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Tswana
Setswana
Spoken in: Flag of Botswana Botswana
Flag of South Africa South Africa
Flag of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
Flag of Namibia Namibia 
Region: southern Africa
Total speakers: 4,407,174
Language family: Niger-Congo
 Atlantic-Congo
  Volta-Congo
   Benue-Congo
    Bantoid
     Southern
      Narrow Bantu
       Central
        S group
         Sotho-Tswana
          Tswana 
Official status
Official language in: Flag of Botswana Botswana
Flag of South Africa 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. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast Southern Africa is the Southernmost Region of the African Continent, variably defined by Geography or Geopolitics. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa 's largest in terms of geographical area number of speakers and number In the classification of African languages, Atlantic-Congo constitutes the core of the Niger-Congo family, with the Noun class systems stereotypical In the classification of African languages Volta-Congo is a hypothetical major branch of the Niger-Congo family. The Benue-Congo group of languages constitutes the largest branch of the Niger-Congo language family both in terms of sheer number of languages of which 880 are known (per Ethnologue In the classification of African languages, Bantoid is a branch of the Benue-Congo subfamily of the Niger-Congo phylum In the classification of African languages, Southern Bantoid (or South Bantoid is one of the two branches of the Bantoid subfamily of the Niger-Congo In the classification of African languages, Narrow Bantu is a term commonly used to designate the branch of Niger-Congo containing the numerous Bantu languages The Sotho-Tswana language group is a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa including Tswana ( Setswana) Northern Sotho The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Tswana (Setswana), is a Bantu language written in the Latin Alphabet. Bantu may refer to Bantu expansion, a series of migrations of Bantu speakers Bantu languages Bantu people Tswana is the national and majority language of Botswana, whose people are the Batswana (singular Motswana). The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. Tswana ( Motswana, plural Batswana) is the name of a Southern African people Although Setswana is the official language of Botswana, the majority of Setswana speakers are actually in the country of South Africa. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa There are also speakers in Zimbabwe and Namibia. See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast 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. A bantustan or more commonly black african homeland or simply homeland, was territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South-West Bophuthatswana (meaning gathering of the Tswana people) was a Bantustan ("homeland" in the northwest of South Africa.

Tswana is a Bantu language, belonging to the Niger-Congo language family. The Bantu languages (technically Narrow Bantu languages) constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo family The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa 's largest in terms of geographical area number of speakers and number It is most closely related to two other languages in the Sotho language group, Sesotho (Southern Sotho) and Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa). The Sotho-Tswana language group is a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa including Tswana ( Setswana) Northern Sotho History Should include probable history of the language what form of Bantu it is most closely derived from (the coolest forms! dates of movement of major groups Northern Sotho ( Sesotho sa Leboa in the language itself is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by nearly five million—4208980 people It has also been known as Beetjuans, Chuana (hence Bechuanaland), Coana, Cuana, and Sechuana. The Bechuanaland Protectorate (BP was a protectorate established on March 31, 1885, by the United Kingdom in Southern Africa.

Contents

Some simple Tswana phrases

Formal inquiry after health:

(Replace tsogile with tlhotse for afternoon greetings. )

Informal inquiry after health:

Casual slang:

Other useful phrases:

Farewells:

Food:


Provinces of South Africa in which Tswana is spoken as a home language by a significant proportion of the population
Provinces of South Africa in which Tswana is spoken as a home language by a significant proportion of the population

Pronunciation tips:

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. See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election

External links

Software

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