Translating Metaphor in Setswana PoetryTranslating Setswana poetry requires more than replacing words between languages. A metaphor may carry ideas about kinship, cattle, landscape, ancestry,…
Setswana kinship words beyond mme and rreFor many learners, Setswana kinship vocabulary begins with mme for “mother” and rre for “father”. These are essential words, but they represent only the centre…
The History Of Setswana Bible TranslationThe history of Setswana Bible translation is closely tied to the development of written Setswana, missionary printing, education and the growth of…
How Speech Keeps Ntlo and Ntlha ApartSetswana has many words whose spelling becomes easier to understand when their sound, grammar and meaning are considered together. “Ntlo” means house or home,…
How tone shapes Setswana pronunciation and meaningSetswana is often described as a language whose words are written with familiar Roman letters but whose spoken meaning depends on details that spelling may…
Translating Setswana idioms into Australian EnglishTranslating Idiomatic Expressions from Setswana to English is specialised work because the meaningful unit is often a conventional phrase rather than an…
The Etymology of Lefoko and Its CognatesIn Setswana, lefoko means “word”, although its meaning reaches beyond an item in a dictionary. It can refer to a spoken expression, an utterance, a statement,…
How Setswana Handles Borrowed Verbs from EnglishEnglish has been in sustained contact with Setswana in Botswana, where English is an official language, and in communities across southern Africa. The contact…
Setswana lexicography enters a new digital frontierSetswana holds a distinctive place among the Bantu languages of southern Africa. For more than a century, lexicographers have wrestled with the practical craft…