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Language code: tn

Technical information about ISO 639 language code tn

Documentation

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

Code

tn

Name

Official

Tswana

Native

Setswana

Family
Bantu
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Central TswanaNorthwestern TswanaNorthern TswanaSouthwestern TswanaSoutheastern Tswana
Related languages
Southern SothoNorthern SothoLoziKgalagadi
Key facts
Member of the Sotho–Tswana subgroup of Southern BantuEmploys up to 18 noun classes that govern agreement across the sentenceStandard orthography (Latin script) was fixed in 1937 by the Bantu Orthography CommitteeTone is contrastive (high vs. low) but normally left unmarked in writingThe first complete Tswana Bible appeared in 1908, spurring early literacy efforts
Sample phrase

Dumela, o kae?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Tswana, also known as Setswana, belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, more specifically to the Bantu subgroup. It is one of the official languages in Botswana and South Africa, and is also used in some parts of Namibia. It is written using the Latin script (Tswana alphabet). It is estimated that there are around 13 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

South Africa

12M

Botswana

1.9M

Namibia

6.3K

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

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