate successive regiments of that name. To distinguish them, some military historians describe the first as the "imperial" Cape Mounted Riflemen (originally the ' ...

). This siege is often referred to as "Moorosi's Rebellion". The issue that triggered the siege was alleged livestock theft in the Herschel area. In the aftermath of the siege, Phuthi people dispersed widely over what is contemporary southern Lesotho and the northern

region, to escape capture by the colonial powers. It is for this reason, it has been hypothesised, that Phuthi villages (including Mpapa, Daliwe, Hlaela, Mosifa and Mafura—all to the east of

, in

) are typically found in such topographically mountainous regions, accessible only with great difficulty to outsiders). After the siege of "Moorosi's rebellion", many Phuthi people were captured, and forced into building the bridge (now, the old bridge) at

Aliwal North Aliwal North (officially Maletswai) is a town in central South Africa on the banks of the Orange River, Eastern Cape Province. It is a medium-sized commercial centre in the northernmost part of the Eastern Cape. History Sir Harry Smith, then ...

that crosses the Senqu (

). Prior to 1879, it seems Moorosi had been regarded in some ways as a very threatening competitor to Chief

. Even though currently represented to a nominal extent in the Lesotho government in

Maseru Maseru is the capital and largest city of Lesotho. It is also the capital of the Maseru District. Located on the Caledon River, Maseru lies directly on the Lesotho–South Africa border. Maseru had a population of 330,760 in the 2016 census. The ...

, subsequent to the 1879 uprising the Phuthi people essentially fade from modern Lesotho and Eastern Cape history.

Classification

Phuthi is a

, clearly within the southeastern Zone S (cf. Guthrie 1967–1971). But within southern Africa Phuthi is viewed ambivalently as being either a

or a

Sotho–Tswana The Sotho-Tswana people are a meta-ethnicity of southern Africa and live predominantly in Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho. The group mainly consists of four clusters; Southern Sotho (Sotho), Northern Sotho (which consists of the Bapedi, ...

language, given the very high level of hybridity displayed in all subsystems of the grammar (lexicon, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax). But Phuthi is genetically—along with Zulu,

Hlubi The Hlubi people or AmaHlubi are an Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa, with the majority of population found in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. List of AmaHlubi kings Origins The Hlubi, similar to ot ...

northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

and southern Ndebele, and Swati—certainly a

language. Thus, it should be numbered in the S.40 group within Zone S, following Guthrie's classification. Further, given the range of lexical, phonological and even low-level phonetic effects that appear to be shared almost exclusively with Swati, Phuthi can be classified uncontroversially as a Tekela Nguni language, that is, in the subset of

that includes Swati, some versions of Southern Ndebele, and the Eastern Cape remnant languages,

Bhaca The Bhaca people or amaBhaca are an eMbo ethnic group in South Africa. Background AmaBhaca were formerly known as the Zelemus or AbakwaZelemu between the 1700s until 1830 when they were formally referred to as AmaBhaca. They are the descenda ...

and

. The contemporary lexicon and morphology of Phuthi confirms the standard claim (e.g.

1949) that Phuthi displays very heavy contact and levelling effects from its long cohabitation with Sesotho (for a period perhaps in excess of three centuries). There is, for example, a very high level of 'lexical doublets' for many items, for many speakers, e.g. ''-ciga'' "think" (Nguni-source), and ''-nakana'' "think" (Sesotho-source). Phuthi noun class prefixes are nearly all of the shape CV- (that is, they follow the Sesotho consonant-vowel shape, not the general Nguni VCV- shape). There are also regional effects: the Mpapa Phuthi dialect (the only one to retain labialised coronal stops) leans much more heavily towards Sesotho lexicon and morphology (and even phonology), whereas the Sigxodo dialect leans more towards Xhosa lexicon and morphology (and even phonology). ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'' lists Phuthi as an alternative name for Swati, the national language of Swaziland.

Phonology

Sustained field work by Simon Donnelly (UCT/Illinois/Wits Universities) in 1994–1995 among speech communities in Sigxodo and Mpapa (southern

) resulted in the discovery of a surprisingly wide range of phonological and morphological phenomena, aspects of which are unique to Phuthi (within all of the southern Bantu region). The following phoneme inventory is found in Phuthi:

Vowels

Contrary to other Nguni languages, Phuthi has a 9-vowel system with four different heights. It has acquired a new series of "superclose" vowels and from Sotho, while the inherited Nguni high vowels are reflected as and .

