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If I recall correctly, these are the names used in the Constitution. Since this is the oficial Languages of South Africa template I felt it appropriate to use the official names.
This is not that big a deal, actually. Simply afford the people the dignity of calling them by the names they call themselves. The English language and English speaking people generally have absolutely no interest in eg isiZulu, so how about on those rare occasions they do refer to the language they use the correct name without rationalising and being pedantic about differing Grammars?
Also, this argument about English using French/Spanish/Greek instead of the native names. There's very little about the French that's "foreign". I believe it was 2000 years ago when the Romans were fighting Germanic "tribes" (whom they called "barbarians" since they didn't shave their weirdly coloured facial hair as often as the Romans did) in Germania. They share a very long history with wars, invasions, occupations, and lots of language borrowing. So the argument of giving other "foreign" language names doesn't work if these are your examples. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 09:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I was rambling. French history and culture are not foreign to the English. Why does English use "German" and "Dutch" when these words are so different from the native names? Because they understand them and have an ancient connection with them (after 2 World Wars they're still buddies). These are not "foreign" (the English people and their language and culture would be nothing like they are today without past interactions with these "foreigners"). So when speaking about English, it's falacious to compare eg isiZulu to French. Am I making sense, now?
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't entirely agree with you. I mean English, not British (Germanic, not Celtic). My point is that all this sharing in the past has had a huge influence on the language and the people who speak it. Eg an old Sesotho name for isiXhosa is "Sethepu" meaning "language of the Thembu people". They can use weird names like this because they share a long history with them. Most English-speaking people don't even know what "Zulu" means (cf Oprah). In cases like these, where these words are not at all popular in the language, should not the names used by the people themselves be more important than words picked up from first impressions of (what is still to many English-speaking South Africans) a foreign culture? Khoza, Kaffirs, Sutu, Bechuana, Bastards, Hot-not - aren't you glad no one uses those names anymore? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 10:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Dude, you don't use "shongololo" as often as eg "stupid" (which is Latin via French). Don't try to convince me that SAE has been greatly influence by SA Kintu languages. Open any random page in your ODSAE and look at the etymologies. "IsiNgisi": the grammar requires the class prefix (nothing in English requires it to not accept the prefixes); the phonetics don't allow the "ngl" sequence so the "l" is dropped; the "s" I guess would be the only "mistake"; the phonetics do not allow closed syllables. There are no linguistic constraints which require English to use "Zulu". Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
"Influenced"? Lending a handful of words is not "influencing". It is insulting; imagine someone stubbornly insisting on calling you by a name you do not call yourself, even though they know exactly what your correct name is. I think you might have misunderstood my reference to Oprah. Apparently DNA tests prove that she is "a Zulu"! Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm disappointed in you; it's not "that sound", it's an aspirated lateral click! Unlike most languages, English is not limited to a certain orthography which faithfully reflects the pronunciation. Personally, I'm a bit unbalanced: I'd prefer an English speaker to pronounce "isiXhosa" properly but I don't really care about arty-farty pronunciations of French imports (I'm disappointed with Top Billing for this and other reasons, but that's off-topic). Most South Africans have more opportunities to hear "isiXhosa" pronounced properly than "cordon bleu" (my name is "Tebello"-"expectation", not "Thibelo"-"prevention", and my surname/praise-name is not "Thenjane" I don't know where that pronunciation comes from). The ODSAE doesn't respect the plural rules either, but you know what my preference is, and am I the only one who thinks "Zulus" is as insulting as "blacks"? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 17:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
It's not changing the pronunciation it's changing the name. Ask yourself: is "Zulu" really "standard"? I don't think either term is used often enough in English to be able to decide that one is "standard", and with what is happening in South Africa (eg the ODSAE)... So how about, when talking about South African languages, we follow the (emerging) South African trend? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Of course, I'm only saying this since the "trend" matches my own beliefs, so... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Taejo! You're back! Broken isiXhosa and all (you swapt the last 2 words around). Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so I guess you're not Taejo, but editing without logging in to avoid responsibility is a very naughty thing to do... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
If another opinion is needed, I think that in the English Wikipedia the article name should be Zulu. Wizzy… ☎ 08:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
"Which I am perfectly willing to commit the time to do" - and I'm perfectly willing to revert you. I'll formulate a response and give it later today, and I don't want to hear any more talk of "I can make these changes at any time". In the meantime you can help improve the representation of African languages on Wikipedia by voting for bug 6695 on Bugzila (and you'll finally get to find out why I say there's no such thing as "seTswana"). Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Click here. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
"Unnecessarily inflammatory", "polite"!? Perhaps that's the primary problem here - we're thinking on different wavelengths. Now, I promised everyone that I would respond today, but I won't let the fact that I was shopping the whole day, and on our way back the rear-left wheel of the "car" I was in suddenly decided to take a trajectory
orthogonal to that of the car and one of the other occupants exhausted my airtime trying to get help, and I was unable to recharge later due to Vodacom's recharge service being down and I woke up 1 hour ago when I finally received SMS confirmation of my top-up. So it's only now, when I'm exhausted, that I'm able to access the internet with Opera Mini, but this, like caMelCase, is apparently not as important as the issue at hand.
