Tswana language
Encyclopedia
Tswana or Setswana is a language spoken in Southern Africa
by about 4.5 million people. It is a Bantu language
belonging to the Niger–Congo language family
within the Sotho languages
branch of Zone S (S.30), and is closely related to the Northern-
and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language
and the Lozi language
.
Tswana is an official language and lingua franca
of Botswana
spoken by almost 1.1 million of its inhabitants. However, the majority of Tswana speakers are found in South Africa
where 3.4 million people speak the language. Until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana
, one of the few bantustan
s that actually became reality as planned by the Apartheid regime. A small number of speakers are also found in Zimbabwe
and Namibia
, where 29,400 and 12,300 people speak the language, respectively.
H. Lichtenstein who lived among the Tswana people Batlhaping in 1806, although his work was not published until 1930. He mistakenly regarded Tswana as a dialect
of the Xhosa language
, and the name he used for the language "Beetjuana" may also have covered the Northern-
and Southern Sotho languages.
The first major work on the Tswana language was carried out by the British
missionary
Robert Moffat
who had also lived among the Batlhaping, and published Bechuana Spelling Book and A Bechuana Catechism in 1826. In the following years he published several other books of the Bible
and in 1857 he was able to publish a complete translation of the Bible
.
The first grammar of the Tswana language was published in 1833 by the missionary James Archbell, although it was modelled on a Xhosa
grammar. The first grammar of Tswana which regarded it as a separate language from Xhosa
(but still not as a separate language from the Northern-
and Southern Sotho languages) was published by the French
missionary E. Casalis in 1841. It should be noted though that he changes his mind later, and in a publication from 1882, he notes that the Northern-
and Southern Sotho languages are distinct from Tswana.
In 1876 the South Africa
n intellectual and linguist Solomon Plaatje
was born, and he became one of the first writers to extensively write in and about the Tswana language.
of Tswana can be seen below.
Some dialects have two additional vowels, the close-mid vowel
s /e/ and /o/.
of Tswana can be seen below.
It should be noted that the consonant
/d/ is merely an allophone
of /l/, when the latter is followed by the vowel
s /i/ or /u/.
Tswana also has three click consonant
s, but these are only used in interjection
s or ideophones, and tend only to be used by the older generation, and are therefore falling out of use. The three click consonants are the dental click
/ǀ/, orthographically ⟨c⟩; the lateral click /ǁ/, orthographically ⟨x⟩; and the palatal click
/ǃ/, orthographically ⟨q⟩.
There are some minor dialectal variations
among the consonants between speakers of Tswana. For instance, /χ/ is realized as either /x/ or /h/ by many speakers; /f/ is realized as /h/ in most dialects; and /tɬ/ and /tɬʰ/ are realized as /t/ and /tʰ/ in northern dialects.
is fixed in Tswana and thus always falls on the penult
of a word, although some compounds
may receive a secondary stress in the first part of the word. It should also be noted that the syllable
on which the stress falls is lengthened. Thus, mosadi is realized as [mʊ̀ˈsáːdì].
, high and low, although the latter has a much wider distribution in words than the former. Tones are not marked orthographically
which may lead to ambiguity.
An important feature of the tones is the so-called spreading of the high tone. If a syllable
bears a high tone, the following two syllables will also get high tones, unless they are at the end of the word.
s in Tswana are grouped into nine noun class
es and one sub-class, each having different prefix
es. The nine classes and their respective prefixes can be seen below, along with a short note regarding the common characteristics of most nouns within the respective class.
Some nouns may be found in several classes. For instance, many nouns of the class 1 are also found in class 1a, class 3, class 4 and class 5.
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
by about 4.5 million people. It is a Bantu language
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
belonging to the Niger–Congo language family
Niger–Congo languages
The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
within the Sotho languages
Sotho languages
The Sotho–Tswana languages are a group of closely related Southern Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa that include:*Tswana , Sotho , Northern Sotho *Lozi...
branch of Zone S (S.30), and is closely related to the Northern-
Northern Sotho language
Northern Sotho , also inaccurately known by the name of a major dialect, Pedi or sePedi, is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by 4,208,980 people — in the South African provinces of Gauteng,...
and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language
Kgalagadi language
SheKgalagari is one of the languages spoken in Botswana, along the South African border and in Namibia. SheKgalagari is spoken by about people. SheKgalagari is the autoglottonym or name of the language used by its native speakers as defined by the United Nations, Kgalagadi is the...
and the Lozi language
Lozi language
Lozi, also known as siLozi and Rozi, is a Bantu language of the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho languages branch of Zone S , that is spoken by the Lozi people, primarily in southwestern Zambia and in surrounding countries...