Vowel harmony

Two

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...

patterns propagate in opposite directions: perseverative super

close Close may refer to: Music * ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988 * ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017 * ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969 * "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014 * "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016 * "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...

vowel height A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

harmony (left-to-right); and anticipatory

ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...

/RTR tenseness harmony, invoking

mid vowel A mid vowel (or a true-mid vowel) is any in a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned midway between an open vowel and a close vowel. Other names for a mid ...

s (right-to-left). In the first, 'super

ness'—also a

vocalic property—in root-final position triggers suffix vowels of the same supercloseness value. In the second, all mid vowels uninterruptedly adjacent to the right edge of a phonological word are lax ( TR; all other mid vowels are tense ( TR.

Vowel imbrication

Vowel imbrication Imbrication is a phenomenon occurring in many Bantu languages in which morphemes interweave in certain morphophonological conditions. For example, consider the Setswana verb stem ''-rek-a'' ("buy"). The passive voice A passive voice constructi ...

is the vowel harmony-like morphophonological phenomenon found in many Bantu languages. Vowel imbrication in two-syllable verb roots is effectively fully productive in Phuthi, that is, ''-CaC-a'' verb stems become ''-CeC-e'' in the perfective aspect (or 'perfect tense'), e.g. ''-tfwatsha'' 'carry on the head' → ''-tfwetshe'' 'be carrying on the head', ''-mabha'' 'catch, hold' → ''-mebhe'' 'be holding'. (Cf. examples 9, 11, below).

Morphological use of vowel height

The 'super

ness' property also active in the first vowel harmony type (above) is active in at least one paradigm of the Phuthi morphological system (the axiomatic negative polarity of the copula: "There is no..."). A morphological use for a vocalic property (here: upercloseness does not appear to be recorded elsewhere for a Bantu language.

Consonants

# The plain voiceless stops and affricates are realised phonetically as ejectives , , , , . # The dental affricates and have allophones with a

labialised Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

secondary articulation and when followed by a rounded vowel (except superclose ). # The consonants marked with a diaeresis are

depressor consonant A depressor consonant is a consonant that depresses (lowers) the tone of its or a neighboring syllable. This is a consequence of the phonation (type of voicing) of the consonant. The Nguni languages of South Africa are well known for the lowering ...

s, which have an effect on the tone of their syllable. # The phonemes , , , , , , and occur mostly in loanwords from Sotho, not in inherited vocabulary. occurs natively only in affixes; its occurrence in roots is also loaned from Sotho.

Click consonants

Phuthi has a system of

click consonant Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' ...

s, typical for nearly all

, at the three common articulation points: dental, alveolar, and lateral. But the range of manners and phonations, or click 'accompaniments', is relatively impoverished, with only four: tenuis ''c q x'', aspirated ''ch qh xh'', voiced ''gc gq gx'', and nasal ''nc nq nx''. Swati, by comparison, has clicks at only one place (dental ), but five (or even six) manners and phonations. The reduced variety of clicks in Phuthi may be partly related to the nearly total absence of prenasalised consonants in Phuthi, assuming (for example) *nkx, *ngx would be analyzed as equivalent to prenasalized *ng, *nk.

Tone

Either of two surface tone distinctions, H (high) or L (low), is possible for each syllable (and in certain limited cases rising (LH) and falling (HL) tones are possible too). There is a subtype within the L tone category: when a syllable is 'depressed' (that is, from a depressor consonant in the

onset Onset may refer to: *Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound *Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States **Onset Island (Massachusetts), a small island located at the western end of the Cape Cod Canal *Interonset interval, ...

position, or a morphologically or lexically imposed depression feature in the syllabic

nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucle ...

), the syllable is produced phonetically at a lower pitch. This system of tone depression is phonologically regular (that is, the product of a small number of phonological parameters), but is highly complex, interacting extensively with the morphology (and to some extent with the lexicon). Phonologically, Phuthi is argued to display a three-way High/Low/toneless distinction. Like all Nguni languages, Phuthi also displays phonetically rising and falling syllables, always related to the position of a depressed syllabic nucleus.

Depressor consonants

In line with a number of southern Bantu languages (including all

Venda Venda () was a Bantustan in northern South Africa, which is fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of the ...

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) i ...

and

Shona Shona often refers to: * Shona people, a Southern African people * Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today Shona may also refer to: * ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing * Shona (given name) * S ...