Dwo's most pivotal point is what he perceives to be standard International English writing of these words. (continuing, please wait...)
Let's take "Tshivenda" as an example. NEWS FLASH: "Venda" is not an accepted International English term (ghasp!). Just like Palangi, Kgotla, and Lobolo it's use is largely isolated to a very small English-speaking community. The fact that some British historian might have used the term once in some book does not mean it is now standard English (serious!). Should I really be telling you people this!? He claims that Sesotho language is written in English and he doesn't really need to understand the subject to fix the content. Really!? Perhaps he could try making all those articles on theoretical Mathematics more accessible and to the point? How about fixing all those articles on music production that sound like they were written by over-enthusiastic talent-less amateurs. I can't think of specific examples right now but I can easily provide them on request. (continuing...)
It's generally accepted in most sane societies and structures (the U.S. government being an exception) that it's generally the people who have more knowledge of what they're talking about who should have a bigger say in how things should work. Here we have a non-South African who couldn't even get why "seTswana" was wrong trying very desperately to have his POV reflected in an article on a topic about which he knows nothing. I am the current Wikipedia expert on this topic and yet the burden of proof is on me!? So I'm sure you'll understand why I'm getting very annoyed by him and I wish he'd just go away? How about getting involved in a non-technical fight like over at
Talk:Homophobia?
Talk:Black people always has a "debate" on, and is full of people who don't know what they're talking about.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 22:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC) - unless if you're User:Dwo.
How many of these English and Afrikaans friends of yours say "Mafikeng" instead "Mafeking"? How many of then know how to pronounce "Mpumalanga" properly? And "Xhosa" /"isiXhosa", how many pronounce that properly? Do they also pronounce Judge Nhlapo's name as "Nshapho" (if they care about the News - I don't)? This is not an English trend, it's a disturbing culture of people practically choosing to be ignorant about their own country. "I've never heard anyone saying that" is not a reason. I've never heard anyone using a lot of the English words I use often: biquadratic, Hilbert transform, fast Fourier transform, finite impulse response, DSP... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and poor User:Joziboy has almost never heard anyone speaking isiZulu to him yet he's still learning the language. How about you? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
But there's no such thing as "Mafeking"... And I'm not making fun of anyone, I'm correcting you. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 14:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, that's fine, for now; the article names are okay, even if I think they're incorrect. When will these people stop trying to mess around with
Sesotho language!? When will these mortals learn!? Buahaha! Although, someone has went as far as
WP:WQA looking for that fabled third opinion, so this might not be over. Buahahahahaaaa! Mortal!
For the record, I don't know anyone from Mafikeng either.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 08:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I'd prefer Sesotho languages. They are spoken by people who identify themselves as descendents of the ancient Basotho who lived in Zambia. It's just unfortunate that Moshoeshoe's kingdom adopted this name as it confuses many people. They're not dialects, but Northern Sesotho is actually not a language but a group of languages and dialects (they're simply called Northern Sesotho because they're not Setswana or Southern Sesotho; they vary wildly being influenced from all sides by Setswana, Sesotho, Xitsonga, and Tshivenda by varying degrees). Perhaps it would help if I tried to explain this completely on Talk:Sotho languages and Talk:Sesotho language. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Without references!? I could write something rather longish and dump it somewhere for your guys to fix? I can do that a lot quicker than what I've been "planning" for Sesotho language. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
@Dwo: No, I crossed the lines of your perculiarly framed ego. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
..........
If anyone is still interested, the discussion continues in an altered form on Talk:Sesotho_language. It seems that the rough sort of consensus established here is maintained on the other Talk page. NguniTraveller 00:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
..........
...............
