Setswana Alphabet (Tswana)

By the current Unicode CLDR list, the Tswana main letters are A B D E Ê F G H I J K L M N O Ô P R S Š T U W Y, 24 letters in all. C, Q, V, X and Z are auxiliary characters in CLDR, not main letters, and X also occurs in the click spelling nxe (expressing sympathy); borrowed words are respelled to fit Setswana sounds: school became sekolo, table became tafole. Words are built from open syllables ending in a vowel or a nasal, which is why Setswana reads so evenly: Dumela, sentle, Botswana.

Several letters do not sound the way an English reader expects. g is a rough sound at the back of the throat, like the g of Afrikaans or Dutch, so go (to) is not the English go. d and l are usually two pronunciations of one sound in native words: Setswana normally writes d before i and u, as in Dumela and di, and l before other vowels, as in lefatshe (land); loanwords can be exceptions. j is close to the English j, as in go ja (to eat), and m can make a syllable on its own, which is why the polite address for a woman is written Mma.

Kg, tl, tlh, tsh and the other Setswana letter pairs

Much of Setswana is written with letter pairs and groups that stand for one sound each. kg is a single aspirated consonant made at the back of the throat, often realized as an affricate, as in kgosi (chief, king), kgotla (the community meeting place) and kgomo (a head of cattle). tl is a t released at the sides of the tongue, as in go tla (to come), and tlh is the same with a puff of air, as in go tlhaloganya (to understand). ts and tsh are the ts sound plain and with a puff of air, as in letsatsi (sun, day) and tshelete (money). ph, th and kh are p, t and k with a breath after them, never f or the English th. ng is the sound at the end of English sing, and ny the sound in canyon.

These are the groups that school spelling drills work through, "Setswana words with kg", "words with tl", "words with tsh", together with long vowels written double, as in maabane (yesterday) and baagi (residents). Setswana does have š in its standard orthography, and some standard spellings use tš. The Sepedi word letšatši corresponds to Setswana letsatsi; this example shows a spelling difference, not that Setswana lacks š or tš. Setswana is also a tonal language, where pitch can tell words apart, but ordinary spelling leaves tone unmarked.

Ê and ô: the Setswana vowels with a circumflex

Setswana has seven vowel sounds but only five vowel letters, so e and o each stand for two sounds. The circumflex, ê and ô, marks the second e and the second o, which gives the full set of seven vowels taught in schools: a, e, ê, i, o, ô, u. Northern Sotho uses the same two letters for the same job.

In everyday writing, on signs, in newspapers and in text messages, the circumflex is usually left off and readers tell words apart from context. It appears in dictionaries, grammars, school books and teaching charts, and wherever a writer wants to show exactly how a word is said. CLDR counts both letters as part of the Tswana alphabet, so they are in the grid with their capitals Ê and Ô.

How to type ê and ô on a PC, Mac and phone

On Windows, hold Alt and type on the number pad: Alt+0234 for ê, Alt+0202 for Ê, Alt+0244 for ô and Alt+0212 for Ô. With the US-International layout, press ^ (Shift+6) and then e or o. On a laptop without a number pad, Microsoft Word accepts the code followed by Alt+X: 00EA then Alt+X gives ê and 00F4 gives ô. The emoji and symbol panel (Windows key + period) works too, or copy the letters from this page.

On a Mac, press Option+I, then e or o, for ê and ô, or hold down e or o and pick the letter from the accent menu. On iPhone and Android, hold e or o and slide to ê or ô. In HTML the entities are ê Ê ô and Ô. Setswana is quoted with the same curly marks as English, “…” and ‘…’; the standard letter š may require a character picker or copy-and-paste on a plain English keyboard.

Where Setswana is spoken

Tswana and Setswana are the same language: in Setswana the prefix se- names a language, so the language is Setswana, one person is a Motswana, the people are Batswana and Botswana is their land. Statistics South Africa's 2022 census recorded Setswana as the language spoken most often at home by 8.3% of the population. In South Africa 🇿🇦, Setswana is an official language and the main language of North West province, and is also widely spoken in Gauteng and the Northern Cape. In Botswana 🇧🇼, the 2022 census found that Setswana was spoken most often at home by 77.5% of the population; it is the national language alongside English, and it is the language of the kgotla, the courts of the dikgosi and daily life. Smaller communities live in Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 and Namibia 🇳🇦.

Money is written with a capital letter before the amount: R50 for the South African rand and P50 for the Botswana pula, both letters already in the alphabet. Pula means rain, a blessing in a dry country, so it names the currency, is the national motto on Botswana's coat of arms, and is shouted as a cheer and a toast 🌧️. Setswana belongs to the Sotho-Tswana family of Bantu languages with Northern Sotho (Sepedi) and Southern Sotho (Sesotho), and speakers of the three understand each other to a large degree. See the Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Zulu and Afrikaans collections for their letters, and the Botswana and South Africa collections for the countries' flags, food and other emoji.