Southern Ndebele language

This article is about the Southern Ndebele language of the Transvaal region of South Africa. For information about the language spoken by the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe (sometimes called Matabele, Sindebele or Northern Ndebele), see Northern Ndebele language.

Southern Ndebele
isiNdebele
Spoken in	South Africa
Region	Mpumalanga Limpopo Gauteng North West
Native speakers	640,000  (2006) Total: 2 million
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Southern Bantu Sotho–Tswana Southern Ndebele
Official status
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	nr
ISO 639-2	nbl
ISO 639-3	nbl

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

The Southern Ndebele language (isiNdebele or Nrebele in Southern Ndebele) is an African language belonging to the Nguni group of Bantu languages, and spoken by the amaNdebele (the Ndebele people of South Africa). There are two dialects of Southern Ndebele in South Africa:

• the Northern Transvaal Ndebele or Nrebele. It is untrue to declare that this language is extinct and that no one has compiled an orthography.^{[citation needed]} There are speakers of this language in both rural and urban areas. Sindrebele language, as it is affectionately called by its speakers, orthography was compiled in 1959 by Mr. D. Ziervogel. There are various writers including Mr. J. L. Rafapa (the author of the Northern Sotho book Lerato Sello) amongst many who are prepared to write Sindrebele. Much of the history of the speakers of this language has not been written, but that does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. This language falls under the Tekela Nguni languages.
• and the Southern Transvaal Ndebele.

There is also another, separate dialect called Northern Ndebele or Matabele spoken in Zimbabwe and Botswana – see Sindebele language. The Zimbabwean Ndebele is closer to Zulu than it is to the two South African Ndebele languages.

Overview

The history of the amaNdebele can be traced to Musi, the last monarch of the tribe as a single nation. Researchers still disagree on specific times of the tribe's separation from their main Nguni Group (which include the Xhosa, Zulu and the Swazi).It is estimated that the migration took place as early as 1200 A.D. AmaNdebele are known to be the first Nguni group to enter the hinterland of the southern tip of the African continent, later to be called Transvaal (today's Gauteng Province). AmaNdebele lived as one nation at Emhlangeni (today's Randfontein area) under King Mhlanga approximately between 1550-1580. The name of EMhlangeni is today being translated to the Sotho language, Mohlakeng. Most archeologists and historians agree that the amaNdebele settled for a longer period peacefully at Kwamnyamana and Emarula (Wonderboompoort). These areas are in the north and northwest of present day Pretoria. The tribe arrived in this area with Musi, the son of Mhlanga who is in turn the son of Mafana. The tribe can still be found in that area to day.
See also "The Ndebele People of South Africa".
One unverified source mentions that the word Matebele/Matabele is a corruption of the Setswana phrase "Mathebe Telele," meaning "those with long shields." This refers to the Zulus and Ndebeles who made their way through to the northern parts of Southern Africa's innovations, including the use of short spears and long shields as opposed to the javelin-type spears and small shields used by other local peoples.

Language

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

AmaNdebele In Zimbabwe

The shared language name does not imply other close similarities, however. It must be borne in mind that amaNdebele who now inhabit Zimbabwe met the amaNdebele of South Africa during Mzilikazi's path to the north of the southern subcontinent between 1828 and 1838. Subsequently, the two peoples have broken contact with one another and have diverged culturally.

External links

• List links to Ndebele language resources
• The 1971 Pelling lexicon of Ndebele->English (text file) (on a stable Archive.org link)
• Searchable version of the Pelling dictionnary
• CBOLD - Comparative Bantu Online Dictionnary - including Ndebele

Software

• Spell checker for OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox web-browser, and Mozilla Thunderbird email program in Ndebele
• Project to translate Free and Open Source Software into Ndebele