Southern Ndebele language

Southern Ndebele
isiNdebele sakwaNdzundza noManala[source?]
isiNdebele seSewula[source?]
Native toSouth Africa
RegionMpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng, North West
EthnicityamaNdebele
Native speakers
1.1 million (2011 census)
1.4 million L2 speakers (2002)
Latin (Ndebele alphabet)
Ndebele Braille
Signed Ndebele
Official status
Official language in
 South Africa
Language codes
ISO 639-1nr – South Ndebele
ISO 639-2nbl – South Ndebele
ISO 639-3nbl – South Ndebele
Glottologsout2808
S.407
Linguasphere+ 99-AUT-fj 99-AUT-fi + 99-AUT-fj
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Geographical location 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 location of isiNdebele in South Africa: density of isiNdebele language speakers at home.
  <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

isiNdebele, also known as Southern Ndebele is an African language belonging to the Mbo group of Bantu languages, spoken by the Ndebele people of South Africa.

The Southern Ndebele language and the Northern Ndebele language are not two variations of the same language. Both are Bantu languages, but Southern Ndebele is very similar to the Sotho and Tswana languages. The Northern Ndebele language has similarities to Zulu.

References

  1. 1 2 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
  3. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  4. ↑ "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-2 Registration Authority - Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-07-04. Name: South Ndebele
  5. ↑ "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: nbl". ISO 639-3 Registration Authority - SIL International. Retrieved 2017-07-04. Name: South Ndebele