I'll weigh in late on this one also. There are a few threads that seem to go through this:
I think it important to distinguish two things, empowering language and creating a useful Englush reference. I work at Translate.org.za when we create lists of languages we will use the mother-tongue name if we can. So for instance a user trying to find the Sotho Mozilla Firefox language pack will see Sesotho. We do this to avoid confusion for the user of the language. But when we create articles that will be translated we are less prescriptive but we almost always use mother-tongue renditions because we are about empowering languages of South Africa. So after saying all that we are less concerned that in this encyclopedia things are not perfect, but then lets be honest using mother-tongue names in an English encyclodia is not really correct according to the style guides, etc. And this is one place where I think language activism might not be appropriate. I would suggest a possible compromise. Lets put the names in English with the mother-tongue in brackets. E.g. Xhosa (isiXhosa), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa). Dwayne Bailey 41.241.155.70 09:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Should the name be "Sepedi", "Northern Sotho", or "Sesotho sa Leboa"?
Currently, the template matches the Constitution, but it's a fairly well known fact that the inclusion of "Sepedi" in the final Constitution was a huge blunder (the draft more correctly says "Northern Sotho"). IIRC the Pan South African Language Board uses "Northern Sotho" instead. Yet the SABC broadcasts news in "Sepedi", not "Sesotho sa Leboa"!
Should we, as Wikipedia, correct the Government's somewhat acknowledged error or should we stay true to the Constitution?
Indeed, a while ago I believe I read something about some body wanting to go to court to have the Constitution changed to correct this mistake, so it might still change in future.
Any thoughts?
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 11:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Good points. I think I shall be changing it shortly. Also, what do you think of the article link to the isiNdebele in this template. What is it about, exactly? O_o Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 10:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The official language is an Nguni language very similar to isiZulu. There may indeed be a Tekela Nguni language and even a Sesotho language with similar names but that's not what the article should be about. I'm thinking that it might be better if I just went in there and deleted all contradictory content.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 09:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
What is the correct spelling of Venda in the mother-tongue? Is it Tshivenda or Tshivenḓa? Translators I speak to seem to support Tshivenḓa, but since they and PanSALB don't seem to be able to type any of ḓṱḽṋṅ they are tehmselves not consistent. Anyone have ideas and a pointer to something definitive or helpful? Dwayne Baile 41.241.155.70 13:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Mr. Bailey. I told you you would go crazy! BUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA..... *cough*
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes we use d's and l's with circumflexe's underneath, if you cant live with it then dont bother learning the language, we are already a minority and we are fine as we are so keep away
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If I recall correctly, these are the names used in the Constitution. Since this is the oficial Languages of South Africa template I felt it appropriate to use the official names.
This is not that big a deal, actually. Simply afford the people the dignity of calling them by the names they call themselves. The English language and English speaking people generally have absolutely no interest in eg isiZulu, so how about on those rare occasions they do refer to the language they use the correct name without rationalising and being pedantic about differing Grammars?
Also, this argument about English using French/Spanish/Greek instead of the native names. There's very little about the French that's "foreign". I believe it was 2000 years ago when the Romans were fighting Germanic "tribes" (whom they called "barbarians" since they didn't shave their weirdly coloured facial hair as often as the Romans did) in Germania. They share a very long history with wars, invasions, occupations, and lots of language borrowing. So the argument of giving other "foreign" language names doesn't work if these are your examples. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 09:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I was rambling. French history and culture are not foreign to the English. Why does English use "German" and "Dutch" when these words are so different from the native names? Because they understand them and have an ancient connection with them (after 2 World Wars they're still buddies). These are not "foreign" (the English people and their language and culture would be nothing like they are today without past interactions with these "foreigners"). So when speaking about English, it's falacious to compare eg isiZulu to French. Am I making sense, now?