.
Tswana is an official language and lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
spoken by almost 1.1 million of its inhabitants. However, the majority of Tswana speakers are found in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
where 3.4 million people speak the language. Until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana , officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana was a Bantustan – an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity – and nominal parliamentary democracy in the northwestern region of South Africa...
, one of the few bantustan
Bantustan
A bantustan was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa , as part of the policy of apartheid...
s that actually became reality as planned by the Apartheid regime. A small number of speakers are also found in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
and Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
, where 29,400 and 12,300 people speak the language, respectively.
History
The first person in history to describe the Tswana language was the German travellerGermans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
H. Lichtenstein who lived among the Tswana people Batlhaping in 1806, although his work was not published until 1930. He mistakenly regarded Tswana as a dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of the Xhosa language
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
, and the name he used for the language "Beetjuana" may also have covered the Northern-
Northern Sotho language
Northern Sotho , also inaccurately known by the name of a major dialect, Pedi or sePedi, is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by 4,208,980 people — in the South African provinces of Gauteng,...
and Southern Sotho languages.
The first major work on the Tswana language was carried out by the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
Robert Moffat
Robert Moffat
Robert Moffat was a Scottish Congregationalist missionary to Africa, and father in law of David Livingstone....
who had also lived among the Batlhaping, and published Bechuana Spelling Book and A Bechuana Catechism in 1826. In the following years he published several other books of the Bible
Books of the Bible
The Books of the Bible are listed differently in the canons of Judaism and the Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Slavonic Orthodox, Georgian, Armenian Apostolic, Syriac and Ethiopian churches, although there is substantial overlap. A table comparing the canons of some of these traditions...
and in 1857 he was able to publish a complete translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
The first grammar of the Tswana language was published in 1833 by the missionary James Archbell, although it was modelled on a Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
grammar. The first grammar of Tswana which regarded it as a separate language from Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
(but still not as a separate language from the Northern-
Northern Sotho language
Northern Sotho , also inaccurately known by the name of a major dialect, Pedi or sePedi, is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by 4,208,980 people — in the South African provinces of Gauteng,...
and Southern Sotho languages) was published by the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
missionary E. Casalis in 1841. It should be noted though that he changes his mind later, and in a publication from 1882, he notes that the Northern-
Northern Sotho language
Northern Sotho , also inaccurately known by the name of a major dialect, Pedi or sePedi, is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by 4,208,980 people — in the South African provinces of Gauteng,...
and Southern Sotho languages are distinct from Tswana.
In 1876 the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n intellectual and linguist Solomon Plaatje
Sol Plaatje
Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator, and writer. The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, was named after him.-Early life:...
was born, and he became one of the first writers to extensively write in and about the Tswana language.
Vowels
The vowel inventoryVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
of Tswana can be seen below.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
⟨i⟩ /i/ | ⟨u⟩ /u/ |
| Near-close Near-close vowel A near-close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted. Near-close vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully close vowels... |
⟨e⟩ /ɪ/ | ⟨o⟩ /ʊ/ |
| Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel... |
⟨ê⟩ /ɛ/ | ⟨ô⟩ /ɔ/ |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
⟨a⟩ /a/ | |
Some dialects have two additional vowels, the close-mid vowel
Close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...
s /e/ and /o/.
Consonants
The consonant inventoryConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
of Tswana can be seen below.
