Tswana language
Bantu language of Botswana and South Africa
The Tswana language (or Setswana) is a language spoken in southern Africa. About five million people speak it. It is a Bantu language. It belongs to the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho languages. It is closely related to the Northern- and Southern Sotho languages.
Setswana | |
---|---|
Setswana | |
Native to | Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia |
Ethnicity | Batswana |
Native speakers | (4.1 million in South Africa (2011) 1.1 million in Botswana cited 1993)[1] unknown number in Zimbabwe 7.7 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2002)[2] |
Latin (Tswana alphabet) Tswana Braille | |
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | tn |
ISO 639-2 | tsn |
ISO 639-3 | tsn |
Glottolog | tswa1253 |
Linguasphere | 99- |
Tswana is an official language of Botswana. Most Tswana speakers are in South Africa, where four million people speak the language.
References
change Tswana edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- ↑ Setswana at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Webb, Vic. 2002. "Language in South Africa: the role of language in national transformation, reconstruction and development." Impact: Studies in language and society, 14:78