Venda language

Venda

Tshivenḓa

Native to South Africa, Zimbabwe

Region Limpopo Province

Native speakers

1.3 million (2011 census)
1.7 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2002)

Language family

Niger–Congo

Atlantic–Congo
- Benue–Congo
  - Southern Bantoid
    - Bantu
      - Southern Bantu
        
        Venda

Writing system

Latin (Venda alphabet)
Venda Braille

Signed forms

Signed Venda

Official status

Official language in

South Africa
Zimbabwe

Language codes

ISO 639-1 ve

ISO 639-2

ISO 639-3

Glottolog vend1245

Guthrie code

S.20 (S.21)

Linguasphere 99-AUT-b incl. varieties 99-AUT-baa to 99-AUT-bad

Geographical distribution of Tshivenda in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks Tshivenda at home.

0–20%

20–40%

40–60%

60–80%

80–100%

Geographical distribution of Tshivenda in South Africa: density of Tshivenda home-language speakers.

<1 /km²

1–3 /km²

3–10 /km²

10–30 /km²

30–100 /km²

100–300 /km²

300–1000 /km²

1000–3000 /km²

>3000 /km²

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Venda, also known as Tshivenḓa or Luvenḓa, is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. It is mainly spoken by the Venda people in the northern part of South Africa's Limpopo Province, as well as by some Lemba people in Zimbabwe. The Venda language is related to Kalanga (Western Shona, different from Shona, official language of Zimbabwe) which is spoken in Botswana and Zimbabwe. During the Apartheid era of South Africa, the bantustan of Venda was set up to cover the Venda speakers of South Africa.

According to the 2011 census, Venda speakers are concentrated in the following areas: Makhado Local Municipality, with 350,000 people; Thulamela Local Municipality, with 370,000 people; Musina Local Municipality, with 35,000 people; and Mutale Local Municipality, with 89,000 people. The total number of speakers in Vhembe district currently stands at 844,000. In Gauteng province, there are 275,000 Venda speakers. Fewer or less than 10,000 people are spread across South Africa and that makes total number of Venda speakers in South Africa at 1.2 million people or just 2.2% of South Africa's population, making Venda speakers the second smallest minority language in South Africa, after the Ndebele language, which number 1.1 million speakers.

The Venda language uses the Latin alphabet with five additional accented letters—there are four dental consonants with circumflex below the letter (ḓ, ḽ, ṋ, ṱ) and an overdot for velar ṅ. Five vowel letters are used to write seven vowels. The letters C, J and Q are used only in quoting foreign words and names.

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Wikipedia