Unisa Press
| Author:
| Ntsoeu Seepheephe |
| Published:
| 2025-01-01 00:00:00.0 |
| ISBN:
| 978-1-7764608-6-1 |
| Number of pages:
| 176 |
| This book is not available in electronic format |
About the book
The history of languages in Africa clearly indicates that Africans are one people. The intersectionality and juxtaposition of the root words across Bantu languages with similar semantics attest that they come from one ancestor. Therefore, language cannot be separated from people and culture. Colonialism, tribalism and creation of borders in Africa played a devastating role in decimating and dividing the African continent. Research reveals that Bantu languages have their roots in West Africa, particularly in Cameroon, and spread to other regions such as East Africa and Southern Africa. Sesotho, which is the focus of this book, traces its origins from West Africa and spread to the southern tip of Africa through migration over centuries. This book traces the historical development and evolution of Sesotho language over centuries in comparison to other African languages which demonstrates similar meaning in terms of syntax, semantics and morphology when some words are juxtaposed against each other in these different languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa. This book is a rare gem in the African languages and linguistics fi eld. It unearths and delves deeper into a history of Africans prior to being invaded and infested by colonialism whose aim was to impose the hegemony of western languages on Africans. Moreover, Europeans had to resort to their own onomastics in cases where the pronunciation of African names was difficult for them. However, this book presents an authentic historical account of Sesotho as one of the spoken languages in Southern Africa and makes a unique contribution towards African languages and linguistics. It is, therefore, fitting that the publishing of this book coincides with the 200 years celebration of the documented history of Basotho.
