Sotho ()
or Sesotho () or Southern Sotho is a
Southern Bantu language of the
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, ...
("S.30") group, spoken primarily by the
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 ...
in
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 ...
, where it is the
national
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
and
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
;
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 ...
(particularly the Free State), where it is one of the
11 official languages; and in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
where it is one of
16 official languages.
Like all
Bantu languages
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 ...
, Sesotho is an
agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain ...
, which uses numerous
affixes
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
and derivational and inflexional rules to build
complete words.
Classification
Sotho is a
Southern Bantu language, belonging to the
Niger–Congo language family within the
Sotho-Tswana branch of
Zone S (S.30).
Although Southern Sotho shares the name ''Sotho'' with Northern Sotho, the two groups have less in common with each other than they have with
Setswana
Tswana, also known by its native name , and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zone ...
.
"Sotho" is also the name given to the entire Sotho-Tswana group, in which case Sesotho proper is called "Southern Sotho". Within the Sotho-Tswana group, Southern Sotho is most closely related to
Lozi (''Silozi''), with which it forms the Sesotho-Lozi group within Sotho-Tswana.
The
Northern Sotho
Northern Sotho, or as an endonym, is a Sotho-Tswana language spoken in the northeastern provinces of South Africa. It is sometimes referred to as or , its main dialect, through synecdoche.
According to the South African National Census o ...
group is geographical, and includes a number of dialects also closely related to Sotho-Lozi.
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
is also known as "Western Sesotho".
The Sotho-Tswana group is in turn closely related to the other
Southern Bantu
The Southern Bantu 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 ...
languages, including the
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 ...
,
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
,
Lozi which is native to
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
and the other surrounding
Southern African countries and
Nguni languages
The Nguni languages are a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni peoples. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele (sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"), and Swazi. The appellation "Nguni" d ...
, and possibly also the
Makua Makua may refer to:
* Makua (person), an alaafin of the Oyo Empire
* Makua people, an ethnic group in Mozambique and Tanzania
* Makhuwa language, a Bantu language spoken in Mozambique
* Makua languages, a branch of Bantu languages
* Makua Rothman ...
(zone P) languages of
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
and
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
.
''Sotho'' is the root word. Various prefixes may be added for specific derivations, such as ''Sesotho'' for the Sotho language and ''Basotho'' for the
Sotho people
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 ...
. Use of ''Sesotho'' rather than ''Sotho'' for the language in English has seen increasing use since the 1980s, especially in
South African English
South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.
History
British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
and in Lesotho.
Dialects
![National Women's Day detail Sesotho](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/National_Women%27s_Day_detail_Sesotho.jpg)
Except for faint lexical variation within Lesotho, and for marked lexical variation between the Lesotho/
Free State variety and that of the large urban townships to the north (such as
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...
) due to heavy borrowing from neighbouring languages, there is no discernible dialect variation in this language.
However, one point that seems to often confuse authors who attempt to study the dialectology of Sesotho is the term ''
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 ...
'', which can variously mean "
Sotho–Tswana speakers," "Southern Sotho and
Northern Sotho speakers," "Sesotho speakers," and "residents of Lesotho." The
Nguni language
The Nguni languages are a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni peoples. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele (sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"), and Swazi. The appellation "Nguni" ...
Phuthi
Phuthi (''Síphùthì'') is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati (or ''Siswati''), spoken in Eswatini and the Mp ...
has been heavily influenced by Sesotho; its speakers have mixed Nguni and Sotho–Tswana ancestry. It seems that it is sometimes treated erroneously as a dialect of Sesotho called "Sephuthi." However, Phuthi is mutually unintelligible with standard Sesotho and thus cannot in any sense be termed a dialect of it. The occasional tendency to label all minor languages spoken in Lesotho as "dialects" of Sesotho is considered patronising, in addition to being linguistically inaccurate and in part serving a national myth that all citizens of Lesotho have Sesotho as their mother tongue.
