Venda language

Not to be confused with Vedda language.

Venda
Tshivenḓa
Native to	South Africa,
Region	Limpopo Province
Native speakers	1.3 million (2011 census) 1.7 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2002)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Southern Bantu Venda
Writing system	Latin (Venda alphabet) Venda Braille
Signed forms	Signed Venda
Official status
Official language in	South Africa
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ve
ISO 639-2	ven
ISO 639-3	ven
Glottolog	vend1245
Guthrie code	S.20 (S.21)
Linguasphere	99-AUT-b incl. varieties 99-AUT-baa to 99-AUT-bad
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220px Geographical distribution of Tshivenda in South Africa: density of Tshivenda home-language speakers. Column-generating template families The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a HTML "div" (division) open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting. Column templates Type Family Handles wiki  table code? Responsive/ Mobile suited Start template Column divider End template Float "Col-float" Yes Yes {{Col-float}} {{Col-float-break}} {{Col-float-end}} "Columns-start" Yes Yes {{Columns-start}} {{Column}} {{Columns-end}} Columns "Div col" Yes Yes {{Div col}} – {{Div col end}} "Columns-list" No Yes {{Columns-list}} (wraps div col) – – Flexbox "Flex columns" No Yes {{Flex columns}} – – Table "Col" Yes No {{Col-begin}}, {{Col-begin-fixed}} or {{Col-begin-small}} {{Col-break}} or {{Col-2}} .. {{Col-5}} {{Col-end}} Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Venda, also known as Tshivenḓa or Luvenḓa, is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. It is mainly spoken by the Venda people in the northern part of South Africa's Limpopo Province, as well as by some Lemba people in Zimbabwe. The Venda language is related to Kalanga (Western Shona, different from Shona, official language of Zimbabwe) which is spoken in Botswana and Zimbabwe. During the Apartheid era of South Africa, the bantustan of Venda was set up to cover the Venda speakers of South Africa.

Distribution of Venda speakers

According to the 2011 census, Venda speakers are concentrated in the following areas: Makhado Local Municipality, with 350,000 people; Thulamela Local Municipality, with 370,000 people; Musina Local Municipality, with 35,000 people; and Mutale Local Municipality, with 89,000 people. The total number of speakers in Vhembe district currently stands at 844,000. In Gauteng province, there are 275,000 Venda speakers. Fewer or less than 10,000 people are spread across South Africa and that makes total number of Venda speakers in South Africa at 1.2 million people or just 2.2% of South Africa's population, making Venda speakers the second smallest minority language in South Africa, after the Ndebele language, which number 1.1 million speakers.

Writing system

The Venda language uses the Latin alphabet with five additional accented letters—there are four dental consonants with circumflex below the letter (ḓ, ḽ, ṋ, ṱ) and an overdot for velar ṅ. Five vowel letters are used to write seven vowels. The letters C, J and Q are used only in quoting foreign words and names.

The Venda alphabet

A a	B b	(C c)	D d	Ḓ ḓ	E e	F f	G g
H h	I i	(J j)	K k	L l	Ḽ ḽ	M m	N n
Ṋ ṋ	Ṅ ṅ	O o	P p	(Q q)	R r	S s	T t
Ṱ ṱ	U u	V v	W w	X x	Y y	Z z

Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo

The sintu writing system Isibheqe Sohlamvu/Ditema tsa Dinoko, known technically in Venda as Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo, is also used for the Venda language.

ṱala "divorce"	[t̪ʼaːɽa]	tala "draw a line"	[tʼaːɽa]

Phonology

Venda distinguishes dental ṱ, ṱh, ḓ, ṋ, ḽ from alveolar t, th, d, n, l, as well as (like the Ewe) labiodental f, v from bilabial fh, vh (the latter are slightly rounded). There are no clicks; x has the sound of ch in loch or Bach. As in other South African languages like the Zulu, ph, ṱh, th, kh are aspirated, p, ṱ, t, k ejective.

pʰ		t̪ʰ	tʰ			kʰ	kʷʰ
pʼ		t̪ʼ	tʼ			kʼ	pʷʼ
b		d̪	d	dʲ		ɡ	bʷ
	pfʰ		tsʰ	tsʷʰ	tʃʰ
	bv		dz	dzʷ	dʒ
ɸ	f		s	sʷ	ʃ	x		h
β	v		z	zʷ	ʒ
m		n̪	n		ɲ	ŋ	ŋʷ
		l̪	l
			r
					j		w

