…to http://basotho.wordpress.com (Sotho)
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Sesotho30 June 2006 1:46 pm
- Quizzes on Lesotho and Sesotho
- Quizzes: # Lesotho Geography # Sesotho: House words # Lesotho History # National University of Lesotho # Moshoeshoe I # Sesotho: Clothes # Lesotho Government Structure # Pronouncing Sesotho …
- Lesotho From K to O
- English is the official language, Sesotho (southern Sotho) is the national language. Some Zulu and Xhosa are also spoken. Sesotho is not supposed to be an easy language, due to its tonal features and its uncommon sounds. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me …
- English/Sesotho Glossary
- English/Sesotho Glossary …
- ZA Languages — Sesotho — Pronunciation
- Sesotho: Pronunciation Guide …
- ZA Languages — Sesotho — Phrases
- Sesotho: General Words and Phrases …
- Books for learners of Sesotho
- Sesotho Language: Must have resource references for folks who like to understand different cultures and have to translate or need to learn more languages and get ivolved with foreign travels. …
- Friends of Lesotho
- This page can only give a brief introduction to the language. Please read through some of the contrasts with English, then listen to the samples below …
- Rethabile’s FAQ
- Category: Help learning Sesotho efficiently …
- Sesotho sa moeti (English) Foreign Languages
- Sesotho sa moeti — Select a category of words and phrases: (English = Sesotho) …
- Ethnologue 14 report for language code:SSO
- SOTHO, SOUTHERN: a language of Lesotho (Ethnologue) …
- Sesotho language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Sesotho (Southern Sotho) is the one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and one of the two official languages of Lesotho. …
- Sesotho Pronunciation Guide
- Sesotho Pronunciation Guide …
- Sesotho Words
- Sesotho Words and Phrases …
- South African Languages | Sesotho
- Sesotho, or Southern Sotho, is spoken in Lesotho, the Free State and southern Gauteng. …
- Online Dictionary: Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho) - English
- An online English-Sesotho dictionary (Sesotho sa Lebowa) …
- On Sesotho
- Learn Sesotho by reading regular posts on this blog. Quizzes, explanations and discussions. …
- On English: Africans and 2nd Languages
- The way Africans learn and use second and even third languages …
- English-Sesotho Vocabulary Quizzes
- English-Sesotho vocabulary quizzes to help you learn and review your Sesotho vocabulary …
I just couldn’t help putting this up for those of you who speak or are learning Sesotho. It’s a PowerPoint document that you need to download (ho theohelisa) and run through your favourite anti-virus program, just for good measure. Or just open it online. And enjoy. U tla e fumana atereseng e latelang: http://r.masilo.free.fr/tse_ling/mahe.a.linotsi.pps
Blogging Lesotho — June ‘06 Roundup
Suffering and Scavenging at the Tour de Lesotho
The Tour de Lesotho is billed as “Africa’s toughest cycling challenge”, and involves four major mountain passes and some 2100m of vertical ascent. The short version is an 84km route with “only” 1000m of elevation gain. [http://wakanaka.blogspot.com]
Philanthropy At Its Best
Logos Global Ministries has an exceptionally successful program going inside the little nation of Lesotho, Africa. Hundreds and hundreds of children are receiving such TLC through our program that it is literally keeping them alive. [http://lesothochildren.blogspot.com]
Lesotho: Govt intensifies efforts to help rape survivors
The Lesotho government is to improve medical care provided to sexual violence survivors after rape cases reported in the first three months of this year climbed to almost the total number for 2005. [www.irinnews.org]
Harry launches new charity
Sentebale which means “Forget me not” in Sesotho, the […] language of Lesotho. The prince, once dubbed the royal ‘wild child’ for his youthful drug and drink antics, said of his new charity “As far as I am concerned, I’m committed.” [http://claudette.pdpress.com]
Africa’s Kingdom in the Sky
This week we drove up to Sani Pass, which is in Southern Drakensburg, about 2-hours from Pietermaritzburg. We took a day trip hosted by the Backpacker’s lodge we were staying at that drove around Sani Pass and up into Lesotho, “Africa’s kingdom in the sky.”` Lesotho is over 2000-meters above sea level, and in order to get there from Sani Pass, you had to use a 4X4 because the roads are gravel and very steep and winedy. [www.dogooder.ca]
Lesotho Angel
Canadian Russell Armstrong, hospital administrator at the Tsepong Clinic in Lesotho, discusses the realities of the AIDS crisis in Africa. NB: There’s a video to watch. [http://despoticktock.blogspot.com]
Learning to Swim
The river wasn’t even flowing, but there were rock pools, and in one pool the size of a small car I saw the maroon dress and black sweater floating motionlessly. It must have been an elementary school girl, already dead, drowned. People watched as if it couldn’t have been helped. I cussed to myself. [www.gregalder.com]
The airport in Lesotho, South Africa
It is also super dumb to say […] the airport in Lesotho, South Africa. Where in the world is that? I hear this kind of thing a lot and it gets up my nose. Why does nobody ever say, at the airport in Zambia, Zimbabwe? Or at the airport in France, Belgium? At the airport in the USA, Mexico. At the airport in Argentina, Venezuela. At the airpot in Malaysia, Taiwan. It’s silly. I was having a translation of my papers done once when the translator (a sworn and legal one at that), said, “What’s Lesotho?” [http://sotho.blogsome.com]
European Diamonds finds 2 large gems in Lesotho
European Diamonds PLC said it discovered two large diamonds at the Liqhobong kimberlite mine in Lesotho. The gems weighed 29.2 carats and 24.3 carats. They were found less than a month after it discovered a 27.7-carat stone in the same site. Separately, the miner said it sold 16,500 carats of the Liqhobong diamonds for 691,000 usd in Antwerp recently. [www.lse.co.uk]
Sesotho15 June 2006 10:40 am
The Face/Le Visage: Sesotho Crossword Puzzle
Enjoy it. I’m hoping to put up a puzzle or a quiz per week. Do come back, and keep trying to learn or teach Sesotho. Don’t let it go the way of the dodo.