Additionally, being derived from a language or dialect very closely related to modern Sesotho, the
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
n Sotho–Tswana language
Lozi is also sometimes cited as a modern dialect of Sesotho named ''Serotse'' or ''Sekololo''.
The oral history of the Basotho and Northern Sotho peoples (as contained in their
liboko) states that 'Mathulare, a daughter of the chief of the ''Bafokeng'' nation (an old and respected people), was married to chief Tabane of the (Southern) ''Bakgatla'' (a branch of the ''Bahurutse'', who are one of the most ancient of the Sotho–Tswana tribes), and bore the founders of five tribes: ''Bapedi'' (by Mopedi), ''Makgolokwe'' (by Kgetsi), ''Baphuthing'' (by Mophuthing, and later the Mzizi of
Dlamini Dlamini is a surname, common in Eswatini and neighbouring parts of South Africa. People with the surname Dlamini include:
List
*The House of Dlamini: The reigning royal family of eSwatini
* Absalom Dlamini
* Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, also kno ...
, connected with the present-day
Ndebele
Ndebele may refer to:
*Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa
*Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe and Botswana
Languages
* Southern Ndebele language, the language of the South Ndebele
*Northern Ndebele language
Northern ...
), ''Batlokwa'' (by Kgwadi), and ''Basia'' (by Mosia). These were the first peoples to be called "Basotho", before many of their descendants and other peoples came together to form
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 ...
's nation in the early 19th century. The situation is even further complicated by various historical factors, such as members of parent clans joining their descendants or various clans calling themselves by the same names (because they honour the same legendary ancestor or have the same totem).
An often repeated story is that when the modern Basotho nation was established by King
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 ...
, his own "dialect" Sekwena was chosen over two other popular variations Setlokwa and Setaung and that these two still exist as "dialects" of modern Sesotho. The inclusion of Setlokwa in this scenario is confusing, as the modern language named "Setlokwa" is a Northern Sesotho language spoken by descendants of the same Batlokwa whose attack on the young chief Moshoeshoe's settlement during
Lifaqane (led by the famous widow
Mmanthatisi
Mmanthatisi (also spelled 'Mantatee’, 'Ma Nthisi, Mantatise, or Manthatisi; c. 1784 – 1847) was the leader of the Tlokwa people during her son's minority from 1813 until 1824. She came to power as the regent for her son, Sekonyela, (Lents'a) ...
) caused them to migrate to present-day Lesotho. On the other hand, Doke & Mofokeng claims that the tendency of many Sesotho speakers to say for example ''ke ronngwe'' instead of ''ke romilwe'' when forming the perfect of the passive of verbs ending in ''-ma'' (as well as forming their perfects with ''-mme'' instead of ''-mile'' ) is "a relic of the extinct Tlokwa dialect".
Geographic distribution
![South Africa Sotho speakers density map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/South_Africa_2011_Sotho_speakers_density_map.svg)
According to the
South African National Census of 2011
The South African National Census of 2011 is the 3rd comprehensive census performed by Statistics South Africa.
The 2011 census was the first census to include geo-referencing for every individual dwelling in South Africa.
How the count w ...
, there were almost four million first language Sesotho speakers recorded in South Africa – approximately eight per cent of the population. Most Sesotho speakers in South Africa reside in
Free State and
Gauteng
Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'.
Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...
. Sesotho is also the main language spoken by the people of
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 ...
, where, according to 1993 data, it was spoken by about 1,493,000 people, or 85% of the population. The census fails to record other South Africans for whom Sesotho is a second or third language. Such speakers are found in all major residential areas of
Metropolitan Municipalities – such as
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
, and
Tshwane
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (also known as the City of Tshwane) () is the metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of northern Gauteng Province, South Africa. The Metropolitan area is centred on the city of Pr ...
– where multilingualism and polylectalism are very high.
Official status
Sesotho is one of the eleven
official languages of South Africa
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their s ...
