Tsonga
Language · official in 2 countries and territories
Xitsonga is built on a root that never appears alone in the language itself: Mutsonga is a Tsonga person, Vatsonga the people, Xitsonga their language and ways. It is a Bantu language of South Africa and Mozambique, mutually intelligible with Tswa and Ronga, and Zimbabwe's constitution recognises it under the name Shangani.
The language on record
- Own name
- Xitsonga
- ISO 639-1
- TS
- ISO 639-3
- TSO
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Tswa-Ronga Bantu
- Official in
- 2 countries
Where Tsonga is official
South Africa lists it as Xitsonga, Zimbabwe as Shangani. Mozambique recognises the Tswa-Ronga languages without appearing on this record, and Eswatini gives Tsonga no official status.
- South AfricaAlso official: Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Sesotho, South African Sign Language, Southern Ndebele, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu.
- ZimbabweAlso official: Barwe, Chewa, English, Kalanga, Khoisan, Nambya, Ndau, Northern Ndebele, Sesotho, Shona, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zimbabwe Sign Language.
Official beside Tsonga
About Tsonga
How Swiss missionaries wrote Tsonga down
Europeans first studied the language through the Swiss missionary Henri-Alexandre Junod, who called it Thonga and argued between 1890 and 1920 that it had consolidated itself in Mozambique before the 1400s. Junod, Henri Berthoud and Ernest Creux began a standard written language they called Shigwamba. Speakers found the name unfamiliar, and Thonga or Tsonga replaced it. Other Swiss missionaries translated the Bible into Tsonga from English and Sesotho. In 1996 the Constitution of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, recognised Xitsonga as an official language.
Where the name Tsonga comes from
Three explanations circulate. One reads Tsonga as a form of Dzonga, meaning south and also the name of a dialect. Another links it to Tonga or Thonga, an old ancestral name of the Chopi and Tembe. The most accepted derives it from Rhonga, the root of vurhonga, east or dawn, which fits a people living along the eastern coast.
Which dialects Xitsonga is built on
By the early 1900s six dialects had been identified: xiRonga, xiHlanganu, xiBila, xiDjonga, xiN'walungu and xiHlengwe. The written vocabulary rests largely on N'walungu, Bila, Hlengwe and Hlanganu, the dialects of rural Limpopo. Shangana, or Changana, is not a recognised language in South Africa, and the Tsonga article places it outside the Xitsonga group because its distinctiveness comes from Nguni grammar. Tsonga sets breathy voiced consonants against plain ones, and it has few clicks.
Common questions
Questions about Tsonga
Is Shangani the same language as Tsonga?
Zimbabwe's constitution uses Shangani as its name for Tsonga, and in Mozambique Tsonga is also known as Changana. In South Africa, Shangana is not a recognised language, and the Tsonga article describes it as set apart by Nguni grammar.
Which Tsonga words use clicks?
Only a few, such as ngqondo, mind, gqoka, to dress, guqa, to kneel, and Mugqivela, Saturday.
Which missionaries first studied Tsonga?
Swiss missionaries. Henri-Alexandre Junod studied the language from 1890, and he worked with Henri Berthoud and Ernest Creux on a written standard first called Shigwamba.