SiSwati (Swati) Alphabet

SiSwati is written with the 26 Latin letters a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z, each in a capital and a small form, as in the symbol grid above. That is the list Unicode's CLDR locale data gives for the language, and there is not one accented letter in it, so a siSwati text can be typed on any English keyboard or phone and pasted anywhere. Some letters, such as r and x, turn up mainly in names and borrowed words.

The five vowels a e i o u sound roughly as in Spanish or Italian. SiSwati is a tonal language, like Zulu and the other Nguni languages, but the standard spelling does not mark tone, so you will never need an accent key for it.

Many sounds are written with two letters. tf is the sound in bantfu, people, and umuntfu, a person; ts and dz come together in ngiyakutsandza, I love you; dv is heard in indvuna, a chief's headman. As in Zulu, hl is a breathy l blown past the sides of the tongue, ny is the ny of canyon, ng the ng of finger, and an h after a consonant marks a puff of breath: ph, th, kh.

SiSwati and Zulu: emanti, amanzi

SiSwati and Zulu are close enough that speakers of one follow much of the other, and the spelling shows where they differ. Linguists split the Nguni languages into the Zunda group (Zulu, Xhosa, South Ndebele) and the Tekela group, to which siSwati belongs, and the name says it: where Zulu has a z, siSwati often has a t. Water is amanzi in Zulu and emanti in siSwati; people are abantu in Zulu and bantfu in siSwati; to love is -thanda in Zulu and -tsandza in siSwati.

Prefixes differ too. Zulu ama- is siSwati ema-, so the Swati people are the emaSwati, one of them is a liSwati, and the language is siSwati. When a prefix is attached to a name, the prefix stays small and the name keeps its capital in the middle of the word: siSwati, emaSwati, eSwatini. Phone keyboards sometimes "correct" these, so check them before posting.

SiSwati has click consonants like its neighbours, written with the ordinary letters c and q, though far fewer siSwati words use them than Zulu or Xhosa words do. You can hear one in the national motto Siyinqaba, usually translated "We are the fortress".

SiSwati greetings: Sawubona, Ngiyabonga, Ngiyakutsandza

Hello in siSwati is Sawubona to one person and Sanibonani to several; it means "we see you" and works at any hour of the day. The usual next question is Unjani?, how are you?, and the answer Ngikhona, I am fine, literally "I am here". Yes is yebo, and please is ngicela, I ask.

Thank you is Ngiyabonga, and when a family or a group says it together, Siyabonga, we thank you. I love you is Ngiyakutsandza, and we love you Siyakutsandza. When parting, the one who leaves says Sala kahle, stay well, and the one who stays answers Hamba kahle, go well. Every word here uses only plain letters, so it pastes into any message.

Where the Swati language is spoken

SiSwati is spoken by about 2.3 million people by Unicode's CLDR estimates. About 1.6 million of them live in South Africa 🇿🇦, mostly in Mpumalanga, around Mbombela and Barberton and in the former KaNgwane homeland along the Eswatini border, and since 1994 siSwati has been one of South Africa's official languages. Eswatini 🇸🇿, where CLDR counts about 660,000 speakers, has siSwati and English as its official languages, and CLDR also lists a small community in Lesotho 🇱🇸.

The language and the country share a name. The Swati take theirs from King Mswati II, who ruled in the nineteenth century, and Eswatini is the siSwati name for "the land of the Swati"; the kingdom used the English name Swaziland until King Mswati III announced the change in April 2018. That is why the language is also called Swazi in English.

Money is written with letters too. Eswatini's lilangeni (plural emalangeni) has no Unicode sign and is written with a capital E before the amount, E50, and the South African rand, which is legal tender in Eswatini at the same value, with a capital R, R50. Both letters are in the alphabet rows of the grid.

SiSwati words in royal life and in emoji

Eswatini is a kingdom, and several of its best-known words are royal titles. The King is Ngwenyama, "the Lion" 🦁, the Queen Mother Ndlovukati, "the Great She-Elephant" 🐘, and the royal salute is Bayethe! Red feathers of the turaco 🪶 in the hair mark members of the royal family, and the black-and-white Nguni shield 🛡️ lies across the 🇸🇿 flag.

Umhlanga, the Reed Dance, is held at the royal village of Ludzidzini near Lobamba in late August or early September: thousands of young women cut tall reeds 🌾 and bring them to the Queen Mother, then dance 💃 in song. Incwala, the kingship ceremony, follows around December and January. Posts about them usually read Umhlanga 🌾💃🇸🇿.

SiSwati is a Nguni language, a close relative of Zulu, Xhosa and both Ndebele languages, with Sotho neighbours in Mpumalanga and Lesotho. South Ndebele, North Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda and Afrikaans each have a collection here, as do the Eswatini and South Africa pages with their flags and emoji.