Talk:Languages of South Africa

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[edit] Nguni?

The nine official Bantu languages of South Africa aren't all Nguni. Is Nguni not only comprised of Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swati? Sesotho and Northern Sotho (and maybe even Tswana, but I'm not sure) are Sotho languages, not Nguni languages. Joziboy 23 March 2006, 20:10 (UTC)

According to Ethnologue there are four Nguni languages. :) // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 20:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for merger

This page should be merged as fast as possible with Other languages of South Africa, which has a less official "feel" to it, but whose coverage of languages is wider than Languages of South Africa. There is no rationale to keep them separate. Anyone? — Sotho of the South 14:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Since when have these been apart? — mark ✎ 14:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
A quick check revealed nothing substantially different, so I have redirected Other languages of South Africa to this article and will delete the obsolete redirect in a few days. Until then, the original content can still be found in this revision. In the meantime, the scope of the current article will need to widened to include all languages spoken in South Africa, along the lines of Languages of Uganda and Languages of Mali. — mark ✎ 14:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Mark. Looks great. I made minor additions to the Languages_of_SA article, based on the one being scrapped. — Sotho of the South 11:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

See that page's discussion page for rationale. --Uxejn 21:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. No good arguments to unredirect it surfaced in the discussion, so I've redirected it again to the relevant section here. — mark ✎ 10:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constitution

Where does:

The Constitution also recognises a further eight non-official "national languages":
Fanagalo, Lobedu (Khilobedu), Northern Ndebele (Sindebele), Phuthi (Siphuthi), South African Sign Language, Khoe, Nama, San (Khoisan/Khoesan) languages

come from? The 1st four are not in the version of the constititution I use. See Chapter 1, section 6. --Uxejn 21:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversions

Please do not buck the consensus we have reached regarding the spelling of the official South Africa languages. i.e. Xhosa, Zulu, etc. I have to warn ZyXoas that if he continues to undo all changes and attempts to exert 'ownership' over Wiki pages, then he will be reported for unreasonable behavior and the 3RR rule will be invoked. He may well be blocked from editing. Please behave. Thank you. 196.30.118.76 18:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC) DawnTreader

OK, I'm tired of seeing incorrect reversions. I've reported Zyxaos for his Edit War and general conduct. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR 196.207.40.213 20:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)DawnTreader

Please note that for the purposes of 3RR, there are no 'incorrect' or 'correct' reversions. The 3RR applies to you as well, so please stop the edit warring. — mark ✎ 09:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Mark, from what I can see this issue has been going on for a long time on several topics. (Just look at the history ...) Call it what you like, you are part of it. If you haven't the canolis to put a stop to it, then I will! It doesn't help Wiki or the article to have editors trying to 'own' pages.196.207.40.213 11:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC) DawnTreader

I'm most definitely not part of it. Sure, I have been active in debates surrounding this issue, but that's quite different from the revert warring that has been going on over the last few days. Please get your facts straight. If you think to can put a stop to it by revert warring, fine. I won't, not because I don't have 'the canolis', but because I think edit warring is pointless, especially about a minor issue like this. — mark ✎ 11:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where English is spoken

I had a discussion earlier on the South Africa article regarding the map showing the distribution of the usage of the 11 official languages by magisterial district. I did not like the message the map sends out. The new map created for Sotho is a step in the right direction, but it reminds me of an old map of South Africa with all the TBVC states blanked out white. Could someone create a map from the same statistics showing iso-lingo for each of language under discussion? Where is English spoke?Gregorydavid 13:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on it. Once my program is working, I will be able to actually go down to municipality level, and produce a map showing the proportion of the population of each municipality whose home language is a specific language. I hope to be able to upload the first products tomorrow or this weekend. - htonl 13:11, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

TBVC maps? O_o ?

What language is it in? Turbo Pascal? Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 15:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

While we're talking about this, do you think it would be better for the map to show the population of X-speakers (for X a language) relative to the total population of the municipality, or for it to show the population of X-speakers relative to the geographical area of the municipality? I can do either. - htonl 17:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New distribution maps

I've generated some maps of language distribution in South Africa. There are two types: "density" - geographical density of home-language speakers of the language - and "proportion" - the proportion of speakers of the language to the total population. The data is from Census 2001. I have produced maps for each official language, for the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana and West Germanic groups, and one for non-official languages.

