You might have heard of a language called Sesotho sa Leboa or Northern Sotho in English. In fact, you might have heard it called Sepedi by many people who say they speak Northern Sotho. Are you confused? Well, probably not as confused, and frustrated, as the many people who speak Sesotho sa Leboa, but don't speak Sepedi.  And you are in good company, even South Africa's constitution is confused on this one!

You might ask how one language ends up with so many names? And that is the real problem, it is not one language. Northern Sotho, in fact, tries to embrace around 30 dialects. Think of it as the purse that holds together a number of gold coins. The dominant dialect is Sepedi, the language spoken by the Bapedi.  But it is not the only language of Northern Sotho. 

 

In the interim constitution on 1993 the language was correctly referred to as Sesotho sa Leboa.  But in the final constitution of 1996 it was changed to Sepedi, which as we saw previously, is incorrect. We are yet to find out exactly why this was changed. Was it a confused committee with no linguistic input or was it a Sepedi speaker promoting their own cause created through confusion about their own language. Whatever the cause may have been the confusion created goes against the spirit of the constitution, which urges the promotion of marginalised African languages yet itself has created a situation of marginalisation.  The dialects of Northern Sotho have been marginalised and excluded. 

 

We haven't yet mentioned the fact that many Sesotho sa Leboa speakers are offended when you call them Sepedi speakers as they do not speak Sepedi.

 

The confusion runs deeper as Government institutions are now also confused, PanSALB promotes Sesotho sa Leboa, while National Language Services talks of Sepedi. 

 

The truth of the matter is that Sesotho sa Leboa is the correct mother tongue name for the language that the constitution wanted to empower. Sepedi is merely a dialect of Sesotho sa Leboa and as a language does not represent the whole of the Northern Sotho speaking populace. If you were using English names the language would be Northern Sotho and the dialect would be called Pedi.

 

At Translate.org.za we have been inconsistent in the past but we now strictly make use of the term Sesotho sa Leboa which is in line with the interim constitution and in line with PanSALB, the organisation tasked with promoting language and protecting language rights. We now work hard to avoid using the term Sepedi.

 

There is an emerging effort, of which Translate.org.za is a part, aimed at addressing the Sepedi vs Sesotho sa Leboa naming issue. If you feel strongly about this as we do then please join.