Venda language page

Classification and where spoken

Venda belongs to the Venda Group of Bantu (Guthrie S21) and is spoken in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Number of speakers

UBS (1982) notes 424,000 speakers in South Africa, but no number is listed for Zimbabwe. Grimes (1996) cites figures of 750,000 and 84,000 for South Africa and Zimbabwe, respectively, for a total of 750,000. The 1980 South African census notes 692,000 speakers of Venda in that country. Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) list 150,000 Venda speakers.

Usage

Venda is used in government notices in South Africa. It is also an important regional language and used on internal radio broadcasts by the South African Broadcasting Company.

Orthographic status

No evidence of a standardized Venda orthography has come to our attention.

Sets of learning materials

One set of materials appears to be sufficient.