Sotho (), also known as ''Sesotho'' (), Southern Sotho, or ''Sesotho sa Borwa'' is a Southern Bantu language spoken in

Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...

as its

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

where it is an

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

. Like all

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

, Sesotho is an

agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...

that 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. The main two categories are derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation'', ''anti-'', ''pre-'' et ...

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). "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 also related to Lozi (''Silozi'') with which it forms the Sesotho-Lozi group within Sotho-Tswana. The Northern Sotho group is geographical, and includes a number of dialects also closely related to Sotho-Lozi. Tswana is also known as "Western Sesotho". The Sotho-Tswana group is in turn closely related to the other Southern Bantu languages, including Venda,

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) ...

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

, Lozi, and Nguni from neighboring Southern African countries, and possibly also the Makua languages of

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

. ''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 (), also known as the Basotho (), are a Sotho-Tswana peoples, Sotho-Tswana ethnic group indigenous to Southern Africa. They primarily inhabit the regions of Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. The ancestors of the Sotho peo ...

. 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 (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of English, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, ...

and in Lesotho.

Dialects

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 (South Africa), 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 T ...

) 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'', which can variously mean " Sotho–Tswana speakers", "Southern Sotho and Northern Sotho speakers", "Sesotho speakers", and "residents of Lesotho." The Nguni language Phuthi 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. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

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, connected with the present-day Ndebele), ''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 Tribal chief, chief of the Bamokoteli lineage, a branch of the Koena tribe, Koena (crocodile) clan. In his youth, he helped his fat ...

'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

, 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) 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

According to the South African National Census of 2011, 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 ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

. Sesotho is also the main language spoken by the people of

, 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 language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, and the Vaal Triangle – where multilingualism and polylectalism are very high.

Official status

Sesotho is one of the twelve official languages of South Africa, one of the two official languages of Lesotho and one of the sixteen official languages of Zimbabwe.

Derived languages

Sesotho is one of the many languages from which tsotsitaals 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

townships 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 Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...

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, 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 pai ...

s, no prenasalised consonants, and a rare form of vowel-height (alternatively, advanced tongue root) harmony. In total, the language contains some 39 consonantal and 9 vowel

phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

. 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 one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...

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 Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a letter ''r'' with tail, and the equivalent X-SAMPA ...

before the two close vowels. Sesotho makes a three-way distinction between lightly ejective, 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 refe ...

stops in several

places of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

. 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 language, are its noun gender and concord 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 (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

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) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

systems, indicating noun roles almost exclusively through word order.

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 Online
A gentle introduction to the Sesotho language and culture.
Weblog on Sesotho

Translate.org.za
Project translating Free and Open Source Software into South African languages, including Sesotho.
PanAfrican L10n page on Sesotho
Information on the language and localisation.
Sesotho language tutorial
A 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 program
in Sesotho. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sotho language Vowel-harmony languages Subject–verb–object languages