Geographical distribution of Swazi in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks Swazi at home.
0–20%
20–40%
40–60%
60–80%
80–100%
Geographical distribution of Swazi in South Africa: density of Swazi 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
Swazi orsiSwati is aBantu language of theNguni group spoken inEswatini (formerly Swaziland) andSouth Africa by theSwati people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 4.7 million including first and second language speakers.[1] The language is taught in Eswatini and some South African schools inMpumalanga, particularly formerKaNgwane areas. Siswati is an official language of Eswatini (along with English), and is also one of the twelve official languages of South Africa.[3]
Siswati spoken in Eswatini can be divided into four dialects corresponding to the four administrative regions of the country:Hhohho,Lubombo,Manzini, andShiselweni.
Siswati has at least two varieties: the standard, prestige variety spoken mainly in the north, centre and southwest of the country, and a less prestigious variety spoken elsewhere.
In the far south, especially in towns such asNhlangano andHlatikhulu, the variety of the language spoken is significantly influenced by isiZulu. Many Swazis (pluralemaSwati, singularliSwati), including those in the south who speak this variety, do not regard it as 'proper' Swazi. This is what may be referred to as the second dialect in the country. The sizeable number of Swazi speakers in South Africa (mainly in theMpumalanga province, and inSoweto) are considered by Eswatini Swazi speakers to speak a non-standard form of the language.
Unlike the variant in the south of Eswatini, the Mpumalanga variety appears to be less influenced by Zulu, and is thus considered closer to standard Swazi. However, this Mpumalanga variety is distinguishable by distinctintonation, and perhaps distincttone patterns. Intonation patterns (and informal perceptions of 'stress') in Mpumalanga Swazi are often considered discordant to the Swazi ear. This South African variety of Swazi is considered to exhibit influence from other South African languages spoken close to Swazi.
A feature of the standard prestige variety of Swazi (spoken in the north and centre of Eswatini) is the royal style of slow, heavily stressed enunciation, which is anecdotally claimed to have a 'mellifluous' feel to its hearers.
Swazi does not distinguish between places of articulation in its clicks. They aredental (as[ǀ]) or might also bealveolar (as[ǃ]). It does, however, distinguish five or six manners of articulation and phonation, including tenuis, aspirated, voiced, breathy voiced, nasal, and breathy-voiced nasal.[4]
The consonants/tsʼkʼŋ/ each have two sounds./tsʼ/ and/kʼ/ can both occur as ejective sounds,[tsʼ] and[kʼ], and their other common allophones are[tsʰ] and[k̬]. The sound/ŋ/ differs when at the beginning of stems as[ŋ], and commonly as[ŋɡ] within words.[4][5][6]
Swazi exhibits three surface tones: high, mid and low. Tone is unwritten in the standard orthography. Traditionally, only the high and mid tones are taken to exist phonemically, with the low tone conditioned by a precedingdepressor consonant. Bradshaw (2003) however argues that all three tones exist underlyingly.
Phonological processes acting on tone include:
When a stem with non-high tone receives a prefix with underlying high tone, this high tone moves to theantepenult (or to the penult, when the onset of the antepenult is a depressor).
High spread: all syllables between two high tones become high, as long as no depressor intervenes. This happens not only word-internally, but also across a word boundary between a verb and its object.
The depressor consonants are all voiced obstruents other than/ɓ/. The allophone[ŋ] of/ŋɡ/ appears to behave as a depressor for some rules but not others.[7]
This article shouldspecify the language of its non-English content, using{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used.See why.(November 2021)
The Swazi noun (libito) consists of two essential parts, the prefix (sicalo) and the stem (umsuka). Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with otherBantu languages.
The following table gives an overview of Swazi noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."[10]
^abTaljaard, P. C.; Khumalo, J. N.; Bosch, S. E. (1991).Handbook of siSwati. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.
^Corum, Claudia W. (1991).An Introduction to the Swazi (Siswati) Language. Indiana University.: Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics. pp. 2.7 –2.20.
^Ziervogel, Dirk; Mabuza, Enos John (1976).A Grammar of the Swati Language: siSwati. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.
