Sotho-Tswana languages

The Sotho-Tswana group corresponds to the S.30 label in Guthrie's(1967-1971) classification of languages in the Bantu family. As such, Sotho-Tswana includes a number of other language varieties which fall inside this approximate genetic subgrouping of southeastern Bantu. These include Lozi and numerous varieties of Northern Sotho.

Lozi, too, is a Sotho-Tswana language spoken in Zambia and northeastern Namibia (in the Caprivi). Lozi is much more distinct from the other Sotho-Tswana languages (than these others are internally from each other), due to heavy linguistic influences from Luyaana, and possibly other Zambian and Caprivi languages. In the Guthrie work—as is now widely acknowledged—Lozi was misclassified as K.21.

Northern Sotho—which appears largely to be a taxonomic holding category for what is Sotho-Tswana but neither identifiably Southern Sotho nor Tswana—subsumes highly varied language varieties (or 'dialects', in the neutral linguistic sense), including Pedi (Sepedi), Tswapo (Setswapo), Lovedu (Khilobedu), Pai and Pulana.

Notes

External links

• Ethnologue language family tree for Sotho-Tswana