), and also all

Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...

languages of southwestern Africa), a significant subset of the consonants in Phuthi are ' depressors' (or '

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

d'). These consonants are so named because they have a consistent depression effect on the pitch of an immediately successive H (high) tone. In addition, these consonants produce complex non-local phonological tone-depression effects. Swati and Phuthi have similar properties in this respect, except that the parameters of the Phuthi depression effects are significantly more complex than those documented thus far for Swati.

Tone/voice interaction

Significantly complex tone/

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

interactions have been identified in Phuthi. This phenomenon results in what is analysed at one level as massive and sustained violations of locality requirements on a H tone domain arising from a single H tone source, e.g. surface configurations of the type HLH (in fact H L* H) are possible where all H syllables emanate from a single underlying H source, given at least one L syllable being depressed. Such tone/voice configurations lead to grave problems for any theoretical phonology that seeks to be maximally constrained in its architecture and operations. The last two phenomena are non-tonal

suprasegmental In linguistics, prosody () is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, str ...

properties which each take on an additional morphological function in Phuthi:

Morphological use of breathy voice/depression

The vocalic property breathy voice/depression is separated from the set of consonants that typically induce it, and is used grammatically in the morphological copulative – similar to the Swati copula – and elsewhere in the grammar too (e.g. in associative prefixes formed from 'weak' class noun prefixes 1,3,4,6,9).

Phrases ith tone-marking/h1>
:1. Gi-ya-ku-tshádza : I like/love you. :2. Gi-visísá sí-Goní ká-nci téjhe : I understand just a little Xhosa. :3. Gi-ya-w(u)-tshádza m(ú)-ti wh-ákho lóm(u)-tjhá : I like your new homestead
lass 3 Lass may refer to: A girl/young woman in Scottish/Northern English People Surname August Lass (1903–1962), Estonian footballer * Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass (1940–1995), Polish actress Donna Lass (1944–' 1970), possible victim of the Zodiac ...
:4. Gi-ya-yi-tshádza mú-ti yh-ákho lémi-tjhá : I like your new homesteads
lass 4 Lass may refer to: A girl/young woman in Scottish/Northern English People Surname August Lass (1903–1962), Estonian footballer Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass (1940–1995), Polish actress Donna Lass (1944–' 1970), possible victim of the Zodiac K ...
:5. Gi-ya-si-visísa sí-Goní : I understand Xhosa
lass 7 Lass may refer to: A girl/young woman in Scottish/Northern English People Surname August Lass (1903–1962), Estonian footballer Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass (1940–1995), Polish actress Donna Lass (1944–' 1970), possible victim of the Zodiac K ...
:6. Gi-ya-yi-tshádza í-dlhu yh-ákho lé-tjhá : I like your new house
lass 9 Lass may refer to: A girl/young woman in Scottish/Northern English People Surname * August Lass (1903–1962), Estonian footballer Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass (1940–1995), Polish actress Donna Lass (1944–' 1970), possible victim of the Zodiac ...
:7. Gi-ya-ti-tshádza tí-dlhu t-ákho lé-tjhá : I like your new houses lass 10 :8. Si-ya-yí-mabha í-bhîtá yh-ákho lé-kgúlú : We carry your big pot egularly :9. Si-yi-mábh-iye í-bhîtá yh-ákho lé-kgúlú : We are carrying your big pot ight now :10. Si-ya-tí-mabha tí-bhîtá t-ákho léti-kgúlú : We carry your big pots egularly :11. Si-ti-mábhiye tí-bhîtá t-ákho léti-kgúlú : We are carrying your big pots ight now :12. Ito lakha: Come here :13. Ku-ya-nqadza lakha kha(ha)dle: It is cold outside here Very simply, examples 3 to 11 contain typical Bantu object-noun/object-pronoun agreement.

Vocabulary

*-ciga : think (cf. Xhosa ''-cinga''); also ''-nakana'' (cf. Sesotho ''-nahana'') *í-dlu : house (pl: ''tí-dlu'') *í-jhá : dog (pl: ''tí-jhá'') *téjhe : just (cf. Xhosa ''nje'') *ká-nci : little (cf. Xhosa ''ka-ncinci'') *-mabha : carry *mú-ti : homestead (pl: ''mí-ti'') *sí-Goní : Xhosa (language/culture) (cf. "Nguni") *sí-Kgúwá : English (language/culture) *sí-Phûthî : Phuthi (language/culture) *-tfwátsha : carry on the head *-tjhá : new *-tshádza : love (cf. Xhosa ''-thanda'') *-visísa : understand (cf. Swati''-visisa'') *-ciga : think (cf. Xhosa ''-cinga''); also ''-nakana'' (cf. Sesotho ''-nahana'') *i-dlu : house (pl: ''ti-dlu'') *i-jha : dog (pl: ''ti-jha'') *tejhe : just (cf. Xhosa ''nje'') *ka-nci : little (cf. Xhosa ''ka-ncinci'') *-mabha : carry *mu-ti : homestead (pl: ''mi-ti'') *si-Goni : Xhosa (language/culture) (cf. "Nguni") *si-Kguwa : English (language/culture) *si-Phûthî : Phuthi (language/culture) *-tfwatsha : carry on the head *-tjha : new *-tshadza : love (cf. Xhosa ''-thanda'') *-visisa : understand (cf. Swati''-visisa'')

