Sabela is a covert communication

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of several major

South African languages At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which ...

formed by the

Numbers gang The Numbers Gang is a South African crime organization that originated as an African nationalist organisation believed to be present in most South African prisons. The gang was founded in KwaZulu-Natal. The gang is divided into groups — th ...

. Sabela was originally developed in the mines during the early 1900's as a means of communication between the members of The Numbers Gang but as the gang's influence grew in various South African prisons, the language became eminent in prison and since then, released inmates have introduced it to the general populace of South Africa. UkuSabela means to respond in various

Nguni languages The Nguni languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa (mainly South Africa, Zimbabwe and Eswatini) by the Nguni people. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Tsonga, Ndebele, and Swati. The appellation "Nguni" derives from t ...

Structure

Sabela inherits most of its vocabulary,

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

, and

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

from

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 ...

and Zulu. Due to the Xhosa and Zulu influence, Sabela contains

click consonants 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!' ...

Words in Sabela

, Baitela , , Gangster , To leave something , To leave a situation or an item

In popular culture

Die Antwoord

Sabela is often used by groups associated with the

Zef Zef () is a South African counterculture, counter-culture movement. Kyle Hans Brockmann has compared zef counter-culture to many similar anarchic Subculture, sub-cultures in the northern hemisphere. Etymology Yolandi Visser of Die Antwoord said ...

movement, such as

Die Antwoord Die Antwoord (; ) is a South African hip hop duo formed in Cape Town in 2008. The duo consists of rappers Ninja and Yolandi Visser (also spelled Yo-Landi Visser and stylized as ¥o-Landi Vi$$er). Their music, a fusion of hip hop with rave mu ...

. The group's 2019

gqom Gqom () (igqomu (), gqom tech, sgubhu, 3-step or G.Q.O.M) is an African electronic dance music genre and subgenre of house music, that emerged in the early 2010s from Durban, South Africa, pioneered and innovated by Record producer, music produce ...

single "Baita Jou Sabela" (featuring Slagysta) contains lyrics partially written in Sabela that talk about the South African prison system. The song's music video showcases the corruption present in the South African prison system.

References

{{reflist

External links

Music Video of Die Antwoord's "Baita Jou Sabela" (featuring Slagysta)
Languages of South Africa Prisons