Barotseland, Lesotho’s cousin. Learn about it to learn about Lesotho, Basotho and Sesotho.
PS: This post has been imported from another of my blogs. I decided to copy and paste comments to the original post.
In Kenya my brothers and I met a Lozi, from Barotseland in Zambia. Since then, I haven’t lost my fascination for Silozi, his mother tongue. Why? For the simple reason that Mukelabai and all of us are cousins. He speaks Silozi, we speak Sesotho, but we understand each other quite well. Muzuhile cwani? O tsohile joang? We met Mukelabai by chance; we were staying at the same hotel in Nairobi: The Jacaranda Hotel.
Kiwena ma’ni libizo? Lebitso la hau ke mang? (What’s your name) See? I told you. Look at these (Silozi, Sesotho, English):
Amu otolole lizoho. Otlolla letsoho. (Stretch your hand.)
Mwazuba? U oa tsuba? (Do you smoke?)
Ku mumuna. Ho momona. (To suck.)
La Bulalu Laboraro. (Wednesday, literally ‘the third one’)
Kamuso Kamoso. (Tomorrow). In Sesotho we also say ‘hosane.’
Learn more about Silozi and our cousins in Zambia:
I have created quite a lot of quizzes on Lesotho, Basotho or Sesotho. You can access them here: My quizzes in English.
They are however all in English. Here’s the first one I’ve ever penned in French: My first quiz in French. (Pre-registration).
Sesotho12 October 2005 11:09 pm
Sesotho uses the apostrophe to represent the missing half of a doubled letter. Perhaps the most commonly uttered word in Sesotho (and probably in every language) is ‘Mè. ‘Mè means mother. It can also be written as Mmè, prompting many to think it is the French abbreviation of madame, since it does appear in front of a woman’s name, too.
How many syllables do you think ‘Mè has? It has two. How many different tones do you think it has? I can think of two, as well. The first tonal combination is used to refer to a mother in general, one’s own or another. It is mMÈ, as in lumela ‘mè, or /luMEla mMÈ/, meaning “hello/greetings mother.” Again it’s one’s own mother or any lady old enough to be one.
The second tonal combination is used to refer to one’s own mother, in the case where the term replaces the name. It is Mmè, as in Mmè ke lapile, or /Mmè ke laPIle/, meaning “Mum, I’m hungry.” Other Sesotho words in which an apostrophe replaces one of the letters of a doubled pair are:
‘ne or nne or four
‘na or nna or me
‘ma or mma or mother of (usually with a name afterwards)
‘mila or mmila or road
‘mopi or mmopi or the creator
‘mino or mmino or music
‘mutla or mmutla or rabbit
‘methe oe mmethe or sack
But the apostrophe isn’t always welcome, as in the verb lla (cry), and probably in many other words. If you can think of a word or words I’ve omitted in either group, let me know. I’ll be happy to include them. I might make a quiz of some sort on this phenomenon, but till then, if you’re a learner, why not try some of these quizzes?
Sesotho20 August 2005 9:57 pm
One of the slang words we used the most as kids was the verb ho faqa, to fight. The standard Sesotho word is ho loana. Thabiso o rata ho loana (Thabiso likes to fight). I had never linked that popular slang verb ho faqa to the old noun lifaqane, until a friend’s grandma used the slang verb and went on to explain to us that it was in fact a very old word. If you’re learning to speak Sesotho, always remember that in Lesotho “li” is pronounced “dee” as in “deep.”
ho loana (v.)
nntoa (n.)
ho faqa (slang v.)
lifaqane (old n.)
How Many? (Tse Kae? Ba Bakae?)
Basotho and others who speak Sesotho tend to use English to count, or to tell the time. It is true that numbers are pre-fixed in relation with the noun they refer to
Twenty housesWhat’s more, counting becomes ever more complex the higher the number. And that is due to the fact that we do not have a noun representing a number (Five, for example) IN Sesotho, but a phrase defining the number. Twenty is two tens, twenty-one is two tens and one root, forty-nine is four tens and nine roots.
MATLO A MASHOME A MABELITwenty trees
LIFATE TSE MASHOME A MABELI.Twenty people
BATHO BA MASHOME A MABELI
Now imagine telling the time and getting into how many roots all!
Makoerekoere (non-southern African Africans)
There you go. Another example of the use of onomatoepia in Sesotho. We usually follow what other southern Africans are saying, but those folks from the East or Center or West are incomprehensible to us. All we ever hear is koere-koere-koere-koere, hence Makoerekoere, to designate people from those areas. The term isn’t really derogatory, but isn’t equivalent to calling them pal either.
Be careful, because this term applies to Africans only. It is in a way like saying African foreigners. Now, if you are a “Lekoerekoere”, and a Mosotho unceremoniously lets you know, you can retaliate by saying “Mojapere”. It literally means horse-eater, because, yes, we eat horse-meat in Lesotho. When I was at the National University of Lesotho I had several friends from Zimbabwe. I called them Makoerekoere and they would retort with Mojapere.
We in fact dry horse-meat to make lihoapa, more internationally known as biltong.
