Lozi, also known as siLozi and Rozi, is a

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 ...

of the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho–Tswana branch of Zone S (S.30), that is spoken by the

Lozi people Lozi people, or Barotse, are a southern African ethnic group who speak Lozi or Silozi, a Sotho–Tswana language. The Lozi people consist of more than 46 different ethnic groups and are primarily situated between Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zimbab ...

, primarily in southwestern Zambia and in surrounding countries. This language is most closely related to Northern Sotho (''Sesotho sa Leboa''), Tswana (''Setswana''), Kgalagari (''SheKgalagari'') and

Sotho 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 off ...

(''Sesotho''/Southern Sotho). Lozi, sometimes written as Rotse, and its dialects are spoken and understood by approximately six percent of the population of Zambia. ''Silozi'' is the

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

(the name of the language used by its native speakers) as defined by the United Nations. ''Lozi'' is the exonym. The Lozi language developed from a mixture of two languages:

Luyana Luyana (Luyaana), also known as ''Luyi'' (Louyi, Lui, Rouyi), is a Bantu language spoken in Zambia and perhaps in small numbers in neighboring countries. It appears to be an divergent lineage of Bantu. It is spoken by the Luyana people, a subgrou ...

and Kololo. The Luyana people originally migrated south from the Kingdom of Luba and

Kingdom of Lunda The Nation of Lunda (c. 1665 – c. 1887) was a confederation of states in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, north-eastern Angola, and north-western Zambia, its central state was in Katanga. Origin Initially, the core of what would ...

in the Katanga area of the Congo River basin, either late in the 17th century or early in the 18th century. The language they spoke, therefore, was closely related to Luba and Lunda. They settled on the floodplains of the upper Zambezi in what is now western Zambia and developed a kingdom, Barotseland, and also gave their name to the Barotse Floodplain or ''Bulozi''. The Kololo were a Sotho people who used to live in what is now the Free State province of South Africa. The Kololo were forced to flee from Shaka Zulu's Mfecane during the 1830s. Using tactics they had copied from the Zulu armies, the Kololo conquered the Luyana on the Zambezi floodplains and imposed their rule and language. However, by 1864 the indigenous population revolted and overthrew the Kololo. By that time, the Luyana language had been largely forgotten; the new hybrid language is called Lozi or Silozi and is closer to Sesotho than to any other neighbouring languages in Zambia. Lozi is also spoken in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia ( Zambezi Region).

Phonology

Lozi has 5 vowels: 20 consonants are in Lozi: Tone is marked as high or low.

Orthography

Lozi uses the Latin script, which was introduced by

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

. In 1977, Zambia standardised the language's orthography.

Vocabulary

Sample text

The following is a sample text in Lozi of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):

References

External links

Lozi alphabet and pronunciation
at ''Omniglot''

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070930181545/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Lozi-english/ Lozi English Dictionaryfro
Webster's Online Dictionary
-

The Rosetta Edition Philip M. Parker (born June 20, 1960) is an American economist and academic, currently the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Management Science at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He has patented a method to automatically produce a set of similar book ...

PanAfrican L10n page on LoziOLAC resources in and about the Lozi language

Lozi language stories

*Sibetta, O.Kwibisa,
Ze Patezwi ba Banca
'' Lubuto Library Special Collections, accessed May 3, 2014 *
Silozi language stories
'' Lubuto Library Special Collections, accessed May 3, 2014 {{Authority control Sotho-Tswana languages Languages of Botswana Languages of Namibia Languages of South Africa Languages of Zambia Languages of Zimbabwe Library of Congress Africa Collection related Lozi people