Southern Ndebele language

Southern Ndebele
	Transvaal Ndebele
	isiNdebele seSewula
Native to	South Africa
Region	Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng, North West
Native speakers	1.1 million (2011 census)[1]; 1.4 million L2 speakers (2002)[2]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Southern Bantu Nguni Zunda Southern Ndebele; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin (Ndebele alphabet); Ndebele Braille
Signed forms	Signed Ndebele
Official status
Official language in	South Africa
Language codes
ISO 639-1	nr – South Ndebele
ISO 639-2	nbl – South Ndebele
ISO 639-3	nbl – South Ndebele
Glottolog	sout2808[3]
Guthrie code	S.407[4]
Linguasphere	99-AUT-fi + 99-AUT-fj

Southern Ndebele (English: /ɛndəˈbiːliː/), also known as Transvaal Ndebele[1] or South Ndebele,[5][6] is an African language belonging to the Nguni group of Bantu languages, spoken by the Ndebele people of South Africa.

Geographical distribution of isiNdebele in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks isiNdebele at home.

0–20%

20–40%

40–60%

60–80%

80–100%

Geographical distribution of isiNdebele in South Africa: density of isiNdebele 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

Bilingual sign in Afrikaans and Transvaal Ndebele at the Pretoria Art Museum

There is also a different language called Northern Ndebele or isiNdebele, Matabele, or simply Ndebele, spoken in Zimbabwe, which is closer to Zulu.[7]

Overview

The Southern Transvaal Ndebele people's history has been traced back to King Ndebele, King Ndebele fathered King Mkhalangana, King Mkhalangana fathered King Mntungwa (not to be confused with the Khumalo Mntungwa, because he was fathered by Mbulazi), King Mntungwa fathered King Jonono, King Jonono fathered King Nanasi, King Nanasi fathered King Mafana, king Mafana fathered King Mhlanga and Chief Libhoko, King Mhlanga fathered King Musi and Chief Skhube .

Ndebele – Some of his sons were left behind with the Hlubi tribe
Mkhalangana – Some of his sons branched north and formed the Kalanga tribe
Mntungwa – Founder of the amaNtungwa clan
Njonono – He died in Jononoskop near Ladysmith – Surname Jonono is in the Hlubi tribe
Nanasi – He died in Jononoskop near Ladysmith – Surname Nanasi is in the Hlubi tribe
Mafana – He died in Randfontein (Emhlangeni)
Mhlanga – He died in Randfontein (Emhlangeni)
Musi – He died in kwaMnyamana (Pretoria)

King Musi's kraal was based at eMhlangeni a place named after his father Mhlanga, the name of the place is currently known as Randfontein (Mohlakeng) and later moved to KwaMnyamana which is now called Emarula or Bon Accord in Pretoria. King Musi was a polygamist and fathered the following sons, Skhosana (Masombuka), Manala (Mbuduma), Ndzundza (Hlungwana), Thombeni (Kekana or Gegana), Sibasa, Mhwaduba (Lekhuleni) and Mphafuli and others.

Southern Transvaal Ndebele is one of the eleven official languages in the Republic of South Africa. The language is a Nguni or Zunda classification (UN) spoken mostly in the Mpumalanga Province, Gauteng, Limpopo and the Northwest.

The expression "isikhethu" can be loosely translated to mean 'the Southern Ndebele way of doing or saying'. Isikhethu means Southern Ndebele the same way that sikitsi will mean Swazi and se harona will mean Sotho. The language has been severely marginalised over the years. Until the formation of the apartheid Southern Ndebele homeland (KwaNdebele), speaking the language publicly was discouraged. Most Southern Transvaal Ndebele speakers preferred Zulu especially because the latter was learned at school. Today the Southern Ndebele speakers, mostly those who are educated still prefer to use Southern Ndebele as home language for their children and will use Southern Ndebele as a language to communicate with other Southern Ndebele speakers.

Phonology

Vowels

Southern Ndebele vowels
	Front	Back
Close	i [i]	u [u]
Mid	e [e~ɛ]	o [o~ɔ]
Open	a [a]

Consonants

Southern Ndebele consonants
		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	ejective	p [pʼ]		t [tʼ]		k [kʼ]
	aspirated	ph [pʰ]		th [tʰ]		kh [kʰ]
	devoiced	bh [b̥]		d [d̥]		ɡ [ɡ̊]
	prenasal	mp [ᵐp]		nt [ⁿt]		nk [ᵑkʼ]
	prenasal (vd.)	mb [ᵐb]		nd [ⁿd]		ng [ᵑɡ]
	implosive	b [ɓ]
Fricative	plain		f [f]	s [s]		rh [x]
	voiced		v [v]	z [z]			h [ɦ]
	prenasal		mf [ᶬf]
	prenasal (vd.)		mv [ᶬv]
Nasal		m [m]		n [n]	ny [ɲ]	ngh [ŋ]
Lateral Fricative	plain			hl [ɬ]
	voiced			dl [ɮ]
	aspirated			dlh [ɮʰ]
Rhotic				r [r]
Lateral Approximant				l [l]
Approximant		w [w]			y [j]

