Excerpt Of A 2016 Journal Article About Tsotsitaal, A South African Youth/Street Language

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from a 2016 South African journal about Tsotsitaal (youth/street language) in South Africa.

The Addendum to this post presents an excerpt from Wikipedia's page on Tsotsitaal.
 
The content of this post is presented for linguistic, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Thabo Ditsele and Ellen Hurst for their research and writing on this subject. Thanks to the publishers of this journal\article and thanks to Open Access for permitting use of this article. Thanks also to the writers of the Wikipedia article that is excerpted in this pancocojams post.

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JOURNAL EXCERPT

[Pancocojams: The fonts that are found in this excerpt are given as they are included in that journal article.]
 
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1274/2133

"VOL 37, NO 2 (2016) ▶ DITSELE

[...]

Citation 

Ditsele, T. & Hurst, E., 2016, ‘Travelling terms and local innovations: The tsotsitaal of the North West province, South Africa’, Literator 37(2), a1274. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/lit.v37i2.1274

Original Research

Travelling terms and local innovations: The tsotsitaal of the North West province, South Africa

Thabo Ditsele, Ellen Hurst

Received: 15 Jan. 2016; Accepted: 15 June 2016; Published: 04 Nov. 2016

Copyright: © 2016. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction

A growing field in sociolinguistics in Southern Africa, and the African continent more broadly, is the investigation into forms of language used by youth, particularly those residing in the multilingual cities of the continent. Examples of these phenomena include Sheng from Kenya, Camfranglais from Cameroon, Nouchi from Ivory Coast and Tsotsitaal from South Africa. Tsotsitaal is known by a number of alternative names, depending on the geographic region, speaker preference and local practice. Some alternative names include flaaitaal, iscamtho, ringas, isiTsotsi and kasitaal (Makalela 2013; Mesthrie & Hurst 2013; Rudwick 2005). It is known as Setsotsi in the North West province (henceforth North West) because the noun class [se-] in Sotho1 languages denotes a language (e.g. Sejapane for Se-Japanese, Sekorea for Se-Korean and Setsotsi for Se-Tsotsi). Tsotsitaal has received great attention in academic literature, and its features, including its linguistic structure, history and functions, have been dealt with in details in other publications (cf. Brookes 2014; Hurst 2009, 2015; Mesthrie 2008; Molamu 2003; Ntshangase 1993).

Tsotsitaal, according to a number of recent authors, should not be described as a language, but instead as a style or register. Mesthrie and Hurst (2013:125) describe it as ‘essentially a highly stylised slang register of an urban form of language, expressing male youth culture within the broader matrix of an urban identity’.2 According to Hurst and Mesthrie (2013:5), it first emerged in the mixed townships of Johannesburg, such as Sophiatown, in the 1940s, and subsequently spread to other parts of South Africa. Slabbert and Myers-Scotton (1997:322) state that it functions as the lingua franca of male social interactions, and Hurst (2009:250) notes that these are primarily young black South African males who live in urban townships. Calteaux (1996:59–60) also notes that tsotsitaal is mostly used by men; although women sometimes use it and usually understand what is being said, it is claimed that only certain types of women use it – those of low repute or those who work in ‘shebeens’. However, a number of famous South African women during the Sophiatown era, such as Dolly Rathebe, spoke tsotsitaal, and many women today employ tsotsitaal freely in particular contexts and often create their own terms (cf. Maribe & Brookes 2014).

Methodology

In the tradition of a linguistic anthropology, there are various methods that could be used to gather data, including interviews and participant observation which were used in this study. According to Jackson (1995:17), participant observation is one of the methods that qualitative researchers use to understand how the respondents experience and explain their own world. Delamont (2004:218) adds that, ‘Participant-observation means spending long periods watching people, coupled with talking to them about what they are doing, thinking and saying, designed to see how they understand their world’.

To gather data, the first author visited popular entertainment areas and mingled with the local people with a view to identify potential respondents, that is, people whose utterances were dominated by tsotsitaal.

With regard to what constitutes tsotsitaal, it was relatively easy for the first author to separate those who predominantly spoke colloquial Setswana from those who spoke tsotsitaal because he not only grew up speaking Setswana-based tsotsitaal but also studied Setswana academically and published literature in the language. In addition, he is a Setswana dialectologist (i.e. specialises in Setswana dialects), and has published work on Sepitori (or Pretoria Sotho) – a mixed language spoken by black residents of greater Pretoria (or Tshwane) as a lingua franca; this mixed language’s substrate and superstrate are Setswana and Sesotho sa Leboa, respectively.

Setswana-based tsotsitaal-speaking male3 respondents aged 18–60 were interviewed at areas located just outside the North West’s three biggest cities in terms of population and economy. The cities are Rustenburg, Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom. To be more specific, Rustenburg data were gathered at Tlhabane township and Geelhoutpark suburb (recording time: 61 min); Klerksdorp data were gathered at Jouberton township (recording time: 25 min); and Potchefstroom data were gathered at Ikageng township (recording time: 40 min). Rustenburg is located about 140 km north-west of Johannesburg in the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality, whilst Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom are located about 170 km and 120 km, respectively, south-west of Johannesburg in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality.

Data analysis

This article will present data as follows:

an example that shows the structural features of Setswana-based tsotsitaal ‘new’ tsotsitaal terms, and their semantics (‘new’ in this context refers to terms which may or may not be widely used or known to an average tsotsitaal speaker outside where they are used, but more significantly had not been captured in the known literature4

Findings

Structural features

The first example shows the Setswana base which forms the structure of tsotsitaal in the sampled cities. Tsotsitaal appears in italics and Setswana appears in normal font.

