. According to
census data, there were 3,555,186 first language Sesotho speakers recorded in South Africa, approximately eight per cent of the population. Sesotho is also the main language spoken by the people of
.
Noun prefix system
Sesotho is a tonal language and, like all other Bantu Languages is distinguished by its prefix concordial system and the fact that all words either end in a vowel or in a nasal consonant (n, ng, ny, or m).
Also, like all other Bantu languages, it uses a set of "noun classes" and each noun in Sesotho belongs to one of the classes. The noun classes and their respective prefixes in Sesotho are as follows:
Each basic noun in Sesotho has an inherent prefix (even if that prefix is "the null prefix") - if you can remember a word off by heart, and you know the full list of prefixes, you can (perhaps 90% of the time) determine the class of that particular word. Knowing the class, first, allows to know what the plural of the word is (for singular words), eg:
In case you haven't noticed, up until class 10, the plural class for class n is class n+1 (where n is odd). Another example:
Problems start occurring with words like "monyako" (door, again) - is it in class 3 or 1?
You will observe in the above table that the note next to group 1 says "mostly humans" and that group 3 says "mostly non-humans". Since doors aren't human, we can therefore conclude that "monyako" is probably in class 3, so its plural is in class 4, "menyako".
Motsoalle (friend), in class 1, has an irregular plural in class 4 - "metsoalle". Also, "morena" (king), has a plural in class 6. Many class 1 words have a tendency of misbehaving, but we know that they belong to class 1 because of their concords. Quite a substantial number of class 1 words have a their plural in class 6.
Grammar example
Like for all other Bantu languages, linguists may say that the language is "centered around the noun", this is due to the fact that a large number of the words in a Sesotho sentence may change as soon as one of the nouns changes. This is due to a concept named "noun concordance".
For example:
Mo ja monna ha a mo qete - A man-eater never finishes him (old Sesotho saying)
Ba ja monna ha ba mo qete - Man-eaters never finish him.
Mo ja banna ha a ba qete - A men-eater never finishes them.
Ba ja banna ha ba ba qete - Men-eaters never finish them.
^_________^ ^ ^ ^ ^
| | | | |
| | | | verb
| | | object concord
| | subject concord
| makes vb. -ve
Compound noun (class prefix for person/s, verb - eat, subject)
There are 7 different concordance types for each class (subject, object, adjectival, relative, enumerative, possessive, pronominal).
The words/prefixes used to indicate these concords might vary slightly according to sentence tense/mood. The "auxiliary concord" used on Sesotho.web.za is only a past tense form of the subject concord which has changed due to an old "-a-" between the concord and the verb.
Since, for example, all of class 2's concords are "ba", it is not too difficult to make alliterative sentences like:
- Bana bao ba batle ba kopane le batsoali ba bona 'me batsoali ba bona ba ba shapa. - Meaning: (nonsensical)
Every ba/ba- in the above sentence is due to the prefix of "bana" (children) and "batsoali" (parents).
Changing "batsoali" to "metsoalle" (friends) renders:
- Bana bao ba batle ba kopane le MEtsoalle EA bona 'me MEtsoalle EA bona EA ba shapa.
Changing bana to "lintho", we get:
- LIntho TSEo TSE Ntle LI kopane le metsoalle ea TSona 'me metsoalle ea TSona ea LI shapa.
