| Herero | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in |  Namibia Botswana |
|
| Region | Kunene, Omaheke and Otjozondjupa in Namibia; Ghanzi in Botswana | |
| Total speakers | 133,000 | |
| Language family | Niger-Congo
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | hz | |
| ISO 639-2 | her | |
| ISO 639-3 | her | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Herero language (Otjiherero) is a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group). It is spoken by Herero people in Namibia (113,000) and Botswana. Total population in both countries is approximately 133,000.
Its linguistic distribution covers a zone called Hereroland: this zone is constituted of the region of Omaheke, along with the regions of Otjozondjupa and Kunene. The Himba, who are related to the Herero people, speak a dialect very close to the Herero language. In Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, there exists a considerable minority of hererophones.
Thanks to the translation of the Bible into Otjiherero by missionary Gottlieb Viehe (1839-1901) at the end of the 19th century, the spoken language was transcribed to a script based on the Latin alphabet. Father Peter Heinrich Brincker (1836-1904) translated several theological works and songs.
Otjiherero is taught in Namibian schools both as a native tongue and as a secondary language, and is to be included as a principal material at the University of Namibia. Otjiherero is also one of the six minority languages that are used by the Namibian State Radio (NBC). Gamsberg Macmillan, as of 2008[update], has published the only Dictionary in Otjiherero.
Bibliography
- Brincker, Peter Heinrich (1886, 1964). Wörterbuch und kurzgefasste Grammatik des Otji-Herero. Leipzig (reprint 1964 Ridgwood, NJ: The Gregg Press).
- Hahn, C. Hugo (1857). Grundzüge einer Grammatik des Hereró. Berlin: Verlag von Wilhelm Hertz.
- Lutz, Marten (2006). "Locative inversion in Otjiherero: more on morpho-syntactic variation in Bantu." In: Laura Downing, Lutz Marten & Sabine Zerbian (eds.), Papers in Bantu Grammar, ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43, 97--122.
- Marten, Lutz & Nancy C. Kula (2007). "Morphosyntactic co-variation in Bantu: two case studies." SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 15.227-238.
- Möhlig, Wilhelm, Lutz Marten & Jekura U. Kavari (2002). A Grammatical Sketch of Herero (Otjiherero). Köln: Köppe (Grammatische Analysen afrikanischer Sprachen; v.19).
External links
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