For the next two weeks we will be looking at Sesotho sa Leboa. We’ll be interviewing our translators to find out more about their experiences translating into Sepedi, their favourite phrases and how they got into becoming a Sesotho sa Leboa translator in the first place.
However, first let’s look at Sesotho sa Leboa and the facts, according to Wikipedia.
Northern Sotho is a designation in English, rendered officially and among indigenous speakers as Sesotho sa Leboa. Also confusingly known by the name of its major variety, “Pedi” or “Sepedi”, Northern Sotho is a designated official language of South Africa, spoken by 4,208,980 people (2001 Census) in the provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Urban varieties of Pedi have acquired clicks in an ongoing process of the spread of such sounds from Nguni languages.
Northern Sotho is a language – or a number of neighbouring languages – within the Sotho branch of Zone S (S.30) of the Bantu family (classified in the Niger–Congo language phylum). Northern Sotho is thus most closely related to Sesotho or Southern Sotho, Setswana, sheKgalagari and siLozi. It comprises several distinct languages and/or dialects. Lobedu (also Lovedu or Selobedu) exists only in an unwritten form and the standard Northern Sotho language and orthography is usually used for teaching and writing by this language community. The monarch associated with this language community is Queen Modjadji (also known as the Rain Queen). Lobedu is mainly spoken in the area of Duiwelskloof (now called Modjadjiskloof) in the Limpopo Province (former Northern Province). Its speakers are known as the Balobedu.
Confusion of nomenclature with Sepedi
Northern Sotho has often been equated with its major component Sepedi, and continued to be known as Pedi or Sepedi for some years after the new South African constitution appeared. However, the Pan South African Language Board and the Northern Sotho National Lexicography Unit now specifically prefer and endorse the names “Northern Sotho” or “Sesotho sa Leboa”.
The original confusion arose from the fact that the (now official) Northern Sotho written language was based largely on Sepedi (for which missionaries first developed the orthography), but has subsequently provided a common writing system for 20 or more varieties of the Sotho-Tswana languages spoken in the former Transvaal (including dialects of Sepedi).
The name “Sepedi” thus refers specifically to the language of the Pedi people, while “Northern Sotho” refers to the official language of that name and to all the speech varieties it has been taken to cover. (It should be noted that the ethnic name “Pedi” also refers to a ruling group which established its dominance over other communities in the eighteenth century, and to the culture and lifestyle of that group and of those over whom it ruled.)
Other varieties of Northern Sotho
Apart from Sepedi itself, the other languages or dialects covered by the term “Northern Sotho” appear to be a diverse grouping of communal speech-forms within the Sotho-Tswana group. They are apparently united by the fact that they are classifiable neither as Southern Sotho nor as Tswana. Very little published information is available on these other dialects of Northern Sotho, however, which have been reported to include: kheLobedu (khiLobedu or seLobedu), seTlokwa, seBirwa, thiPulana (or sePulana), Khutswe, seTswapo and also Pai (transitional between Sotho-Tswana and Zulu). The morphological and possible lexical variation among these dialects has led to the above assertion that ‘Northern Sotho’ is no more than a holding category for otherwise unclassified Sotho-Tswana varieties spoken in northeastern South Africa. Their precise classification would appear to be a matter for further research.