Affricates
			Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar
Affricate	voiceless	ejective	ts [tsʼ]	tj [tʃʼ]	kg [kxʼ]
		aspirated	tsh [tsʰ]	tjh [tʃʰ]	kgh [kxʰ]
		lateral	tl [tɬʼ]
		lateral (asp.)	tlh [tɬʰ]
	voiced	plain	dz [dz]
		devoiced		j [d̥ʒ]
		prenasal		nj [ᶮdʒ]

Consonant sounds nt, nd, k, mf, and mv often result in allophones of [d̥r dr k̬ ɱp̪fʼ ɱb̪v].[8]

Click consonants

Southern Ndebele clicks
			Dental	Post- alveolar	Lateral
Plosive	voiceless	plain	c [ǀ]	q [!]	x [ǁ]
		aspirated	ch [ǀʰ]	qh [!ʰ]
		nasalized	nc [ᵑǀ]		nx [ᵑǁ]
	voiced	plain	gc [ǀᶢ]	gq [!ᶢ]
	voiced	nasalized		ngq [ᵑ!ᶢ]

Grammar

Nouns

The Southern Ndebele noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages.

The following table gives an overview of Southern Ndebele noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs.

Class	Singular	Plural
1/2	um(u)-¹	aba-, abe-
1a/2a	u-	abo-
3/4	um(u)-¹	imi-
5/6	i-, ili-, ilu-	ama-
7/8	is(i)-	iz(i)-, iiN-
9/10	iN-	iiN-
14	ubu-, ub-, utj-
15	uku-
17	uku-

¹ umu- replaces um- before monosyllabic stems, e. g. umuntu (person).

Verbs

Verbs use the following affixes for the subject and the object:

Person/ Class	Prefix	Infix
1st sing.	ngi-	-ngi-
2nd sing.	u-	-wu-
1st plur.	si-	-si-
2nd plur.	ni-	-ni-
1	u-	-m(u)-
2	ba-	-ba-
3	u-	-m(u)-
4	i-	-yi-
5	li-	-li-
6	a-	-wa-
7	si-	-si-
8	zi-	-zi-
9	i-	-yi-
10	zi-	-zi-
14	bu-	-bu-
15	ku-	-ku-
17	ku-	-ku-
reflexive		-zi-

Examples

Months in Southern Ndebele

English	Northern Ndebele (Zimbabwe)	Southern Ndebele (South Africa)	Zulu (South Africa)
January	uZibandlela	uTjhirhweni	uMasingane
February	uNhlolanja	uMhlolanja	uNhlolanja
March	uMbimbitho	uNtaka	uNdasa
April	uMabasa	uSihlabantangana	UMbasa
May	uNkwekwezi	uMrhayili	UNhlaba
June	uNhlangula	uMgwengweni	UNhlangulana
July	uNtulikazi	uVelabahlinze	uNtulikazi
August	uNcwabakazi	uRhoboyi	UNcwaba
September	uMpandula	uKhukhulamungu	uMandulo
October	uMfumfu	uSewula	uMfumfu
November	uLwezi	uSinyikhaba	uLwezi
December	uMpalakazi	uNobayeni	uZibandlela

AmaNdebele in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean Ndebele is part of the Nguni cluster and is therefore very similar to other Nguni languages (such as Zulu, Xhosa and Swati) with which it shares a high level of mutual intelligibility. However, it has (to some extent) also been influenced by other Non-Nguni Zimbabwean languages (e.g. Shona). The South African (or Southern Transvaal Ndebele), while maintaining its Nguni roots, has been influenced by the Sotho languages.[8]

gollark: Why does Dale have this?

gollark: Surprising.

gollark: Cubez is probably trying to patch their geometry dash mod or something.

gollark: They are "software defined radio" things which are very cheap due to quirks of a random DVB-T tuner chip released years ago.

gollark: RTL-SDRs.

References

Ndebele 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
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sumayela Ndebele". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
"Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-2 Registration Authority - Library of Congress. Retrieved 4 July 2017. Name: South Ndebele
"Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-3 Registration Authority - SIL International. Retrieved 4 July 2017. Name: South Ndebele
Skhosana, Philemon. "The (ama)Ndebele of Africa and their name '(ama)Ndebele'". University of Pretoria – Department of Library Services. University of Pretoria. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
Skhosana, P.B. (2010) The Linguistic Relationship between Southern and Northern Ndebele, University of Pretoria, DLitt Thesis

External links

List links to Ndebele language resources

Software

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[e18-1] Ndebele at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] 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

[Glottolog-3] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sumayela Ndebele". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[Guthrie-4] Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online

[ISO_639-2/RA-5] "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-2 Registration Authority - Library of Congress. Retrieved 4 July 2017. Name: South Ndebele

[ISO_639-3/RA-6] "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-3 Registration Authority - SIL International. Retrieved 4 July 2017. Name: South Ndebele

[7] Skhosana, Philemon. "The (ama)Ndebele of Africa and their name '(ama)Ndebele'". University of Pretoria – Department of Library Services. University of Pretoria. Retrieved 24 March 2016.

[:0-8] Skhosana, P.B. (2010) The Linguistic Relationship between Southern and Northern Ndebele, University of Pretoria, DLitt Thesis