Take a look, tell me what you think, tell me what I should change; and this weekend I'll start uploading to Commons. (I'll upload SVG versions to Commons; I've used PNG at the link above for smaller size and ease of viewing.) Oh, Gregorydavid, to answer your question "Where is English spoke?": Gauteng, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. - htonl 00:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

English is an endangered language.

The maps look really nice, but I have a few points I'd like to raise:

1. I love the detail with the municipalities, but I have no idea where the provinces are. I'm thinking you could use a thick, non-black border to show the provinces too? Eg. I know that many people in Tshwane speak Sesotho sa Leboa but I can't really see where Gauteng is on your map.

2. Lesotho still looks like a weird province. I was thinking you could draw thick black national borders too?

3. Could it also be possible to make:

a. Sesotho maps including Lesotho?

b. Setswana maps including Botswana?

c. SiSwati maps including Swaziland?

4. I couldn't exactly make out what they were (technical difficulties on my side), but those squigles beneath the picture titles look like English text. Might it not be better if the pictures included as little English text as possible? Or perhaps you could create another language-neutral set?

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

1 & 2. Good idea. I'll work on that this weekend. (I could also put in a grey background so that Lesotho doesn't just look like a province with zero population.)
3. might be a bit more tricky. I did in fact look around the Lesotho Bureau of Statistics website to see if I could find language distribution statistics, but I couldn't find any. I'll keep looking, but if you know where I can get statistics like that (at district level, ideally) I could probably work something out. Similarly for Botswana and Swaziland.
4. Yes. The versions I upload to Commons will be language-neutral. (At the moment, the density maps have the key labelled in "sq.km"; presumably I should change that to "km2" to be more general.)
Glad you like them! - htonl 09:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops! I forgot:

d. A Xitsonga map including Mozambique.

e. An isiNdebele (and Tshivenda) map including Zimbabwe.

Yeah, this sounds like way too much trouble. The statistics would also be rather unreliable since not every country has as many official languages as we do. Eg. Botswana virtually ignores all the numerous Khoisan, non-Sotho-Tswana, and non-Setswana Sotho-Tswana languages (such as Sekgalagadi, which as a result is usually treated as a dialect of Setswana) and so the values might not be detailed enough.

Additionally, for the same reasons, I'm not even sure if anyone knows exactly how many people speak Tshivenda in southern Zimbabwe. This would really be a nightmare.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 10:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've made new maps (at the same location) with provincial and national borders added and the municipal borders removed. I've removed the titles and the English text in brackets below the titles. (I feel these elements are more appropriately placed in a caption). - htonl 20:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, they look stunning. Brilliant work, dude! I find them a bit confusing (eg. the stark contrast between the 2 Afrikaans maps) but that's just my own problem... Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 23:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, you have done a sterling job, like Dr Higgins and Mr Spock. I have seen the earlier and your most recent versions of the maps. On the issue of line type for boundaries I like the concept of a range of types, from no line, ie zero thickness particularly when the space is filled with conditional colours, to increasing line thickness in general from suburbs, local municipalities etc through to national boundaries. I see no problem indicating the weather on the other side of the border, in that way you get rid of the white holes - provided you have some data.

Considering printer friendliness etc I wondered whether colours including white increasing in intensity with blue is as effective as shades of grey would be.

