Sotho language

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Southern Sotho
Sesotho 
Pronunciation: IPA: /sɛ̀.sʉ́.tʰʉ̀/
Spoken in: Lesotho and South Africa
Total speakers: at least 5 million
Language family: Niger-Congo
 Atlantic-Congo
  Volta-Congo
   Benue-Congo
    Bantoid
     Sotho languages
      Southern Sotho 
Official status
Official language of: Lesotho, South Africa
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: st
ISO 639-2: sot
ISO/FDIS 639-3: sot
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Southern Sotho (or Sesotho) is a language spoken in southern Africa.

Contents

[edit] Classification

Sotho is a Bantu language, belonging to the Niger-Congo language family. It is most closely related to three other languages in the Sotho-Tswana language group: Tswana, Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa), and Lozi (or Serotse).

[edit] Dialects

Standard Southern Sotho is remarkable in having little to no distinctive dialectal variation. Except for faint lexical variation within the territory of Lesotho, and except for marked lexical variation between the Lesotho/Free State variety, and that of the large urban townships to the north (e.g. Soweto) due to heavy borrowing from neighbouring languages, there is no discernible dialect variation in this language.

[edit] Geographic distribution

According to 2001 census data, there were 3,555,186 first language Sotho speakers recorded in South Africa, approximately eight per cent of the population. Sotho is also the main language spoken by the people of Lesotho, where it is spoken by about 1,493,000 people, or 85% of the population (1993). The census fails, unfortunately, to record the at least five million further South Africans for whom Sotho is a second or third language. Such speakers are found in all major African residential areas of greater Johannesburg, Soweto and Pretoria, where multilingualism and polylectalism is very high.

Areas in which significant proportions of the population are Sotho mother tongue speakers
Enlarge
Areas in which significant proportions of the population are Sotho mother tongue speakers

[edit] Official status

Southern Sotho is the one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and one of the two official languages of Lesotho.

[edit] Sounds

Note: the orthography used in this article is that of Lesotho, not of South Africa.

[edit] Vowels

Sotho has a large inventory of vowels compared with many other Bantu languages. However, the nine phonemic vowels are collapsed into only five letters in the orthography. In some cases, particularly in loanwords, the letters e and o represent semivowels.

orthography IPA approximate pronunciation
A a /ɑ/ spa
E e /ɨ/ roses
/e/ cafe
/ɛ/ bed
I i /i/ beet
O o /ʉ/ could
/o/ oiseau
/ɔ/ saw
U u /u/ boot

[edit] Consonants

Sotho makes a three-way distinction between unvoiced-unaspirated, unvoiced-aspirated and voiced-unaspirated plosives in most places of articulation.

Plosives
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
bilabial /p/ unaspirated: spit P p
/pʰ/ fully aspirated: pull Ph ph
/b/ fully voiced B b
alveolar /t/ unaspirated: stalk T t
/tʰ/ fully aspirated: tea Th th
/d/ an allophone of /l/, only occurring before close vowels (/i/ and /u/); the letter d is only used in South-African spelling D d or L l
lateral /tl/ Tl tl
/tlʰ/ occurs only as a nasalised form of hl or as an alternative to it Tlh tlh
velar /k/ unaspirated: skill K k
/kʰ/ fully aspirated: kill; occurring only in old loanwords from Zulu and a few ideophones Kh kh (in South Africa) or K'h k'h

Sotho possesses four simple nasal consonants. All of these can be syllabic or lengthened, both of which are shown in the orthography by doubling.

