| Tswana | ||
|---|---|---|
| Setswana or Sitswana | ||
| Spoken in |  Botswana South Africa Zimbabwe Namibia |
|
| Region | southern Africa | |
| Total speakers | 4,407,174[citation needed] | |
| Language family | Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Central Bantu Southern Bantu Sotho-Tswana Tswana |
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in | Botswana South Africa |
|
| Regulated by | No official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | tn | |
| ISO 639-2 | tsn | |
| ISO 639-3 | tsn | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Tswana (Setswana or Sitswana), is a Bantu language written in the Latin Alphabet. English is the national and majority language of Botswana, whose people are the Batswana (singular Motswana). Although English is the official language of Botswana, the majority of speakers also understand Setswana. There are also speakers in Zimbabwe and Namibia. Internationally there are about 4 million speakers. Before South Africa became a multi-racial democracy, the bantustan of Bophuthatswana was set up to cover the Tswana speakers of South Africa.
Tswana is a Bantu language, belonging to the Niger-Congo language family. It is most closely related to two other languages in the Sotho language group, Sesotho (Southern Sotho) and Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa). It has also been known as Beetjuans, Chuana (hence Bechuanaland), Coana, Cuana, and Sechuana.
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Some simple Tswana phrases
- Dumela, rra/mma - Hello, Sir/Madam.
Formal inquiry after health:
- O tsogile jang?—How are you? (literally, 'how did you awake?').
- Ke tsogile sentle, rra/mma. Wena, o tsogile jang?—I'm well, Sir/Madam. How are you? OR I'm good/okay. How are you?
(Replace tsogile with tlhotse for afternoon greetings.)
Informal inquiry after health:
- Le kae?—How are you? (literally translated Le kae? also means Where are you? when referring to more than one person)
- Re teng, rra/mma—We're well, Sir/Madam. (Ke teng, rra/mma for I am well.)
Casual slang:
- O a re eng? (pronounced wah-reng)—How's it going?
- Ga ke re seppe. (pronounced hah kay ray seppay)—It goes well.
- Eitha (pronounced ate-uh)—Hey
- Go jwang? (pronounced hoe jwang)—hat's up?
- Mari ke sharp (pronounced mare keh shap)—I'm good.
- Sharp! (pronounced shap)—Bye
Other useful phrases:
- Ke a leboga, rra/mma.—Thank you, Sir/Madam (formal)
- Ke itumetse, rra/mma." and "tanki" (slang)—Thanks, Sir/Madam (informal)
- Ke _____—I'm _____.
- Leina la me ke _______.—My name is _____.
- Leina la gago ke mang?—What is your name? (formal)
- O mang?—What's your name? (informal)
- Ke tshwerwe ke tlala.—I'm hungry (literally, I'm held by hunger)
- Ke tshwerwe ke lenyora.—I'm thirsty (literally, I'm held by thirst)
- Ke rata ___.—I like ___.
- Ga ke rate___.—I don't like ___.
- Ke batla ___.—I want ___.
- Ga ke batle ____—I do not want ____
- Dijo tse di monate!—This food is good!
- Lekgolo—One Hundred
- A re tsamaye!—Let's go!
- Kokelwana e ko kae? —Where is the clinic?
- Ke nako mang?—What time is it?
- Ke kopa thuso, tswee-tswee.—I need help, please.
- A nka go thusa?—May I help you?
- A o ya ko ____?—Are you going to _____?
- ____ ke eng ka Setswana?—What is _____ in Setswana?
Farewells:
- Robala sentle.—Sleep well.
- Boroko!—Good night!
- Tsamaya sentle.—Go well (said to the person/group leaving).
- Sala sentle—Stay well (said to the person/group staying).
Food:
- Morogo—Vegetables
- Motogo—Soft Porridge
- Bogobe—Porridge (Pap)
- Nama—Meat
- Dinawa—Beans
Loan words and derivations
Setswana speakers use many loan words in their day-to-day speech. These words are usually assimilated from the pop-culture in America, Europe, and South Africa (such as sharp or cool as adjectives, or Hola for hello). These words are frequently slang words or words for modern or Western concepts. Many Setswana words are derived from English, German, and Dutch words such computere for computer or fensetere for window (from German Fenster). Many Setswana words for Western technology are their counterparts re-written and re-pronounced in consonant-vowel syllabic cluster form.
Pronunciation details
- The g is pronounced as voiceless velar fricative /x/. This is reflected in the pronunciation of Botswana's capital, Gaborone. This sound is close to an 'h', such as in House, but is articulated further back in the throat.
- The th is pronounced as an aspirated plosive, /tʰ/. This sound will sound close to a normal 't' sound in English with a rush of air afterwards.
- The same aspiration rule is true for all other consonants used in combination with h (e.g., ph, sh, tlh, etc.)
- The combination tl is pronounced as a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate /tɬ/ This sound is similar to the 'tl' sound in butler.
Tswana has six vowel sounds: /ə/, /ɛ/, /e/, /ɪ/, /o/ and /u/, represented by the letters a, e, e, i, o and u respectively.
Notes
As opposed to the Ndebele languages spoken in Zimbabwe and South Africa, there are no significant differences between standard Tswana as spoken in South Africa and standard Tswana as spoken in Botswana.
External links
- Tswana language at Ethnologue
- PanAfrican L10n page on Tswana
- African Languages page on Setswana (Tswana)
Software
- Spell checker for OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox web-browser, and Mozilla Thunderbird email program in Tswana
- Translate.org.za Project to translate Free and Open Source Software into all the official languages of South Africa including Tswana
- Keyboard with extra Tswana characters
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