On proportions, if you still have so much energy, one could produce a map where the intensity of the fill colour for a particular language map at a particular point could be selected on the basis of the number of speakers at that point relative to the total population of speakers of the language..Gregorydavid 02:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't do anything. HungaryToNetherlands is the one who painstakingly used charcoal, blueberries, cat's milk, and a thorn to draw the maps pixel by pixel (well, at least, that's the way I usually do it)... Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
(By the way, that is the most interesting interpretation of my username that I have seen thus far; and I laughed out loud at your hilarious though not entirely accurate description of the methods of mapmaking.) As to the stark contrast between the two Afrikaans maps, they reflect the singular distinction between the answers to the questions "Where are most of the people Afrikaans-speaking?" and "Where are most of the Afrikaans-speaking people?".
As to printer-friendliness, it may be true that shades of grey would be better for b&w printers; but for screen display using blue and varying the saturation produces a better-looking map. (It doesn't have to be blue; the general idea is to use the HSV color space, setting the hue to some fixed value - 240 in the case of blue - the value to 100%, and vary the saturation proportional to the data.) - htonl 16:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I assume you are refering to TheWHAT!!??'s suggested rock-art like map, as I was only refering to what the maps look like. Anyway, on the density issue you range from zero to greater than 100 speakers per km^2. I was suggesting basing the shading on a count. Say we are dealing with a minority language then your method may show up a very pale map?Gregorydavid 12:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
You interpret correctly. I can certainly generate maps proportional to the total speakers of the language, as you suggest. The advantage of the density ones as they are now is that you can compare the maps for the different languages knowing that the same color represents the same density. I will create both. - htonl 07:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, the maps will be in commons:Category:Demographic maps of South Africa when they are uploaded. So far I have uploaded the density maps for each language. - htonl 20:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Extra nice! I'm not sure but I think that you've changed the blue colours ever so slightly (looks like a non-linear transfer function, like gamma adjustment or gradual amplification and soft saturation; you know, like tanh) but the legend at the bottom still looks the same (still the same scale). It's not a problem really, since the maps are only meant to give a rough idea and the legend is not meant to be extra accurate (personally, I feal that a few notches with values would look rad though useless, like glowing vacuum tubes in guitar amplifiers). Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 21:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, I haven't changed the color mapping at all. In theory, the key at the bottom and the colors on the map should correspond exactly. In practise, the vagaries of SVG renderers and color temperature probably means that it might vary a bit. - htonl 15:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I guess that it's just a difference in the way SVG and GIF are rendered on my side.

So when and how will they be added to the relevant articles? I imagine you can just replace the old pictures with their new alternatives, and add pictures to articles that didn't have them. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 21:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, of course, once the maps are on Commons, I'm not the only one who can add them to articles. Right now I'm rather busy with university work, so I probably won't be adding them immediately. I agree, though, that the maps can just replace the old ones or be added to articles without them. I haven't yet uploaded the maps that show the language speakers as a proportion of the population - the maps that would correspond to Joziboy's old ones - yet, though. - htonl 08:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi, maybe there are some of us who can incorporate the latest distribution maps into the relevant articles. Before you take a break to do other work, please create a map with same format etc showing population density of all language speakers where they reside, so that the reader can acertain how sparsely populated some areas of South Africa are. Next I shall start quizzing you on the nuts and bolts of converting the census data into maps..Gregorydavid 09:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Done! See Image:Population density ZA.svg. - htonl 18:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History and relations of the South African Bantu languages.

+ I've read about the similarity of North-Sotho and South-Sotho.

  • The two Ndebele languages (the South African and the Zimbabwean) have developped out of other Nguni and Sotho-Tswana languages since 1800.

-> These facts make me ask, which of the various Bantu languages of South Africa are so similar, that their speakers ca communicate by them without a dictionary. --Ulamm (talk) 14:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The Sotho-Tswana languages sound fairly similar to each other, and the same is true for the Nguni languages. In turn, most people living in Gauteng can understand all the Sotho-Tswana and Nguni languages to a degree. Tshivenda and Xitsonga are a tad more exotic, with fewer speakers nationally. No, people don't walk around with bilingual dictionaries. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 18:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sign language

This article states that South African Sign Language is recognised in the constitution in the section establishing the Pan South African language Board and its functions. This is not strictly correct. The text of the consitution talks of "sign language" in the generic sense and not of the specific language known as South African Sign Language. Roger (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe you're 100% correct. Be italic and change it...
Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 13:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2nd languages

Can we do something about second languages? A map for it. Afrikaans has more 2nd than 1st language speakers. If not do a graph or table showing second langages , maybe do a map for each language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bezuidenhout (talk • contribs) 16:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Demographic information on second languages in SA is not collected in the official census. English also has more second than first language speakers. I have never seen any reliable statistics. If anyone knows of a source please point it out to us. Roger (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)