Tswana

Tswana may refer to:

Tswana language

The Tswana language, Setswana, is a language spoken in southern Africa by about five 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. The majority of Tswana speakers are found in South Africa, where four million people speak the language, and where an urbanised variety known as Pretoria Sotho is the principal language of that city. Until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana, one of the bantustans of the apartheid regime. Although Tswana language is significantly spoken in South Africa and Botswana, a small number of speakers are also found in Zimbabwe and Namibia, where respectively an unknown number of people and about 10,000 people speak the language.

History

The first European to describe the Tswana language was the German traveller 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.

Tswana cattle

Tswana is an indigenous beef cattle breed of Botswana. It is a Sanga type, similar to Barotse and Tuli. Its colour is plain black or multi coloured: usually red pied, and rarely black pied. The breed can also be found in South Africa. Animals of this breed are well adapted to hot, dry environments and have a high level of tick and heat tolerance. Other common local names are: Bechuana, Sechuana, Setswana, Batawana, Mangwato, Sengologa, and Seshaga.

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