Nasals
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
bilabial /m/ M m
/m̩/ syllabic version of the above 'm mm
alveolar /n/ N n
/n̩/ syllabic version of the above 'n nn
palatal /ɲ/ as Spanish el niño Ny ny
/ɲ̩/ syllabic version of the above nny
velar /ŋ/ can occur initially Ng ng
/ŋ̩/ syllabic version of the above nng
Approximants
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
bilabial /w/ the letter w is only used in South-African spelling W w or O o
lateral /l/ never occurs before close vowels (/i/ and /u/), where it becomes [d]; the letter d is used for this in South-African spelling L l or D d
/l̩/ a syllabic version of the above Ll ll
palatal /j/ the letter y is only used in South-African spelling Y y or E e
Fricatives
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
labiodental /f/ F f
alveolar /s/ S s
postalveolar /ʃ/ Sh sh
/ʒ/ J j
lateral /ɬ/ like to the ll in Welsh Hl hl
velar /x/ Kg kg or Kh kh. Also g in Gauta and the old ideophone "Goa"/"Gwa" ("of extreme whiteness")
uvular /ʁ/ Parisian r; this is largely attributed to the influence of French missionaries at Morija in Lesotho. R r
glottal /h/ these two sounds are allophones: H h
/ɦ/
Affricates
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
alveolar /t͡s/ unaspirated: its Ts ts
/t͡sʰ/ aspirated Tsh tsh
postalveolar /t͡ʃ/ unaspirated: church Tj tj or Ch ch
/t͡ʃʰ/ aspirated: church Tjh tjh
velar /k͡xʰ/ rare alternative to the velar fricative Kg kg or Kh kh
Clicks
place of articulation IPA notes orthography
postalveolar /!/ Q q
/ŋ!/ Nq nq
/!ʰ/ aspirated Qh qh

Doubled l occurs only due to a vowel being elided between two vowels, e.g.:

fire: molelo (Tswana), umlilo (Zulu), mollo (Sotho)
to cry: go lela (Tswana), ukulila (Xhosa), u lila (Venda), ho lla (Sotho).

[edit] Phonology

The language has the following noteworthy properties:

  • It has nine distinct vowels, four of which form two groups of two vowels which sometimes behave as part of the same phoneme, and other times do not.
  • The spoken language comprises thirty-five consonants, including two semi-vowels, one click consonant (released in three distinct manners), and four doubled (or "heterorganic") consonants.
  • All words either end in a vowel or the velar nasal ng.
  • All nouns begin with a consonant (there appears to be a single exception: isao "next year").

[edit] Nasalisation/Nasal permutation

Nasalisation is a phonetic phenomenon which occurs under certain circumstances (most notably with personal and reflexive verbs) where the beginning consonant of a word is transformed into another under the influence of a (usually invisible) nasal consonant or a high palatal (the vowel -i- when forming reflexive verbs). So:

  • l becomes t, nasal n
  • sh becomes tjh, nasal n
  • s becomes tš, nasal n
  • f becomes ph, nasal m
  • b becomes p, nasal m
  • r becomes th, nasal n
  • h becomes kh, nasal ng
  • j becomes tj, nasal ny
  • hl becomes tlh, nasal n, except for adjectives
  • vowels with no consonant and semi-vowels (glottal stops) become k + (semi-)vowel
  • nasals geminate (i.e. double in length), except for the case of reflexive verbs.

The influencing nasal consonant only appears on monosyllabic words and changes according to what the new consonant is.
Example of the derivation of a popular South African name:

  1. fa is a verb meaning "give".
  2. to convert it to a noun meaning "the act of giving" or "the thing given" one regularly converts the terminal -a of the verb to an -o (except for tjho, all complete, non-auxiliary verbs in Sotho end in an -a).
  3. Since the verb starts with an f- and converting a verb to a noun requires nasal permutation, the f- is converted into ph-.
  4. But now we have a monosyllabic word, thus we add the nasal consonant in the same approximate position as the new consonant, i.e. in which the tongue touches the roof of the mouth at more or less the same place as when pronouncing the consonant — in this case m — and we add it to the front of our word.

"Mpho" is what we get, a common Sotho first name meaning "Gift".
Each of the above pairs are pronounced in the same approximate position (in the mouth), with 2 exceptions:

  • since there is no other sound pronounced in the same place as the glottal stop (the sound before a consonant-less vowel), k is used because it's the closest (furthest back) consonant which was not already in use (like kh)
  • r used to be pronounced with the tip of the tongue, in the same position as th, and when this trilling r was gradually replaced by the Parisian variety, this phonetic rule stood as a grammatical principle.