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center.... |
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
||||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
⟨m⟩ /m/ |
⟨n⟩ /n/ |
⟨ny⟩ /ɲ/ |
⟨ng⟩ /ŋ/ |
|||||
| Plosive | Unaspirated Tenuis consonant In linguistics, a tenuis consonant is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like , with a voice onset time close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or as in English p, t, k after s .In transcription, tenuis consonants are not... |
⟨p⟩ ⟨b⟩ /p/ /b/ |
⟨t⟩ ⟨d⟩ /t/ /d/ |
⟨k⟩ /k/ |
|||||
| Aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
⟨ph⟩ /pʰ/ |
⟨th⟩ /tʰ/ |
⟨kh⟩ /kʰ/ |
⟨kg⟩ /qʰ/ |
|||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
Unaspirated Tenuis consonant In linguistics, a tenuis consonant is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like , with a voice onset time close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or as in English p, t, k after s .In transcription, tenuis consonants are not... |
⟨ts⟩ /ts/ |
⟨tl⟩ /tɬ/ |
⟨tš⟩ ⟨j⟩ /tʃ/ /dʒ/ |
|||||
| Aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
⟨tsh⟩ /tsʰ/ |
⟨tlh⟩ /tɬʰ/ |
⟨tšh⟩ /tʃʰ/ |
||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
⟨f⟩ /f/ |
⟨s⟩ /s/ |
⟨š⟩ /ʃ/ |
⟨g⟩ /χ/ |
⟨h⟩ /h/ |
||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
⟨r⟩ /r/ |
||||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
⟨w⟩ /w/ |
⟨l⟩ /l/ |
⟨y⟩ /j/ |
||||||
It should be noted that the consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
/d/ is merely an allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of /l/, when the latter is followed by the vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s /i/ or /u/.
Tswana also has three click consonant
Click consonant
Clicks are speech sounds found as consonants in many languages of southern Africa, and in three languages of East Africa. Examples of these sounds familiar to English speakers are the tsk! tsk! or tut-tut used to express disapproval or pity, the tchick! used to spur on a horse, and the...
s, but these are only used in interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s or ideophones, and tend only to be used by the older generation, and are therefore falling out of use. The three click consonants are the dental click
Dental click
Dental clicks are a family of click consonants found, as constituents of words, only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tut-tut! or tsk! tsk! sound used to express disapproval or pity is a dental click, although it isn't a speech sound in that context.The symbol in the...
/ǀ/, orthographically ⟨c⟩; the lateral click /ǁ/, orthographically ⟨x⟩; and the palatal click
Palatal click
The palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa. They are commonly called palatal clicks.The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is , a pipe...
/ǃ/, orthographically ⟨q⟩.
There are some minor dialectal variations
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
among the consonants between speakers of Tswana. For instance, /χ/ is realized as either /x/ or /h/ by many speakers; /f/ is realized as /h/ in most dialects; and /tɬ/ and /tɬʰ/ are realized as /t/ and /tʰ/ in northern dialects.
Stress
StressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
is fixed in Tswana and thus always falls on the penult
Ultima (linguistics)
In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is second-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima.-Etymology:...
of a word, although some compounds
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
may receive a secondary stress in the first part of the word. It should also be noted that the syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
on which the stress falls is lengthened. Thus, mosadi is realized as [mʊ̀ˈsáːdì].
Tone
Tswana has two tonesTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, high and low, although the latter has a much wider distribution in words than the former. Tones are not marked orthographically
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
which may lead to ambiguity.
- go bua /χʊ búa/ "to speak"
- go bua /χʊ bua/ "to skin an animal"
- o bua Setswana /ʊ́búa setswána/ "He speaks Setswana"
- o bua Setswana /ʊbúa setswána/ "You speak Setswana"
An important feature of the tones is the so-called spreading of the high tone. If a syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
bears a high tone, the following two syllables will also get high tones, unless they are at the end of the word.
- simolola /símʊlʊla/ > /símʊ́lʊ́la/ "to begin"
- simologêla /símʊlʊχɛla/ > /símʊ́lʊ́χɛla/ "to begin for/at"
Nouns
NounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s in Tswana are grouped into nine noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es and one sub-class, each having different prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es. The nine classes and their respective prefixes can be seen below, along with a short note regarding the common characteristics of most nouns within the respective class.
| Class | Singular | Plural | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | mo- | ba- | Persons |
| 1a. | - | bô- | Names, kinship, animals |
| 2. | mo- | me- ma- |
Miscellaneous (including bodyparts, tools, instruments, animals, trees, plants) |
| 3. | le- | ma- | |
| 4. | se- | di- | |
| 5. | n- m- ny- ng- |
din- dim- diny- ding- |
Animals (but also miscellaneous) |
| 6. | lo- | Miscellaneous (including a number of collective nouns) |
|
| 7. | bo- | ma- | Abstract nouns |
| 8. | go- | Infinitive forms of verbs | |
| 9. | fa- go- mo- |
Adverbs | |
Some nouns may be found in several classes. For instance, many nouns of the class 1 are also found in class 1a, class 3, class 4 and class 5.