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English missionary Henry Hare Dugmore helped translate the Bible into Xhosa in 1859 Nelson Mandela was a Xhosa and was a member of the royal family of the Thembu tribe. Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. They refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and their language as isiXhosa.
At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in legal status.
Ditema tsa Dinoko (Sesotho for "Ditema syllabary"), also known as ditema tsa Sesotho, is a constructed writing system (specifically, a featural syllabary) for the siNtu or Southern Bantu languages (such as Sesotho, Setswana, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SiSwati, SiPhuthi, Xitsonga, EMakhuwa, ChiNgoni, SiLozi, ChiShona and Tshivenḓa).
Zulu (/ ˈ z uː l uː / ZOO-loo), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in, and indigenous to, Southern Africa. It is the language of the Zulu people , with about 13.56 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa . [ 3 ]
For example: Ek moet die video pause (Eng pro.) omdat ons nou op pause (Afr pro.) gaan. (I have to pause the video because we're going on recess now.) praat 'n gat innie kop – lit. "speaking a hole in someone's head". To strongly convince someone to agree with you. praatsiek – lit. "talk sick." Verbal diarrhea. A person who talks non-stop.
Tsotsitaal, the original variety, is based on Afrikaans, in which were originally added SeTswana terms, and later terms from IsiXhosa, IsiZulu and other South African languages. Tsotsitaal spread first as a criminal cant , as it had the power of ensuring secrecy when speaking: initially only criminals could understand it.
South Africa's official language policy refers to the eleven official languages of South Africa (i.e., Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu and English), as specified in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
More information on the song can be found in Makeba's book The World of African Song (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), including the following translation: "The doctor of the road is the beetle / He climbed past this way / They say it is the beetle / Oh! It is the beetle."