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't entirely agree with you. I mean English, not British (Germanic, not Celtic). My point is that all this sharing in the past has had a huge influence on the language and the people who speak it. Eg an old Sesotho name for isiXhosa is "Sethepu" meaning "language of the Thembu people". They can use weird names like this because they share a long history with them. Most English-speaking people don't even know what "Zulu" means (cf Oprah). In cases like these, where these words are not at all popular in the language, should not the names used by the people themselves be more important than words picked up from first impressions of (what is still to many English-speaking South Africans) a foreign culture? Khoza, Kaffirs, Sutu, Bechuana, Bastards, Hot-not - aren't you glad no one uses those names anymore? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 10:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Dude, you don't use "shongololo" as often as eg "stupid" (which is Latin via French). Don't try to convince me that SAE has been greatly influence by SA Kintu languages. Open any random page in your ODSAE and look at the etymologies. "IsiNgisi": the grammar requires the class prefix (nothing in English requires it to not accept the prefixes); the phonetics don't allow the "ngl" sequence so the "l" is dropped; the "s" I guess would be the only "mistake"; the phonetics do not allow closed syllables. There are no linguistic constraints which require English to use "Zulu". Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
"Influenced"? Lending a handful of words is not "influencing". It is insulting; imagine someone stubbornly insisting on calling you by a name you do not call yourself, even though they know exactly what your correct name is. I think you might have misunderstood my reference to Oprah. Apparently DNA tests prove that she is "a Zulu"! Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm disappointed in you; it's not "that sound", it's an aspirated lateral click! Unlike most languages, English is not limited to a certain orthography which faithfully reflects the pronunciation. Personally, I'm a bit unbalanced: I'd prefer an English speaker to pronounce "isiXhosa" properly but I don't really care about arty-farty pronunciations of French imports (I'm disappointed with Top Billing for this and other reasons, but that's off-topic). Most South Africans have more opportunities to hear "isiXhosa" pronounced properly than "cordon bleu" (my name is "Tebello"-"expectation", not "Thibelo"-"prevention", and my surname/praise-name is not "Thenjane" I don't know where that pronunciation comes from). The ODSAE doesn't respect the plural rules either, but you know what my preference is, and am I the only one who thinks "Zulus" is as insulting as "blacks"? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 17:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
It's not changing the pronunciation it's changing the name. Ask yourself: is "Zulu" really "standard"? I don't think either term is used often enough in English to be able to decide that one is "standard", and with what is happening in South Africa (eg the ODSAE)... So how about, when talking about South African languages, we follow the (emerging) South African trend? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Of course, I'm only saying this since the "trend" matches my own beliefs, so... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 20:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Taejo! You're back! Broken isiXhosa and all (you swapt the last 2 words around). Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so I guess you're not Taejo, but editing without logging in to avoid responsibility is a very naughty thing to do... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
If another opinion is needed, I think that in the English Wikipedia the article name should be Zulu. Wizzy… ☎ 08:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
"Which I am perfectly willing to commit the time to do" - and I'm perfectly willing to revert you. I'll formulate a response and give it later today, and I don't want to hear any more talk of "I can make these changes at any time". In the meantime you can help improve the representation of African languages on Wikipedia by voting for bug 6695 on Bugzila (and you'll finally get to find out why I say there's no such thing as "seTswana"). Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Click here. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
"Unnecessarily inflammatory", "polite"!? Perhaps that's the primary problem here - we're thinking on different wavelengths. Now, I promised everyone that I would respond today, but I won't let the fact that I was shopping the whole day, and on our way back the rear-left wheel of the "car" I was in suddenly decided to take a trajectory
orthogonal to that of the car and one of the other occupants exhausted my airtime trying to get help, and I was unable to recharge later due to Vodacom's recharge service being down and I woke up 1 hour ago when I finally received SMS confirmation of my top-up. So it's only now, when I'm exhausted, that I'm able to access the internet with Opera Mini, but this, like caMelCase, is apparently not as important as the issue at hand.
Dwo's most pivotal point is what he perceives to be standard International English writing of these words. (continuing, please wait...)
Let's take "Tshivenda" as an example. NEWS FLASH: "Venda" is not an accepted International English term (ghasp!). Just like Palangi, Kgotla, and Lobolo it's use is largely isolated to a very small English-speaking community. The fact that some British historian might have used the term once in some book does not mean it is now standard English (serious!). Should I really be telling you people this!? He claims that Sesotho language is written in English and he doesn't really need to understand the subject to fix the content. Really!? Perhaps he could try making all those articles on theoretical Mathematics more accessible and to the point? How about fixing all those articles on music production that sound like they were written by over-enthusiastic talent-less amateurs. I can't think of specific examples right now but I can easily provide them on request. (continuing...)
It's generally accepted in most sane societies and structures (the U.S. government being an exception) that it's generally the people who have more knowledge of what they're talking about who should have a bigger say in how things should work. Here we have a non-South African who couldn't even get why "seTswana" was wrong trying very desperately to have his POV reflected in an article on a topic about which he knows nothing. I am the current Wikipedia expert on this topic and yet the burden of proof is on me!? So I'm sure you'll understand why I'm getting very annoyed by him and I wish he'd just go away? How about getting involved in a non-technical fight like over at
Talk:Homophobia?
Talk:Black people always has a "debate" on, and is full of people who don't know what they're talking about.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 22:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC) - unless if you're User:Dwo.