Alphabet

A Phuthi orthography has not yet been standardised. Donnelly (1999, 2007) uses a proposed alphabet based uncontroversially on that of other Nguni and Sesotho languages: ;vowels * a e i o u There are two super

vowels, also found in the Sesotho languages. In the Phuthi orthography they are indicated with a circumflex diacritic, thus: * î û ;consonants * b bh d dl (dv) dz f g gr h hh hl j jh k kg kgh kh l lh m mh n ng nh ny nyh p ph r rh s t (tf) th tj tjh tl tlh ts tsh v w wh y yh z The following Phuthi consonant and vowel graphs have the same values they receive in Xhosa , in Swati , and in Sesotho . Symbols in parentheses are allophones of . Most (non-labial) consonants can also occur with a secondary labial glide articulation , e.g. as , so also . ; clicks and click combinations is dental; is palatal; is lateral. *plain: c q x *aspirated: ch qh xh *voiced: gc gq gx *nasalised: nc nq nx

Grammar

Nouns

The Phuthi noun (as everywhere in Bantu) consists of two essential parts: the prefix and the stem. Nouns can be grouped into noun classes according to prefix, which are numbered consecutively according to the pan-Bantu system established by

Meinhof Meinhof is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Carl Meinhof (1857–1944), German linguist *Ulrike Meinhof Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red A ...

and modified by Doke. The following table gives an overview of Phuthi noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs. * Caveat for the table: as in all

and

languages, "Class 8" does not reflect Proto-Bantu Class 8 ''*bi-''; rather, it is a near copy of Class 10, barring Class 10's homorganic nasal prefix consonant. Except in monosyllabic nouns ''borrowed'' from Sesotho, Phuthi entirely lacks this Class 9/10 ''N-'' – see phrases 6, 7 above. Thus, Phuthi Classes 8 and 10 are completely conflated.Donnelly 2007:103–104.

Verbs

Verbs use the following affixes for the subject and the object:

Bibliography

*Bourquin, Walther (1927) 'Die Sprache der Phuthi'. ''Festschrift Meinhof: Sprachwissenschaftliche und andere Studien'', 279–287. Hamburg: Kommissionsverlag von L. Friederichsen & Co. *Donnelly, Simon (1999) 'Southern Tekela is alive: reintroducing the Phuthi language'. In K. McKormick & R. Mesthrie (eds.), ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 136: 97–120. *Donnelly, Simon (2007) ''Aspects of Tone and Voice in Phuthi''. Doctoral dissertation (revised), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. *Donnelly, Simon (2009) 'Tone and depression in Phuthi'. In M. Kenstowicz (ed.), ''Data and Theory: Papers in Phonology in Celebration of Charles W. Kisseberth. Language Sciences'' 31(2/3):161-178. *Ellenberger, David-Frédéric. (1912) ''History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern''. Transl. into English by J.C. Macgregor. (1992 reprint of 1912 ed.). Morija, Lesotho: Morija Museum & Archives. *Ellenberger, Victor. (1933) ''Un Siècle de Mission au Lessouto (1833–1933)''. Paris: Société des Missions Evangéliques. *Guthrie, Malcolm. (1967–1971) ''Comparative Bantu: An Introduction to the Comparative Linguistics and Prehistory of the Bantu Languages.'' (Volumes 1–4). Farnborough: Gregg International. *Msimang, Christian T. (1989) 'Some Phonological Aspects of the Tekela Nguni Languages'. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Africa, Pretoria. *Mzamane, Godfrey I. M. (1949) 'A concise treatment on Phuthi with special reference to its relationship with Nguni and Sesotho'. ''Fort Hare Papers'' 1.4: 120–249. Fort Hare: The Fort Hare University Press.

Notes

{{Narrow Bantu languages, N-S Nguni languages Languages of Lesotho Languages of South Africa