Tsonga is an all-inclusive name for the Tswa-Ronga or Tonga Group of Bantu (Guthrie S50). These dialects or languages (see Dialect Survey below) are spoken in Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Grimes (1996) gives a figure of 3,165,000 speakers of Tsonga. Louw and Baumbach (personal communication, 1983) note three million Tsonga speakers in Mozambique and 800,000 in South Africa. UBS (1982) notes 889,000 Tsonga speakers in South Africa and 600,000 in Zambia. Alexandre (1981) suggests a figure greater than 1.25 million. Grimes (1996; citing the 1980 Mozambique census) reports 695,212 Tswa speakers.
Tsonga is an important regional language.
Shagaan, Tshwa, and Tsonga each have their own orthographies.
The existence of three separate orthographies would require at least three sets of materials.
Copyright ©2006 African Studies Center. For questions or comments about this site, please contact the Webmaster.