Setsonga
/sɛˈtsɔːŋɡə/noun
The Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken mainly in South Africa, Mozambique, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe.
Did you know?The prefix “se-” appears in several Southern African language names and broadly signals a language or speech variety, as in Sesotho and Setswana.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Bantu
Proto-Bantu
*ki- / *ci-
“A reconstructed noun-class prefix associated with languages or speech forms”
Early Bantu
Bantu
*tonga
“An ancestral form connected with the ethnonym and language name later represented as Tsonga; the deeper root is uncertain”
19th Century
Tsonga
xiTsonga
“The Tsonga language in its own linguistic tradition”
19th–20th Century
Southern African English
SeTsonga
“A standardized language-name form using se-, a Southern African language prefix”
Modern English
English
Setsonga
“The Tsonga language, also commonly written Tsonga or Xitsonga”