Botswana
/bɒtˈswɑːnə/noun
A landlocked country in southern Africa, officially the Republic of Botswana.
Did you know?Botswana became independent in 1966 after abandoning the colonial name Bechuanaland and adopting the Tswana-based name Botswana.
Etymological Timeline
Bantu linguistic period
Proto-Bantu
bo-
“A noun-class prefix used in several Bantu languages for abstract, collective, or territorial concepts.”
Precolonial southern Africa
Tswana
Tswana
“The ethnonym referring to the Tswana people; its deeper origin is uncertain and should not be assigned a confidently literal translation.”
Precolonial–19th Century
Setswana
Batswana
“The Tswana people, with ba- marking a human plural.”
19th Century
English
Bechuanaland
“The colonial English name for the territory inhabited principally by Tswana-speaking peoples.”
1966
English/Tswana
Botswana
“The independent state’s adopted name, conventionally understood as “land of the Tswana.””