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Sesotho
There appears to be disagreement about how to call the language in this article. SimonDonnelly considers Sotho to be the standard appellation, while Joziboy and Zyxoas advocate Sesotho, because 'all the names in this article are in SA English'. In the history of the article, quite a few reverts back and forth can be found so maybe Simon unwittingly opened a can of worms when he changed it to Sotho with the edit summary 'Language appellation standardised'. This was reverted some two weeks later by Zyxoas with the edit summary 'Fixed language names, again'.
I'm starting a discussion here to see if we can gather consensus one way or the other, and to avoid turning this relatively minor issue into a petty revert war. Now, the basics: this edition of Wikipedia is international in scope. Therefore, article titles should use the most common term. However, in this case this is not a simple issue. Scholarly literature on the language for example seems to be about evenly divided between Sesotho and Sotho, and that's not simply a reflection of the South-African/rest of the world divide:
So I honestly don't know what the best solution is and I want to gather thoughts from others. — mark ✎ 10:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
First, I absolutely agree with the point that this is a minor issue, and that our energy is better spent on expanding the articles in this area. I merely started a discussion here because I noticed that Zyxoas and you were silently reverting each other (all in good faith, I'm sure), and because the going back and forth without discussion didn't seem to be particularly productive.
Secondly, I'm well aware that the discussion is about having the noun class prefix or not (similar debates have surfaced repeatedly in other places, see for example Talk:Swahili_language#Ki- and Talk:African_languages#Style_for_African_language_names), and I fully agree that the normal English name of the language would be Sotho (which is why I lean towards using Sotho myself). The issue here, however, seems to be whether that holds for South African English too. I don't know; I believe Joziboy said that it does in an edit summary some time ago, but I'd like to see sources. — mark ✎ 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
No, no consensus.
Sorry I haven't been around to deal with this, again. Please see Template talk:Languages of South Africa.
Firstly, " appellation" is not, as far as I am aware, a standard English word for the simpler "name". My South African Oxford English Dictionary does have it, and it also says that eg. "Zulu" is "...2 another term for isiZulu..." ("-- ORIGIN from isiZulu umZulu").
Nguni, you do not need to know the entire language to use the prefixes -- just use the name. In fact, no one knows what the root "-sotho" means at all (unlike "-kgowa" (an extinct ideophone of whiteness) and "-jatlhapi" (since eating fish is traditionally taboo ;) )) -- there's no need for a layperson to analyse it at all.
Your editions to the number table were wrong. I meant it as a table of numerals, not formative roots. In Sesotho (unlike Setswana), the root for 1 is the enumerative "-ng". 6 to 10 are relatives in all the languages (no "-").
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jeff. I am a native SeSotho speaker (decendent of first and third generation immigrants) and it's proper to refer to the language as Sesotho. Prefixes play a major role in indicating respect in this language. It is kinda stupid naming the article 'Sotho language' because there is no such word as 'Sotho' in SeSotho. The word Sesotho directly refers to the language itself and sounds proper. When the word is said in spoken form it is used as a contraction (contractions are often used in Sesotho e.g. "Mmae wa mo batla" is short for "Mme wa hae o wa mo batla" 'Her mother is looking for her'). The title is not formal and sounds disrespectful. Fruitandnut ( talk) 00:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Hi everyone; I just saw this discussion (though almost a decade late :) ) thanks to Dwo; when I "corrected" the name of my native tongue on here I had no idea there was such a fierce war going on about it. I read through all the comments/suggestions/questions above and I'm thrilled that many people (non-native speakers included) care enough about my language to help document. I do realise though, that there really is no consensus for either side of the argument; as a native speaker I naturally do support the correct naming of the language: "Sesotho"; as much as arguments for "Sotho" are detailed and clear, there is a little flaw - anglicization; African languages generally seem to fall prey to this by European languages/English speaking enthusiasts/linguists; as we're all aware, '-sotho' is not even a noun for Pete's sake, the example cited to support the incorrect renaming, "Italian", serves to show how incorrect naming this language "Sotho" is; -sotho is a suffix, is "Italian" a suffix too? All "anglicized versions" of African languages (those I've seen, many) have taken this form; not only is this incorrect, it's disrespectful too! Funny enough there's supposedly a "consensus" to use the incorrect "Sotho" as the name of the language, I'm sorry I don't see any consensus, besides, how many of us here even speak the language? I'd expect a native speaker of a language to know more/better about it, no disrespect to all the linguists whose input is also valuable, but there is no consensus. Please see this incomplete list of Sesotho publications. Documenting and standardizing African languages is very good and beneficial for their preservation, thanks to everyone that's been lending a hand to that noble cause; anglicizing them on the other hand taints the very good act. "Sesotho" is the name of the language. Let's please respect and treat all languages equally.