[edit] Nasal homogeneity

Nasals have a very special place in the Sotho group of languages. Nasal homogeneity consists of two points:

  1. When a consonant is preceded by a (visible or invisible) nasal it will undergo nasal permutation, if it supports it.
  2. When a nasal is immediately followed by another consonant with no vowel betwixt them, the nasal will change to a nasal in the same approximate position as the following consonant, after the consonant has undergone nasal permutation. If the consonant is already a nasal then the previous nasal will simply change to the same.

An illustrative example is the following:

The general Bantu absolute pronouns for "I" and "you" are mi and we, respectively. Bantu languages have a general aversion towards monosyllabic words and use different ways of making absolute pronouns disyllabic:
  • Swahili uses doubling: mi-mi and we-we.
  • Shona uses a prefix i-: i-mi and i-we.
  • Zulu uses a suffix: mina and wena.

Sotho and Xhosa also use the suffix -na, but the -i- in mina has been elided to mna. However, in Sotho, this construction contradicts the second principle of nasal homogeneity, so the m changes to the nasal in the same approximate position as n, giving the Sotho word 'na for "I".

[edit] Double (or "heterorganic") Articulations

In addition to the above, the following "double consonants" also appear either:

  • in old words and ideophones, or
  • as transformed forms of many of the above consonants (particularly at the end of passive verbs.)

Each of these has a more preferred (and easier to pronounce) alternatives:

  • pj - sounds like a p and a sh at the same time (the alternative is tj)
  • psh - an aspirated pj (the alternative is tjh')
  • bj - a rapid sequence of b and j (the alternative is j)
  • fsh - aspirated f and sh (the alternative is sh)

(fsh occurs only as the "labialised" form of f, usually in the passive form of verbs that end in -fa, i.e. it usually occurs as the syllable -fshoV where V represents a valid final (verb-terminating) vowel, e.g. ho bofa "to tie", ho bofshoa/boshoa "to be tied".

[edit] Tones

Like most other Bantu languages, Sotho is a tonal language, employing 2 tones, high [ - ] and low [ _ ], which can at least serve one of the following purposes:

[edit] Characteristic tone

Each complete Sotho word has an inherent tone for its syllables, which, although not essential to forming correct speech, will betray a foreign accent:

motho [ _ _ ] human being
ntja [ _ - ] dog
mosotho [ _ - _ ] a Sotho speaking person
lerata [ _ _ - ] noise

[edit] Distinguishing/semantic tone

Often, a few words may be composed of the exact same syllables/phonemes, yet mean different things depending on what tonal pattern is used:

ho aka [ _ - - ] to kiss
ho aka [ _ _ _ ] to lie to

joang [ _ - ] grass
joang [ - _ ] how?

ho tena [ - - ] to wear
ho tena [ _ _ ] to annoy/disgust

[edit] Grammatical tone

It regularly occurs that two otherwise similar sounding phrases may have two very different meanings mainly due to a difference in tone of one or more words or concords.

Ke ngoana oa hao [_ - _ _ - _ ] I am your child
Ke ngoana oa hao [- - _ _ - _ ] He/she/it is your child

O mobe [_ _ - ] You are ugly
O mobe [- _ - ] He/she is ugly

Ke batlana le bona [ _ _ - _ - _ _ ] I am looking for them (present indicative mood)
Ke batlana le bona [ - _ - _ _ _ _ ] As I was looking for them

(participal sub-mood i.e. this is not a complete sentence but part of a longer sentence)

Note that when grammatical tone is used the tone of the significant word influences the relative pitch of the rest of the phrase, although the tones of other words remain intact.


The tone of a syllable is carried by the vowel, or the nasal, if the nasal is syllabic. Syllabic l (and, in Northern Sotho and Tswana syllabalic r) never carry any kind of independent tone, their "tone" being the same as one of the syllables around it. A classic example of a nasal carrying a nasal:

To form a locative from a noun (a locative being a place word, renderings meanings such as "in the house"), one of the possible procedures involves simply suffixing an ng (with a low tone). To form the locative meaning "on the grass" you suffix ng to the word joang [ _ - ], giving joanng [ _ - _ ] (pronounced "djwa-ng-ng"), with the two last nasal syllables have contrasting tones.

