Balobedu

Balobedu (ba Lobedu ba gaModjadji) is a southern African tribe of the Northern Sotho group. They have their own kingdom, the Balobedu Kingdom, within the Limpopo Province of South Africa with a female ruler, the Rain Queen Modjadji.

Their language is known as Khelobedu, which is a "non-Pedi" dialect of Northern Sotho. Khelobedu is grammatically similar to other Sotho–Tswana languages and Tshivenda, nowadays the Khelobedu is becoming more similar to the Northern Sotho which is used as the standard in education. The Balobedu are situated between Tsonga and Northern Sotho speaking people. Khelobedu has become more and more similar to Sesotho since the language of the schools in the region is Northern Sotho. However, the Balobedu culture originated in the north, in what is now Zimbabwe, and their language contains sounds that do not exist in Sesotho.

The Balobedu originally migrated south from Zimbabwe to their present location in South Africa. The central tribal village is Khehlakone in the district of Balobedu.

The BaLobedu/BaLotswi are more closely related to the Rozwi Kingdom started by Changamire Dombo, rather than Mwene Mutapa as has been widely believed. They have the praise lines Sai/Shai and Dewa, and call themselves the people of Thobela, which is the same as the Rozvi/Kalanga. The rainmaking powers of Queen Modjadji are also synonymous with the Njelele Shrine in BuLozvi/SiLozvi (in present day Matabeleland, Zimbabwe) and it is therefore accepted that there is an intertwining of their history with the rest of the Rozvi. Linguists have listed Lobedu together with Kalanga, Nambya (a dialect of Kalanga), Venda, Lemba, Shankwe, Nyubi (an extinct Shona dialect) and Karanga, as a language of the Rozvi, and consequently connects them to their history. Their rainmaking history is tied by some to the claimed Jewish connections of the Rozvi. Northern Sotho which encompasses Khelobedu and Sepedi, makes them sound more familiar despite their tones, as both are of similar derivation.the khelobedu language was introduced by the rachekus family during aphairteid time and mahammed tumelo racheku helped a lot on developing the language to the people of khelobedu tribe

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