Northern Sotho is a designation in English, rendered officially and among indigenous speakers as Sesotho sa Leboa. Also confusingly known by the name of its major variety, "Pedi" or "sePedi", Northern Sotho is a designated official language of South Africa, spoken by 4,208,980 people (2001 Census) in the provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Urban varieties of Pedi have acquired clicks in an ongoing process of the spread of such sounds fr...
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Northern Sotho is a designation in English, rendered officially and among indigenous speakers as Sesotho sa Leboa. Also confusingly known by the name of its major variety, "Pedi" or "sePedi", Northern Sotho is a designated official language of South Africa, spoken by 4,208,980 people (2001 Census) in the provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Urban varieties of Pedi have acquired clicks in an ongoing process of the spread of such sounds from Nguni languages.
Northern Sotho is a language - or a number of neighbouring languages - within the Sotho branch of Zone S (S.30) of the Bantu family (classified in the Niger–Congo language phylum). Northern Sotho is thus most closely related to seSotho or Southern Sotho, seTswana, sheKgalagari and siLozi. It comprises several distinct languages and/or dialects.
Northern Sotho has often been equated with its major component sePedi, and continued to be known as Pedi or sePedi for some years after the new South African constitution appeared....
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