Names, being nouns, frequently have a tonal pattern distinct from the noun:

The Sotho word for "mother/missus/ma'am" is 'me [ _ - ], but a child would call their own mother 'me [ - _ ], using it as a first name. Also, ntate [ _ - _ ] means father/mister/sir, while ntate [_ - - ] might be used by a small child to say "dad".

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Noun prefix system

Sotho is a tonal language and, like all other Bantu Languages is distinguished by its prefix concordial system and the fact that all words either end in a vowel or in a nasal consonant (n, ng, ny, or m).

Also, like all other Bantu languages, it uses a set of "noun classes" and each noun in Sotho belongs to one of the classes. The noun classes and their respective prefixes in Sotho are as follows:

class prefix example(s) English meaning(s) notes
1. mo- motho person mostly human nouns
2. ba- batho people
1a. - ntate father mostly human nouns
2a. bo- bontate fathers
3. mo- motse village mostly non-human nouns
4. me- metse villages
5. le- letsatsi day/sun both human and non-human
leleme tongue
6. ma- matsatsi days
li[N]- liteme flattery
7. se- sephiri secret human and non-human
8. li- liphiri secrets
9. [N]- ntho thing human and non-human
thapelo prayer
10. li[N]- lintho things
lithapelo prayers
14. bo- bohobe bread abstract nouns belong here,
therefore most class 14 words have no plural
bobe ugliness
14. (pl.) ma- mahobe breads
15. ho ho tsamaea to go infinitives belong here
16. - fatshe down this is the only word in this class
17. ho- holimo up
hole far away
hosane tomorrow
18. mo- moraho behind
mose overseas

Noun Classes 11, 12, 13 do not occur in Sotho, but do occur in other Bantu languages (Zulu has Class 11, but not 12,13; the northwestern Sotho language, Lozi has Classes 11,12,13).

Each basic noun in Sotho has an inherent prefix (even if that prefix is a null prefix: segmentally empty). If you can remember a word off by heart, and you know the full list of prefixes, you can (perhaps 90% of the time) determine the class of that particular word. Knowing the class, first, allows to know what the plural of the word is (for singular words), e.g:

sefate (tree) has prefix se-, which is of Class 7, therefore its plural must be lifate

Up until Class 10, the plural class for Class n is Class n+1 (where n is odd). Another example:

lemati (door) has prefix le-, which is Class 5, so its plural is mamati.

Problems start occurring with words like monyako ("door frame") - is it in Class 3 or 1?
You will observe in the above table that the note next to group 1 says "mostly humans" and that group 3 says "mostly non-humans". Since doors are not human, we can therefore conclude that monyako is probably in Class 3, so its plural is in Class 4, menyako.

Motsoalle "friend", in Class 1, has an irregular plural in Class 4 - metsoalle. Also, morena "king", has a plural in Class 6. Many Class 1 words have a tendency of misbehaving, but we know that they belong to Class 1 because of their concords. Quite a substantial number of Class 1 words have a their plural in Class 6.

Notes:

  1. [N] means that nasalisation will occur to the following consonant.
  2. Many Class 5 words in Sotho come from the original Bantu *lu- Class 11, whose plural has been argued to be li- (an augment to Class 10), which is why Class 5 nouns may have two distinct plurals: one in Class 6, and one in Class 10. However, the li[N]- plural does not apply to all Class 5 words, and when it does the meaning might be changed slightly (maleme "tongues", liteme "flattery").For example, many Tswana-speakers still say "lorato" for Sotho lerato "love", as this class still exists in the language. When in doubt, don't use the li[N]- form.