There is fortition of /ɸ β s ʃ x h l̪ l r w/ after nasal prefixes, likely to [pʰ? b tsʰ tʃʰ kʰ? pʰ d̪ d d b].

letter(s)	value(s) in IPA	notes
a	[a], [ɔ]
b	[b]
bv	[b̪v]
bw	[bɣw] or [bj]	Varies by dialect
d	[d]
dz	[d͡z]
dzh	[d͡ʒ]	Similar to English "j"
dzw	[d͡zw]
ḓ	[d̪]
e	[ɛ], [e]
f	[f]
fh	[ɸ]
g	[ɡ]
h	[ɦ], [h]	Pronounced [h] before e.
hw	[ɣw]
i	[i]
k	[kˀ]
kh	[kʰ]
khw	[kʰw]
l	[ɭ]
ḽ	[l̪]
m	[m], [m̩]	M is syllabic, [m̩], when the following syllable begins with m.
n	[n], [n̩]	N is syllabic, when the following syllable begins with n.
ng	[ŋɡ]
ny	[ɲ]
nz	[nd͡z]
ṋ	[n̪]
ṅ	[ŋ]
ṅw	[ŋw]
o	[ɔ], [o]
p	[pˀ]
ph	[pʰ]
pf	[p̪f]
pfh	[p̪fʰ]
r	[ɾ]
s	[s]
sh	[ʃ]
sw	[ʂ]
t	[tˀ]
th	[tʰ]
ts	[t͡s]
tsh	[t͡ʃʰ]
tsw	[t͡sw]
ty	[c]
ṱ	[t̪]
ṱh	[t̪h]
u	[u]
v	[v]
vh	[β]
w	[w]
x	[x]	Similar to the ch in Scottish 'loch.'
xw	[xw]
y	[j]
z	[z]
zh	[ʒ]
zw	[ʐ]

Tone

Venda has a single specified tone, HIGH, with unmarked syllables having a low tone. Phonetic falling tone occurs, but only in sequences of more than one vowel, or on the penultimate syllable, where the vowel is long. Tone patterns exist independently of the consonants and vowels of a word: that is, they are word tones. Venda tone also follows Meeussen's rule: when a word beginning with a high tone is preceded by that high tone, the initial high tone is lost. (That is, there cannot be two adjacent marked high tones in a word, though high tone spreads allophonically to a following non-tonic ("low"-tone) syllable.) There are only a handful of tone patterns in Venda words—no tone, a single high tone on some syllable, two non-adjacent high tones—which behave as follows:

Word	Pattern	After L	After H	Notes
thamana	–.–.–	thàmà:nà	thámâ:nà	Unmarked (low) tone is raised after a high tone. That is, the preceding tone spreads.
dukaná	–.–.H	dùkà:ná	dúkâ:ná	A preceding high tone spreads, but drops before the final high tone.
danána	–.H.–	dàná:nà	dánâ:nà	The pitch peaks on the tonic syllable; a preceding non-adjacent high tone merges into it
phaphána	–.H.–	phàphá:ná	pháphâ:nà
mádzhie	H.–	má:dzhíè	mâ:dzhìè	Initial high tone spreads; with an immediately preceding high tone, that initial tone is lost. (The preceding tone also spreads, but not as far.)
dákalo	H.–.–	dáká:lò	dákà:lò
khókholá	H.–.H	khókhô:lá	khókhò:lá

Unicode

The extra letters have the following Unicode names

• Ḓ U+1E12 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• ḓ U+1E13 LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• Ḽ U+1E3C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• ḽ U+1E3D LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• Ṅ U+1E44 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH DOT ABOVE
• ṅ U+1E45 LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH DOT ABOVE
• Ṋ U+1E4A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• ṋ U+1E4B LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• Ṱ U+1E70 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW
• ṱ U+1E71 LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CIRCUMFLEX BELOW

External links

• PanAfrican L10n page on Venda
• Wikipedia in Venda

Software

• Spell checker for OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox web-browser, and Mozilla Thunderbird email program in Venda
• Translate.org.za Project to translate Free and Open Source Software into all the official languages of South Africa including Venda

Bibliography

• G. Poulos, 1990, A linguistic analysis of Venda