, one of the two official
languages of Lesotho
Lesotho, a country in Southern Africa, is home to several languages, including Phuthi language, Phuthi, Sesotho language, Sesotho, Xhosa language, Xhosa, Zulu language, Zulu and English language, English, — all, except for English, belong to th ...
and one of the sixteen official
languages of Zimbabwe
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign l ...
.
Derived languages
Sesotho is one of the many languages from which
tsotsitaal
Tsotsitaal is a vernacular derived from a variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province (such as Soweto), but also in other agglomerations all over South Africa. ''Tsotsi'' is a Sesotho, Pedi or Tswana slang wor ...
s are derived. Tsotsitaal is not a proper language, as it is primarily a unique vocabulary and a set of idioms but used with the grammar and inflexion rules of another language (usually Sesotho or
Zulu). It is a part of the youth culture in most Southern
Gauteng
Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'.
Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...
townships
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
and is the primary language used in
Kwaito music.
Phonology
The sound system of Sesotho is unusual in many respects. It has
ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
s,
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, a
uvular trill
The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter ''R''. This consonant is one of several collectively ...
, a relatively large number of
affricate consonant
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s, no
prenasalised consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
s, and a rare form of vowel-height (alternatively,
advanced tongue root
In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mong ...
) harmony. In total, the language contains some 39 consonantal and 9 vowel
phonemes
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
.
It also has a large number of complex sound transformations which often change the phones of words due to the influence of other (sometimes invisible) sounds.
# is an
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
of , occurring only before the close vowels ( and ). Dialectical evidence shows that in the Sotho–Tswana languages was originally pronounced as a
retroflex flap
The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`.
Features
Features of the voiced ...
before the two close vowels.
Sesotho makes a three-way distinction between lightly
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
,
aspirated and
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
stops
Stop may refer to:
Places
*Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
in several
places of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
.
The standard Sesotho clicks tend to be substituted with dental clicks in regular speech.
Orthography
Grammar
The most striking properties of Sesotho grammar, and the most important properties which reveal it as a
Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
* Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for National ...
language, are its
noun gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
and
concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
systems. The grammatical gender system does not encode sex gender, and indeed, Bantu languages in general are not
grammatically marked for gender.
Another well-known property of the Bantu languages is their
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
morphology. Additionally, they tend to lack any
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...
systems, indicating noun roles almost exclusively through word order.
See also
*
Sotho calendar
*
Sotho people
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 ...
*
South African Translators' Institute
The South African Translators' Institute (SATI) is the largest association in South Africa representing professional, academic and amateur translators and other language practitioners.
SATI was founded in 1956. Membership is open to anyone, and ...
Notes
References
Sources
* Batibo, H. M., Moilwa, J., and Mosaka N. 1997. ''The historical implications of the linguistic relationship between Makua and Sotho languages''. In PULA Journal of African Studies, vol. 11, no. 1
*
Doke, C. M., and Mofokeng, S. M. 1974. ''Textbook of Southern Sotho Grammar''. Cape Town: Longman Southern Africa, 3rd. impression. .
* Ntaoleng, B. S. 2004. ''Sociolinguistic variation in spoken and written Sesotho: A case study of speech varieties in Qwaqwa''. M.A. thesis. University of South Africa.
* Tšiu, W. M. 2001. ''Basotho family odes (Diboko) and oral tradition''. M.A. thesis. University of South Africa
External links
Sesotho OnlineA gentle introduction to the Sesotho language and culture.
Weblog on SesothoTranslate.org.zaProject translating Free and Open Source Software into South African languages, including Sesotho.
PanAfrican L10n page on SesothoInformation on the language and localisation.
Sesotho language tutorialA beginner's language text, created for the US Peace Corps.
the SeSotho book Another book developed by a Peace Corps volunteer
Software
Spell checker for OpenOffice.org and MozillaOpenOffice.orgMozilla Firefox web-browser an
Mozilla Thunderbird email programin Sesotho.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sotho language
Vowel-harmony languages
Subject–verb–object languages