Siswati in South Africa

History of Siswati

The Swazi people originated from the Pongola river valley in KwaZulu-Natal. They were ruled there by King Dlamini I (1750 to 1770). They were driven up by the Zulus. From 1903 to 1968 Swaziland was under British control.

Even though the language Siswati is closely related to IsiZulu a lot has been done in the last quarter of a century to enforce the differences between the languages for the sake of standardization of Siswati - especially in Swaziland but also in South Africa due to political reasons.

CLASSIFICATION of Siswati:

Family: Bantu (or rather Ntu) Language Family Group: South Eastern Bantu (or rather Ntu) Subgroup: Nguni (Tekela Subgroup)

VARIETIES of Siswati:

Thithiza and Yeyeza

Speakers of Siswati

Around 1 013 193 people in South Africa use it as their home language.