Language code: hz

Technical information about ISO 639 language code hz

The table below provides technical details for the Herero language, designated by the hz code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

hz

Name

Official

Herero

Native

Otjiherero

Family
Bantu
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Central HereroMbanderu (Eastern Herero)Himba (North-Western Herero)
Related languages
KuvaleNdombeUmbunduKimbundu
Key facts
Bantu language classified in Guthrie zone R.30Keeps a rich noun-class system with about 20 classesWritten in a Latin-based orthography standardized by German missionaries in the 1890sUses contrastive tone: high vs low and downstepSpoken chiefly by semi-nomadic cattle-herders, so vocabulary is especially rich in terms for cattle colours and horn shapes
Sample phrase

Tjike! Ove nawa tje?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Herero belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, more specifically to the Bantu subgroup. It is used mostly in the Kunene, Omaheke, and Otjozondjupa regions in Namibia. It is written using the Latin script. It is estimated that there are more than 250,000 speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Herero speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

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