[edit] Numbers

Bantu languages use a quinary counting system with six basic numbers, the other four being miscellaneous.
Here is a comparison between some Bantu languages:

No. Sotho Tswana N. Sotho Zulu
1. -nngoe/-ng 'ngwe -tee -nye
2. -beli -bedi -bedi -bili
3. -raro -raro -raro -thathu
4. -nne -nne -nne -ne
5. -hlano -tlhano -hlano -hlanu
6. -tšelela -thataro -tshela -sithupe
7. -supa -supa -šupa -yisikhombisi
8. -robeli -robedi -seswai -yisishagalombili
9. -robong -robong -senyane -yisishagalokunye
10. -leshome -shome -lesome -yishume

Notes:

  • As you will notice, the six basic numbers are 1 to 5, and 10.
  • As in many Bantu languages, numbers 1 to 5 are adjectives (in many they are slightly morphologically distinct, hence called "enumeratives"); the number 10 is a noun. All the other numbers are nouns derived from verbs (eg. 7 is derived from "to point" in all three of the Sotho-Tswana languages above).
  • The above are the noun (counting) forms, derived from the adjectival forms (for 1 to 5); in particular, the forms in the Sotho-Tswana language group are nasally permuted.
  • In Sotho, 'ngoe is a variant (allomorph) of the adjective stem "-ng" used only for Class 9 nouns. The use of the number "one" in Sotho is different from in the other Sotho-Tswana languages, because the Sotho -ng is an enumerative which behaves sometimes like an adjective and can therefore become a noun.
  • However, the Southern Sotho and Northern Sotho words for "one" do not follow the general Bantu norm. Noši (which might be related to the Swahili mosi) is used in Northern Sotho for the adjective "one".

[edit] Grammar example

Like all other Bantu languages, one may say that the sentence phrase is "centered around the noun", in that a large number of the words in a Sotho sentence may be affected as soon as one of the nouns changes. This is due to a concept named "noun concordance".

For example:

        Mo ja monna ha a mo qete  - A man-eater never finishes him (old Sotho saying)
        Ba ja monna ha ba mo qete - Man-eaters never finish him.
        Mo ja banna ha a ba qete  - A men-eater never finishes them.
        Ba ja banna ha ba ba qete - Men-eaters never finish them.
        ^_________^ ^  ^  ^  ^        
             |      |  |  |  |
             |      |  |  | verb 
             |      |  | object concord
             |      | subject concord
             |   makes vb. -ve
Compound noun (class prefix for person/s, verb - eat, subject)

There are seven different concordance types for each class (subject, object, adjectival, relative, enumerative, possessive, pronominal).

The words/prefixes used to indicate these concords might vary slightly according to sentence tense/mood. The "auxiliary concord" used on Sesotho.web.za is only a past tense form of the subject concord which has changed due to an old -a- between the concord and the verb (notice how di+a became tsa - this is by far the most common phonetic change in LSG, and the change form ts to l or d is the second most common).

Since, for example, all except one of Class 2's concords are ba (the exception being bo- as in bana bana bona "these very same children"), it is straightforward to make alliterative sentences like:

Bana bao ba batle ba kopane le batsoali ba bona 'me batsoali ba bona ba ba shapa.
Gloss: 'Those beautiful children met their parents, and their parents beat them'

Every ba/ba- in the above sentence is due to the prefix of bana ("children") and batsoali ("parents").

Changing batsoali ("parents") to metsoalle ("friends") renders:

Bana bao ba batle ba kopane le MEtsoalle EA bona 'me MEtsoalle EA bona EA ba shapa.
Gloss: 'Those beautiful children met their friends, and their friends beat them'.

Changing bana to lintho, we get:

LIntho TSEo TSE Ntle LI kopane le metsoalle ea TSona 'me metsoalle ea TSona ea LI shapa.
Gloss: 'Those beautiful things met their friends and their friends beat them'.

[edit] References

Doke, C. M., and Mofokeng, S. M. Textbook of Southern Sotho Grammar. Cape Town: Longman Southern Africa, 3rd impression (1974).

[edit] External links

Wikipedia
Sotho language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wiktionary
Sotho language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
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