Northern Sotho language

Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa in Northern Sotho) is an African language mainly spoken by people living in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.

Sepedi
Native to	South Africa
Region	Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga
Native speakers	4.7 million (2011 census) 9.1 million L2 speakers (2002)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Southern Bantu Sotho–Tswana Sotho Sepedi
Dialects	Pedi Lobedu (Kgaga) Gananwa (Tlokwa) Kopa (Ndebele-Sotho) Birwa Tswapong ? Phalaborwa ? Kutswe (East Sotho) ? Pai (East Sotho) ? Pulana (East Sotho)
Writing system	Latin (Sotho alphabet) Sotho Braille
Signed forms	Signed Pedi
Official status
Official language in	South Africa
Regulated by	Pan South African Language Board
Language codes
ISO 639-2	nso
ISO 639-3	Variously: nso – Pedi etc. brl – Birwa two – Tswapong
Glottolog	nort3233  North Sotho + South Ndebele
Guthrie code	S.32,301–304
Linguasphere	parts of outer language 99-AUT-e (Sesotho-Setswana) 99-AUT-ea (Khelobedu) 99-AUT-eb (Thipulana) 99-AUT-ec (Khutswe) 99-AUT-ed (Sepedi), incl. 99-AUT-eab & -egh (southeast & northwest Tlokwa varieties)= transition to 99-AUT-eg (Setswana); 99-AUT-ff (Pai)= transition from 99-AUT-fg (isiZulu)

Pedi
person	Mopedi
people	Bapedi
language	Sepedi

Geographical distribution of Sepedi in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks a form of Sepedi at home.

0–20%   20–40%   40–60%

60–80%   80–100%

Geographical distribution of Northern Sotho in South Africa: density of Northern Sotho home-language speakers.

<1 /km²   1–3 /km²   3–10 /km²   10–30 /km²   30–100 /km²

100–300 /km²   300–1000 /km²   1000–3000 /km²   >3000 /km²

Northern Sotho is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. It is spoken by almost 4 618 500 people, or 8.4% of South Africans at home (2011-census). Northern Sotho is part of the Sotho language family.