How many of these English and Afrikaans friends of yours say "Mafikeng" instead "Mafeking"? How many of then know how to pronounce "Mpumalanga" properly? And "Xhosa" /"isiXhosa", how many pronounce that properly? Do they also pronounce Judge Nhlapo's name as "Nshapho" (if they care about the News - I don't)? This is not an English trend, it's a disturbing culture of people practically choosing to be ignorant about their own country. "I've never heard anyone saying that" is not a reason. I've never heard anyone using a lot of the English words I use often: biquadratic, Hilbert transform, fast Fourier transform, finite impulse response, DSP... Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and poor User:Joziboy has almost never heard anyone speaking isiZulu to him yet he's still learning the language. How about you? Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 08:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
But there's no such thing as "Mafeking"... And I'm not making fun of anyone, I'm correcting you. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 14:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, that's fine, for now; the article names are okay, even if I think they're incorrect. When will these people stop trying to mess around with
Sesotho language!? When will these mortals learn!? Buahaha! Although, someone has went as far as
WP:WQA looking for that fabled third opinion, so this might not be over. Buahahahahaaaa! Mortal!
For the record, I don't know anyone from Mafikeng either.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 08:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I'd prefer Sesotho languages. They are spoken by people who identify themselves as descendents of the ancient Basotho who lived in Zambia. It's just unfortunate that Moshoeshoe's kingdom adopted this name as it confuses many people. They're not dialects, but Northern Sesotho is actually not a language but a group of languages and dialects (they're simply called Northern Sesotho because they're not Setswana or Southern Sesotho; they vary wildly being influenced from all sides by Setswana, Sesotho, Xitsonga, and Tshivenda by varying degrees). Perhaps it would help if I tried to explain this completely on Talk:Sotho languages and Talk:Sesotho language. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 11:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Without references!? I could write something rather longish and dump it somewhere for your guys to fix? I can do that a lot quicker than what I've been "planning" for Sesotho language. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
@Dwo: No, I crossed the lines of your perculiarly framed ego. Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 19:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
..........
If anyone is still interested, the discussion continues in an altered form on Talk:Sesotho_language. It seems that the rough sort of consensus established here is maintained on the other Talk page. NguniTraveller 00:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
..........
...............
I'll weigh in late on this one also. There are a few threads that seem to go through this:
I think it important to distinguish two things, empowering language and creating a useful Englush reference. I work at Translate.org.za when we create lists of languages we will use the mother-tongue name if we can. So for instance a user trying to find the Sotho Mozilla Firefox language pack will see Sesotho. We do this to avoid confusion for the user of the language. But when we create articles that will be translated we are less prescriptive but we almost always use mother-tongue renditions because we are about empowering languages of South Africa. So after saying all that we are less concerned that in this encyclopedia things are not perfect, but then lets be honest using mother-tongue names in an English encyclodia is not really correct according to the style guides, etc. And this is one place where I think language activism might not be appropriate. I would suggest a possible compromise. Lets put the names in English with the mother-tongue in brackets. E.g. Xhosa (isiXhosa), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa). Dwayne Bailey 41.241.155.70 09:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Should the name be "Sepedi", "Northern Sotho", or "Sesotho sa Leboa"?
Currently, the template matches the Constitution, but it's a fairly well known fact that the inclusion of "Sepedi" in the final Constitution was a huge blunder (the draft more correctly says "Northern Sotho"). IIRC the Pan South African Language Board uses "Northern Sotho" instead. Yet the SABC broadcasts news in "Sepedi", not "Sesotho sa Leboa"!
Should we, as Wikipedia, correct the Government's somewhat acknowledged error or should we stay true to the Constitution?
Indeed, a while ago I believe I read something about some body wanting to go to court to have the Constitution changed to correct this mistake, so it might still change in future.
Any thoughts?
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 11:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Good points. I think I shall be changing it shortly. Also, what do you think of the article link to the isiNdebele in this template. What is it about, exactly? O_o Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 10:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The official language is an Nguni language very similar to isiZulu. There may indeed be a Tekela Nguni language and even a Sesotho language with similar names but that's not what the article should be about. I'm thinking that it might be better if I just went in there and deleted all contradictory content.
Zyxoas (
talk to me - I'll listen) 09:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
What is the correct spelling of Venda in the mother-tongue? Is it Tshivenda or Tshivenḓa? Translators I speak to seem to support Tshivenḓa, but since they and PanSALB don't seem to be able to type any of ḓṱḽṋṅ they are tehmselves not consistent. Anyone have ideas and a pointer to something definitive or helpful? Dwayne Baile 41.241.155.70 13:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Mr. Bailey. I told you you would go crazy! BUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA..... *cough*
Zyxoas ( talk to me - I'll listen) 13:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes we use d's and l's with circumflexe's underneath, if you cant live with it then dont bother learning the language, we are already a minority and we are fine as we are so keep away