Tswana, noun

/ˈtswɑːnə/, /ˈtswana/
Origin:
SetswanaShow more From Setswana baTswana, see Motswana.
Note:
See also Sotho-Tswana.
1. Setswana. Also combination (objective), Tswana-speaking participial adjective.
1937 Bantu Studies XI. 137The orthography set out in the present pamphlet represents the latest result of a prolonged series of efforts made..by the Education Departments..to arrive at a uniform orthography of Tswana.
1948 M. Guthrie Classification of Bantu Lang. 68In Tswana the verbal has the extra suffix — ŋ.
1960 C. Hooper Brief Authority 251A number of the pamphlets appeared in the village. Written in Tswana, they implied that everybody who continued to patronise the white merchant might expect death by lightning.
1973 Drum 18 Jan. 19I would like a photograph with the first letter and promise to answer all. I’m conversant in English, Ndebele, Sotho, Tswana, Shona.
1973 N. Gordimer in London Mag. (U.K.) Feb.–Mar. 92Out of the cheerful exchanges in the Tswana language there comes suddenly, in English, the authentic tone of Gaborone: ‘I give it three years, and I buzz off.’
1981 S. Afr. Panorama Dec. 17The Tswana Bible is the first complete Bible to have been published in a language of Africa south of the Sahara.
1981 Bona Jan. 12 (advt)Our news broadcasts in Tswana and English will be straight, no-nonsense reports...Tune in to Radio Bophuthatswana.
1983 Sunday Times 3 July 6The wedding took place at the magistrate’s court in Hysterkrand, with the couple taking their vows in Afrikaans and Tswana.
1984 Staffrider Vol.6 No.1, 33The village of Phokeng is the heartland of the Tswana-speaking Bafokeng people.
1988 [see sense 2 a].
2.
a. Plural unchanged, or Tswanas. A member of a major group of western Sotho peoples living in the interior of southern Africa, and including the Bamangwato, Batlharo, Fokeng, Kwena, Ngwaketse, Rolong, Taung, and Thlaping peoples; Bechuana sense 1 b; Chuana sense 1 b; Motswana sense a; Western Sotho, see Sotho sense 1 c. Also attributive, passing into adjective, of or pertaining to these peoples.
Note:
See the note at Bechuana sense 1.
1949 I. Schapera in M. Fortes Social Structure 104In contrast to most other Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Africa, the Tswana tribes of the Bechuanaland Protectorate have remarkably few marriage prohibitions.
1957 C.G. Seligman Races of Afr. (1939) 120The Sotho..includes the..Tswana..of Botswana and western Transvaal.
1965 Fiat Lux Mar. 8In 1959 and 1960..4 new University Colleges for the non-white communities were created — one for the Zulu nation, one for the Tswana and Northern Sotho, one for the coloured and one for the Indian People.
1970 B. Davidson Old Afr. 37It was a constantly recurring feature in Tswana history for a tribe to secede under a discontented member of the ruling family and to move to a new locality.
1971 Rand Daily Mail 5 Mar. 1New Homeland. South Africa’s 1.7-million Tswanas will become a self-ruling people with their own Parliament before the end of the year.
1973 M. Horrell Afr. Homelands 97Tswana tribesmen have, traditionally, not offered themselves in large numbers for employment as mine labourers.
1976 West & Morris Abantu 119The Tswana are Sotho and live scattered over a very wide area extending beyond the Northern Cape Province and Transvaal into the Republic of Botswana. Ancestors of these Western Sotho peoples are believed to have entered the area in three main waves from the north.
c1980 S. Afr. 1979: Off. Yrbk (Info. Service of S. Afr.) 84The 1,3 million Tswanas living in South Africa as well as the Tswanas living in the Republic of Bophuthatswana are closely related to the 600 000 people of the Republic of Botswana.
1980 Lye & Murray Transformations 98In 1976 there were over two million Tswana of South African origin...But only 736 000 of them (35 per cent) were resident in their ‘homeland’ of BophuthaTswana.
1988 S. Molakeng in Frontline Apr.–May 20One man told me that Bop is tribal, only for Tswanas. ‘We are made to pay money..for schools but these schools only teach Tswana. Here, the Tswanas are in the minority.’
1990 R. Stengel January Sun 38The Tswana are a Sotho-speaking people of small, patrilineal communities who migrated into central South Africa in the fifteenth century...In the nineteenth century, the Tswana were buffeted by the Difaqane,..a series of bloody conflicts among the black tribes.
1993 Africa S. & E. July 8Matthews, himself a Tswana, said the Zulus were predominant in South Africa.
b. comb.
Tswanaland, see quotation 1974; cf. Bop sense 1.
1974 Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. X. 646Tswanaland, Various territories within the borders of the Republic of South Africa, traditionally inhabited by the Tswana tribes spread in disparate units over parts of the Western Transvaal and Northern Cape, as well as a small area within the Orange Free State, and which, taken together, form the self-governing ‘homeland’ Tswanaland or, in the Tswana language, Bophuthatswana.
1974 Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. X. 647In May 1971 Tswanaland became the first Bantu ‘homeland’ in the Republic of South Africa after the Transkei to receive a legislative assembly...On 1 June 1972 the areas..were declared a self-governing territory.
3. In historical contexts. rare. Only attributive, of or pertaining to the former ‘homeland’ of BophuthaTswana.
1983 Survey of Race Rel. 1982 (S.A.I.R.R.) 459Only those people who were Tswana citizens or who were prepared to take out Tswana citizenship could share in the area’s development.
Setswana. Also combination (objective), Tswana-speaking participial adjective.
A member of a major group of western Sotho peoples living in the interior of southern Africa, and including the Bamangwato, Batlharo, Fokeng, Kwena, Ngwaketse, Rolong, Taung, and Thlaping peoples; Bechuana sense 1 b; Chuana sense 1 b; Motswana sense a; Western Sotho, see Sotho sense 1 c. Also attributive, passing into adjective, of or pertaining to these peoples.
see quotation 1974;
Only attributive, of or pertaining to the former ‘homeland’ of BophuthaTswana.
Derivatives:
Hence (nonce) Tswanaize  transitive verb, to cause (something) to become Tswana in character.
1971 Post 28 Mar. 7The Public Service of the TTA could not be speedily Tswanaised because there was a shortage of experienced Tswana manpower.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19371993

Compounds & Derivatives

Tswanaize
Tswanaland

Browse Related Words

By Category

Languages
Peoples

By Origin

Setswana

By Usage

historical
rare or nonce
tsotsi, nounn.Tucsa, nounn.
Copyright © 2023 Dictionary Unit for South African English.