Swazi language

Swazi (siSwati, in Swazi) is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho and Mozambique. It has more than 1.5 million speakers and is taught in Eswatini schools (article 3, subsection 2 of the Constitution). It is the official language of Eswatini (along with English) and one of the 11 official languages of South Africa..

Classification

Swazi belongs to:

• Group of African and Asian Southwest Language Families

• Níger-congo languages

• Bantu languages

Speakers

Based on their origin, the 1,706,924 people who speak it are distributed as follows:

• 1 010 000 in South Africa (2006).
• 980 000 in Esuatini (2006).
• 43 000 in Lesoto (2002).
• 1200 in Mozambique (2006).

Dialects

There are varieties in the mode of speech of this language within Eswatini corresponding to its four administrative regions, namely: Hhohho, Lubombo, Manzini and Shishelweni.

Now, three dialects are recognized:

• Baca.
• Hlubi.
• Phuthi.

Encoding

The language codes for Swazi are: ss (ISO 639-1) and ssw (ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3).