Sesotho
/sɪˈsuːtuː/noun
Sesotho is a Southern Bantu language spoken chiefly in Lesotho and South Africa.
Did you know?The prefix se- is part of a wider Bantu system in which noun-class prefixes can identify a language or cultural practice, as in Sesotho, Setswana, and Sepedi.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Bantu, before c. 500 BCE
Proto-Bantu
*ki-/si-
“Reconstructed noun-class prefixes associated in later Bantu languages with languages, speech, or related cultural categories”
Early Southern Bantu period
Southern Bantu
*-sotho
“An ancestral ethnonym or cultural name; the deeper origin of Sotho is uncertain and debated”
18th–19th Century
Southern Sotho
Sotho
“Name for the Sotho-speaking people and their language”
19th Century
Southern Sotho
se-Sotho
“The Sotho language or Sotho cultural practice, using se- as a language or cultural-class prefix”
Modern English
English
Sesotho
“The standardized name of the Southern Sotho language, especially in English-language usage”