Tswana

About Tswana

Tswana, called Setswana by its speakers, is the national language of Botswana and one of the official languages of South Africa, where most of its speakers live. It is also an official language of Zimbabwe. It is a Bantu language, close to Sesotho and Sepedi.

Tswana is tonal and written in Latin letters. The letter g is a breathy sound like the ch in Scottish "loch". Respect is part of every greeting: add rra when speaking to a man and mma when speaking to a woman, as in dumela rra (hello, sir).

FamilyNiger-Congo, Bantu, Sotho-Tswana
Official inSouth Africa, Zimbabwe (national language of Botswana)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Toneshigh and low
Codestn (ISO 639-1), tsn (ISO 639-3)

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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