Setswana Language History Part 1: The Spoken Language
The history of the Setswana language itself goes way into prehistoric times, and nobody can say for certain what happened all those thousands of years ago, during the times of the proto-Bantu. However, we can focus on the history of the orthography of the language, as well as other evolutionary factors that have influenced Setswana to be what it is today. This first section deals with the preliterary history of the language, and the second part will look at how the written form of Setswana has evolved over the past 180 years.
Bantu History and Geography
Historians and linguists alike generally agree that the bulk of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa is inhabited by different ethnic groups of people who have a common ancestral ethnicity: proto-Bantu. The modern-day Bantu people are believed to have migrated from areas in the vicinity of today’s Cameroon, finding their way eastwards to the Kenyan coast and southwards, all the way down to Cape Point in South Africa. However, it is worth noting that there are some theorists who differ with this migration origin postulation.
Although the idea is not set in stone, and the geographical boundaries are somewhat fluid, there is a general consensus that Bantu people predominantly occupy the areas depicted in the map below; and that the Bantu language grouping is in fact a sub-group of the larger Niger-Congo group, which is made up of several other smaller West African classes.
SOURCE:https://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Niger.html
The Bantu of the South
Bantu languages have been classified into several sub-groups, which were initially defined as “zones” by British professor, Malcolm Guthrie in 1948. More recent classification attempts have resulted in some differences here and there. But for the purpose of this topic, this is inconsequential, as our focus is on the language groups which fall in both Guthrie’s Zone S, and the new classification: Southern Bantu.
Zone S covers the entire span of Lesotho and Swaziland, most of South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, and a significant portion of Mozambique. It is therefore clear why we are interested in this sub-group. A small part of Botswana (in the North-West), together with northern Namibia and south western Angola are in Zone R, while there is a small section in the South West of Botswana (together with adjacent areas in Namibia and South Africa) that do not have a Bantu zone assignment, as they had been ascribed to the Khoisan peoples.
SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guthrie_classification_of_Bantu_languages
Of Sotho, Tswana, and Sotho-Tswana
Among the largest language groups in this area are the Nguni (which comprise, among others, the Zulu, Xhosa and Ndebele of South Africa, the Ndebele of Zimbabwe, and the Swati of Swaziland), the Shona (which include the Korekore, Maneka and Karanga of Zimbabwe, as well as the Kalanga of Botswana), and the Sotho-Tswana.
The Sotho-Tswana is very widely distributed, geographically, ranging from Lesotho and the Free State, through the South African provinces of Gauteng, North-West, and Limpopo, covering most of Botswana all the way up to southern Zambia in the north. The East-West span includes parts of Namibia and Zimbabwe. The different Sotho-Tswana languages in this area include Setswana, Sesotho, Sepedi, Sebirwa, Setswapong, Sekgalagadi and Serotsi (Lozi).
Because initially most of these languages were considered to be a single language, the different Europeans would call them by the name given by the group they are most in contact with. And despite Setswana being the first language “south of Ethiopia” (to quote Botswana historian, Jeff Ramsay) to have a full Bible translation (effectively, an orthography), somehow the name Sotho made it into the annals. Historians and linguists classified these peoples as Sotho, and a distinction was made between the use of the word Sotho, as a generic term, and Basotho or Sesotho to refer to the specific ethnic group or language.
However, this still failed to get the blessings of most Tswana-speakers, hence the adoption of the more politically correct term Sotho-Tswana. However, it is still quite common to see the use of either.
It is worth noting that in South Africa they recognise “Sesotho”, “Setswana” and “Northern Sotho” as official languages. Where Northern Sotho here is often assumed to mean Sepedi, but the official designation is a sub-grouping of closely related languages, which are neither Sesotho or Setswana, and Sepedi is only the most prominent amongst them. It is also worth noting that at some point in the past, the South African government designated the names Southern Sotho and Western Sotho to Sesotho and Setswana respectively.
Of Bechuana, Becoana, and Batswana
Before independence, Botswana was known as Bechuanaland Protectorate, which many assume was a very botched attempt by the British to try saying “Batswanaland”. I used to think so too:)).
It turns out the first prominent missionaries to settle among Batswana, LMS pioneers, Robert Moffat and his son-in-law, David Livingstone, actually settled among the Batlhaping, who are known for their peculiar accent and pronunciation, which differs somewhat from what can be called mainstream Setswana. The Batlhaping are an offshoot of one of the oldest known Tswana tribes, Barolong, who are believed to have been among the first Sotho-Tswana people in Southern Africa.
It therefore goes without say, that much of Moffat’s work was based of how Batlhaping speak Setswana, which they themselves pronounce as “Secwana” (or Secuana/Secoana, using the orthography of that time). [The “cwa” here representing a ‘voiceless’ version of what would be written in English as “chwa”, or in other orthography, “tjwa”]. Even more, the Batlhaping referred to the Tswana people [themselves included] is Becwana (or Bechuana/Bechoana).
So, yes, when the British annexed the crownlands in the Northern Cape, they knew the area as the land of the Becuana, and therefore called it Bechuanaland [owing in part to their inability to pronounce the “cwa”, hence “chwa”]. Bechuanaland: the land of the Bechuana peoples, who speak Sichuana.
Later, in the late 19th Century, when the protectorate was established in the areas north of the Bechanaland crownlands (British Bechuanaland), they just continued to use the word Bechuanaland (for consistancy), despite having now learnt that the rest of the Tswana people call themselves Batswana. [It could then have been Batswanaland Protectorate, I guess].
Evolution of Orthography…
The second part of this discourse deals with the orthography of Setswana. Clickhereto read it.
