Tsotsitaal and Camtho

Tsotsitaals are a variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province, such as Soweto, but also in other agglomerations all over South Africa. Tsotsi is a Sesotho slang word for a "thug" or "robber" (possibly from the verb "ho tsotsa" "to sharpen" — whose meaning has been modified in modern times to include "to con"; or from the tsetse fly, as the language was first known as Flytaal, although "flaai" also means cool or street smart) and taal is the Afrikaans word for "language".

A tsotsitaal is built over the grammar of one or several languages, in which terms from other languages or specific terms created by the community of speakers are added. It is a permanent work of language-mix, language-switch, and terms-coining.

History

The tsotsitaal phenomenon originates with one variety known as Flaaitaal or Flytaal, and then Tsotsitaal, which became popular under this latter name in the freehold township of Sophiatown, west of Johannesburg, in the 1940s and 1950s. Tsotsitaal, the original variety, is based on Afrikaans, in which were originally added Tswana terms, and later terms from Zulu and other South African languages. Tsotsitaal spread first as a criminal language, as it had the power of insuring secrecy in the speech: only criminals at first could understand it.