The Story of the Word Sekgoa and the English Language in Setswana

Setswana, one of the official languages of Botswana and widely spoken in the North West Province of South Africa, carries within its vocabulary a long record of cultural contact with outsiders. Among the most fascinating of these words is Sekgoa, the Setswana term that today refers to the English language itself.

The word did not emerge in a vacuum. Like many African language terms that name foreign languages or foreign peoples, Sekgoa grew out of centuries of trade, migration, conflict, and coexistence between the Batswana and various European visitors. Its history opens a window into how a southern African community has classified, named, and understood the wider world.

For readers in Australia, the story of Sekgoa offers a familiar mirror. Australian English absorbed hundreds of words from Aboriginal languages, from boomerang to kangaroo, and the country has long wrestled with how to describe the languages of its First Nations. The forces that shaped Sekgoa also shaped the way words like Kaurna or Wiradjuri entered colonial and later national vocabularies.

What follows traces the origins and meaning of Sekgoa, drawing on the lexicographical tradition cultivated by T.J. Otlogetswe. The journey takes in the Highveld trading routes, the dictionaries of Gaborone, and the parallels that link Setswana to the linguistic history of a country on the other side of the Indian Ocean.

Etymology of the root and its early senses

The word Sekgoa is built on a productive Bantu morphological pattern. The prefix se- attaches to a noun root to indicate a language, a quality, or a way of life, as seen in SeTswana, SeSotho, or SePedi. The root that follows, -kgoa (sometimes written as -goa in older sources), referred historically to a light-skinned outsider.

The earliest recorded uses of the related form kgoa do not yet refer specifically to English speakers. Portuguese sailors, and later Dutch settlers at the Cape, were among the first Europeans encountered by communities living along the Limpopo and further north. The word was a broad descriptor for any fair-skinned foreigner, much as early English speakers sometimes used the term "Moor" to describe Africans and Arabs alike.

Over time, as the British presence in southern Africa grew through the 19th century, the meaning narrowed. The British, who controlled Bechuanaland from 1885 and exercised considerable influence in the territory that would become Botswana, became the primary referents. Sekgoa shifted from a generic term for white outsiders to a more specific label for the English language and English-speaking culture.

Encounter with traders, missionaries, and settlers

The shaping of Sekgoa cannot be separated from the long history of contact between the Batswana and various European groups. Portuguese traders arrived on the eastern African coast from the late 15th century, and although their direct reach into the interior was limited, their goods and reputations filtered inland through Swahili and Arab intermediaries.

Dutch settlers at the Cape Colony, and the Afrikaner trekboers who later moved northward, became much more immediate neighbours. Conflicts and treaties shaped the early vocabulary of foreignness, and the term kgoa was applied broadly. When the London Missionary Society sent representatives such as Robert Moffat and David Livingstone to establish stations at places like Kuruman and later Shoshong, new layers of meaning were added.

Missionary activity brought literacy in English, and the establishment of schools and printing presses meant that Setswana itself was increasingly written down using Latin script. As Setswana literacy developed, so did the need to name the languages being learned, and Sekgoa acquired a fixed place in educational and religious vocabulary.

Grammatical structure and the Bantu pattern of language names

Bantu languages, the large family to which Setswana belongs, share a remarkable consistency in the way they name other languages. The se- prefix, often called a nominal class 7 prefix in this use, attaches to an ethnonym or a regional marker to form a language name. SeTswana means the language of the Batswana, SeZulu the language of the AmaZulu, and SeKhoisan refers to the languages of the Khoisan peoples.

Sekgoa follows the same pattern, and recognising this structure helps explain why the word feels so natural within Setswana. The -kgoa component, whether seen as a reference to the Khoikhoi or as a descriptive term for fair-skinned newcomers, slots into a wider system of classification. The grammar itself tells a story of how Batswana speakers conceptualised the world around them.

Lexicographers working on Setswana dictionaries have often noted how productive the se- prefix remains. Modern Setswana continues to coin new words using this pattern, drawing on contemporary contact with new languages and cultures, and the older word Sekgoa sits comfortably among more recent formations.

Dictionary entries and the challenge of cultural meaning

Capturing Sekgoa in a dictionary entry is more involved than it might first appear. A simple gloss such as "English language" misses much of the cultural freight carried by the word. Dictionaries published in Botswana, including the long-established Diane Haake Dikishinari ya Setswana, often include extended definitions that touch on the historical and social context.

The word can carry both positive and negative connotations depending on speaker and situation. In some contexts Sekgoa refers to the language of instruction, to global pop music, or to the wider Anglophone world of trade. In other contexts it can suggest foreignness or mild suspicion, much as the term "wog" once did in Australian English to describe anyone who was not of British descent.

Researchers interested in the full picture of how this term has been used across time can find related material on the resources page, where publications, dictionary samples, and conference papers are kept for students and colleagues.

The dual meaning: people, language, and culture

One of the most interesting features of Sekgoa is that it can refer both to the English language and to the people who speak it. In English, by contrast, "English" is normally restricted to the language, with separate terms like "Englishman" or "Englishwoman" required when referring to people. Setswana collapses this distinction in a single elegant word.

This dual reference is not unique to Sekgoa. Many Bantu language words for foreign languages also function as demonyms, and the pattern reflects a worldview in which language and peoplehood are tightly bound. A speaker of Setswana who says Sekgoa a re a dirang may be talking about the language itself or about the community that speaks it, and the context resolves the ambiguity.

The same kind of overlap can be heard in how Australians talk about Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Islander languages, where the name of a speech variety often carries strong associations with the people who use it. For researchers wishing to discuss terminology or propose collaboration, the contact details for T.J. Otlogetswe are openly available.

Australian parallels and the wider world of contact linguistics

Australia and Botswana may sit on opposite sides of the Indian Ocean, but their linguistic histories share striking parallels. Australian English absorbed hundreds of loanwords from Aboriginal languages, with terms such as kangaroo, boomerang, and billabong entering the national vocabulary. The Australian National Dictionary Centre, long associated with the Australian National University in Canberra, has spent decades documenting this kind of contact-driven vocabulary growth.

In Sydney and Melbourne, communities of southern African origin, including a growing number of Setswana speakers, have established cultural organisations and language schools. In Perth, where African diaspora communities have settled in suburbs such as Mirrabooka and Balga, similar efforts are underway to maintain heritage languages for younger generations.

Researchers at Australian universities, from the University of Melbourne to the Australian National University, have taken an interest in Setswana, often collaborating with colleagues in southern Africa. Conferences on lexicography regularly bring together scholars from Gaborone to Brisbane, and readers wanting to widen their reading can follow this external reading list for related material.

The story of Sekgoa is no longer confined to the Kalahari or the Highveld. It travels with every community that adopts it, reminding us that each language name carries a small archive of the people who coined it, the strangers they met, and the worlds they tried to describe.

What stays with the reader is a sense of how a single word can hold an entire cultural archive. Sekgoa began as a broad label for fair-skinned newcomers, narrowed as British influence spread through Bechuanaland, and settled into its role as the Setswana name for the English language. Australian English gathered words from Aboriginal languages across those same centuries, and migrants from southern Africa have carried Sekgoa into suburbs of Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth. The patterns rhyme, and the rhymes tell a shared human story about naming, classifying, and remembering the languages of others.