Swazi spoken in Eswatini can be divided into four dialects corresponding to the four administrative regions of the country: Hhohho, Lubombo, Manzini, and Shiselweni. Swazi has at least two varieties: the standard, prestige variety spoken mainly in the north, centre and southwest of the country, and a less prestigious variety spoken elsewhere. In the far south, especially in towns such as Nhlangano and Hlatikhulu, the variety of the language spoken is significantly influenced by isiZulu. Many Swazis, including those in the south who speak this variety, do not regard it as 'proper' Swazi. This is what may be referred to as the second dialect in the country. The sizeable number of Swazi speakers in South Africa are considered by Eswatini Swazi speakers to speak a non-standard form of the language. Unlike the variant in the south of Eswatini, the Mpumalanga variety appears to be less influenced by Zulu, and is thus considered closer to standard Swazi. However, this Mpumalanga variety is distinguishable by distinct intonation, and perhaps distinct tone patterns. Intonation patterns in Mpumalanga Swazi are often considered discordant to the Swazi ear. This South African variety of Swazi is considered to exhibit influence from other South African languages spoken close to Swazi. A feature of the standard prestige variety of Swazi is the royal style of slow, heavily stressed enunciation, which is anecdotally claimed to have a 'mellifluous' feel to its hearers.
Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
Swazi does not distinguish between places of articulation in its clicks. They are dental or might also be alveolar. It does, however, distinguish five or six manners of articulation and of manner, including tenuis, aspirated, voiced, breathy voiced, nasal, and breathy-voiced nasal. The consonants each have two sounds. and can both occur as ejective sounds, and, but their common forms are and. The sound differs when at the beginning of stems as, and commonly as within words.
Tone
Swazi exhibits three surface tones: high, mid and low. Tone is unwritten in the standard orthography. Traditionally, only the high and mid tones are taken to exist phonemically, with the low tone conditioned by a preceding depressor consonant. Bradshaw however argues that all three tones exist underlyingly. Phonological processes acting on tone include:
When a stem with non-high tone receives a prefix with underlying high tone, this high tone moves to the antepenult.
High spread: all syllables between two high tones become high, as long as no depressor intervenes. This happens not only word-internally, but also across a word boundary between a verb and its object.
The depressor consonants are all voiced obstruents other than. The allophone of appears to behave as a depressor for some rules but not others.
Grammar
Nouns
The Swazi noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages. The following table gives an overview of Swazi noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs.
Class
Singular
Plural
1/2
um-1
ba-, be-
1a/2a
Ø-
bo-
3/4
um-1
imi-
5/6
li-
ema-
7/8
s-2
t-2
9/10
iN-3
tiN-3
11/10
lu-, lw-
14
bu-, b-, tj-
15
ku-
17
ku-
1umu- replaces um- before monosyllabic stems, e. g. umuntfu. 2s- and t- replace si- and ti- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. sandla/tandla. 3 The placeholder N in the prefixes iN- and tiN- stands for m, n or no letter at all.
Verbs
Verbs use the following affixes for the subject and the object:
Person/ Class
Prefix
Infix
1st sing.
ngi-
-ngi-
2nd sing.
u-
-wu-
1st plur.
si-
-si-
2nd plur.
ni-
-ni-
1
u-
-m-
2
ba-
-ba-
3
u-
-m-
4
i-
-yi-
5
li-
-li-
6
a-
-wa-
7
si-
-si-
8
ti-
-ti-
9
i-
-yi-
10
ti-
-ti-
11
lu-
-lu-
14
bu-
-bu-
15
ku-
-ku-
17
ku-
-ku-
reflexive
-ti-
Months
'''Months in Swazi/Swati:
English
Swazi/Swati
January
nguBhimbidvwane
February
yiNdlovana
March
yiNdlovulenkhulu
April
nguMabasa
May
yiNkhwekhweti
June
yiNhlaba
July
nguKholwane
August
iNgci
September
iNyoni
October
iMphala
November
Lweti
December
yiNgongoni
Sample text
The following example of text is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Bonkhe bantfu batalwa bakhululekile balingana ngalokufananako ngesitfunti nangemalungelo. Baphiwe ingcondvo nekucondza kanye nanembeza ngakoke bafanele batiphatse nekutsi baphatse nalabanye ngemoya webuzalwane. The Declaration reads in English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