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
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This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present. |
Sesotho
There appears to be disagreement about how to call the language in this article. SimonDonnelly considers Sotho to be the standard appellation, while Joziboy and Zyxoas advocate Sesotho, because 'all the names in this article are in SA English'. In the history of the article, quite a few reverts back and forth can be found so maybe Simon unwittingly opened a can of worms when he changed it to Sotho with the edit summary 'Language appellation standardised'. This was reverted some two weeks later by Zyxoas with the edit summary 'Fixed language names, again'.
I'm starting a discussion here to see if we can gather consensus one way or the other, and to avoid turning this relatively minor issue into a petty revert war. Now, the basics: this edition of Wikipedia is international in scope. Therefore, article titles should use the most common term. However, in this case this is not a simple issue. Scholarly literature on the language for example seems to be about evenly divided between Sesotho and Sotho, and that's not simply a reflection of the South-African/rest of the world divide:
So I honestly don't know what the best solution is and I want to gather thoughts from others. — mark ✎ 10:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
First, I absolutely agree with the point that this is a minor issue, and that our energy is better spent on expanding the articles in this area. I merely started a discussion here because I noticed that Zyxoas and you were silently reverting each other (all in good faith, I'm sure), and because the going back and forth without discussion didn't seem to be particularly productive.
Secondly, I'm well aware that the discussion is about having the noun class prefix or not (similar debates have surfaced repeatedly in other places, see for example Talk:Swahili_language#Ki- and Talk:African_languages#Style_for_African_language_names), and I fully agree that the normal English name of the language would be Sotho (which is why I lean towards using Sotho myself). The issue here, however, seems to be whether that holds for South African English too. I don't know; I believe Joziboy said that it does in an edit summary some time ago, but I'd like to see sources. — mark ✎ 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
No, no consensus.
Sorry I haven't been around to deal with this, again. Please see Template talk:Languages of South Africa.
Firstly, " appellation" is not, as far as I am aware, a standard English word for the simpler "name". My South African Oxford English Dictionary does have it, and it also says that eg. "Zulu" is "...2 another term for isiZulu..." ("-- ORIGIN from isiZulu umZulu").
Nguni, you do not need to know the entire language to use the prefixes -- just use the name. In fact, no one knows what the root "-sotho" means at all (unlike "-kgowa" (an extinct ideophone of whiteness) and "-jatlhapi" (since eating fish is traditionally taboo ;) )) -- there's no need for a layperson to analyse it at all.
Your editions to the number table were wrong. I meant it as a table of numerals, not formative roots. In Sesotho (unlike Setswana), the root for 1 is the enumerative "-ng". 6 to 10 are relatives in all the languages (no "-").
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jeff. I am a native SeSotho speaker (decendent of first and third generation immigrants) and it's proper to refer to the language as Sesotho. Prefixes play a major role in indicating respect in this language. It is kinda stupid naming the article 'Sotho language' because there is no such word as 'Sotho' in SeSotho. The word Sesotho directly refers to the language itself and sounds proper. When the word is said in spoken form it is used as a contraction (contractions are often used in Sesotho e.g. "Mmae wa mo batla" is short for "Mme wa hae o wa mo batla" 'Her mother is looking for her'). The title is not formal and sounds disrespectful. Fruitandnut ( talk) 00:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Hi everyone; I just saw this discussion (though almost a decade late :) ) thanks to Dwo; when I "corrected" the name of my native tongue on here I had no idea there was such a fierce war going on about it. I read through all the comments/suggestions/questions above and I'm thrilled that many people (non-native speakers included) care enough about my language to help document. I do realise though, that there really is no consensus for either side of the argument; as a native speaker I naturally do support the correct naming of the language: "Sesotho"; as much as arguments for "Sotho" are detailed and clear, there is a little flaw - anglicization; African languages generally seem to fall prey to this by European languages/English speaking enthusiasts/linguists; as we're all aware, '-sotho' is not even a noun for Pete's sake, the example cited to support the incorrect renaming, "Italian", serves to show how incorrect naming this language "Sotho" is; -sotho is a suffix, is "Italian" a suffix too? All "anglicized versions" of African languages (those I've seen, many) have taken this form; not only is this incorrect, it's disrespectful too! Funny enough there's supposedly a "consensus" to use the incorrect "Sotho" as the name of the language, I'm sorry I don't see any consensus, besides, how many of us here even speak the language? I'd expect a native speaker of a language to know more/better about it, no disrespect to all the linguists whose input is also valuable, but there is no consensus. Please see this incomplete list of Sesotho publications. Documenting and standardizing African languages is very good and beneficial for their preservation, thanks to everyone that's been lending a hand to that noble cause; anglicizing them on the other hand taints the very good act. "Sesotho" is the name of the language. Let's please respect and treat all languages equally.