Example 1

Participant responded:

‘Medi ga e le legaza, ga o ringe niks le yona; o vaya le yona ko wena.’ [If a female has loose morals, you don’t talk to her at all; you just take her to your place.] [Participant 1, 30s, Klerksdorp]

Regarding the tsotsitaal terms, there are a number of terms in this example which are typical of tsotsitaal nationally. For example, medi (n) refers to a ‘female’ or ‘girlfriend’. It is very popular in many versions of tsotsitaal across South Africa, and was also captured by Mulaudzi and Poulos (2001:6) from speakers of Tshivenda-based tsotsitaal. Similarly, ringe (v) is the negative form of ringa meaning ‘to talk’ or ‘to chat’. It is very popular in many versions of tsotsitaal across South Africa, and was also captured by Ntshangase (1993:1) and seen in Hurst and Mesthrie’s (2013:9) table of national tsotsitaal items. Finally, vaya (v) means ‘to go’. Mulaudzi and Poulos (2001:5) submit that vaya is derived from an Afrikaans word waai, which means ‘to blow’, but can also mean ‘to go’ in contemporary Afrikaans. Hurst (2008:150) suggests that the origin of this term is disputed as some argue that it is instead derived from Portuguese ‘to go’ (vamos) and not Afrikaans. Despite disputes, speakers of tsotsitaal use it for ‘to go’. The term is so popular that the City of Johannesburg’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system is called Rea5 vaya, which means ‘we are going’.

On the other hand, in this sentence, as far as the authors are aware, legaza (n) is not found in previous literature on tsotsitaal, and refers to a ‘female with loose morals’. The source or origin of this term could not be established from respondents and the known literature. It is also unclear whether it is derived from legosha or magosha, which is a widely used tsotsitaal term for a ‘prostitute’; gosha (v) is a widely used tsotsitaal term, which means ‘to sell one’s body’. A more widely used term is letimela, which is derived from a Setswana verb timela or ‘to be lost’. Mojela (2002:207) uses skebereshe (pronounced as skeberetšhe in the North West) from his work amongst Sesotho sa Leboa speakers, which is synonymous with legaza.

Regarding the structure of the Setswana which forms the base language or grammatical framework for this sentence, in common with other tsotsitaals around the country (Hurst & Mesthrie 2013), the base reflects that of standard Setswana and may be influenced by the colloquial form (or dialect) of Setswana, rather than the standard form. For example, one could extend the sentence in example 1 and say ‘… ko wena gone yaanong’ (Rustenburg dialect) or ‘… ko wena nou yaana’ (Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom dialect), which means ‘… your place right now’ (standard Setswana would be ‘… gona jaanong’).

New Tsotsitaal Terms

Example 2

Participant responded:

‘Ke tshwere m’rapper; e re a go kgwêlê Motswako.’ [I am with a rapper; let him perform Motswako for you.] [Participant 2, 30s, Rustenburg]

The lexical item m’rapper (n) in this example could be classified as a borrowing from English ‘rap or hip hop singer’, but it has been integrated into the grammatical frame of the Sotho language cluster. In the three Sotho languages, a human being is denoted by a noun class [mo-]; thus, a ‘rapper’ would be called ‘mo-rapper’. The contraction m’rapper is part of being stylistic when speaking tsotsitaal.

The lexical item kgwêlê (v) means ‘to perform’ or ‘to sing’. It is derived from a Setswana verb kgwa(y)a, which means ‘to spit’. In this context, it means ‘to spit out’ a popular mixed Setswana and/or English-based hip hop called Motswako. Here, the meaning of the Setswana lexical item provides the scope for the metaphorical semantic shift enabling the word to be applied to the context of music popular amongst township youth.

Example 3

Participant responded:

‘A o mphase technician e e matšhobotla e le ya pakistan?’ [Could you introduce me to that beautiful curvaceous domestic worker/helper?] [Participant 3, 40s, Rustenburg]

In the example above, three of the terms appear to be drawn from English. The first term mphase (v), meaning ‘introduce me to’ or ‘be instrumental in allowing me to have’ or even ‘pass me’, is derived from an English verb ‘to pass’. The second term technician (n) refers to a ‘domestic worker’ or ‘helper’ who is commonly a female. A ‘technician’ fixes a wide variety of items, and thus the meaning has been extended to a ‘domestic worker’ who ‘fixes’ or performs a wide variety of tasks in a household. The third term pakistan (n) refers to a ‘curvaceous woman’. However, in this case, its meaning is actually derived from a Setswana verb paka, although originally from an English verb ‘to pack’ or even ‘full of’, in the sense that a curvaceous woman has more flesh around her pelvic bones. A ‘curvaceous woman’ is also called ‘lepaka’ or simply ‘one packed with curves’. The word pakistan also cross-references the Asian country of Pakistan and signals a complex wordplay. This demonstrates multiple metaphorical meanings, a feature of many tsotsitaal terms that gain popular usage (Hurst 2016). In addition to these two terms, in Klerksdorp they use piere (‘pear’) and hour glass, both metaphorical borrowings from English slang.

The final term in this example is matšhobotla (v), which means a ‘beautiful woman’. The source or origin of this term could not be established from respondents and the known literature.

Example 4

Participant responded:

‘Authi ya ka, ke gatile cable, ene ke verstanisitse majita.’ [My brother, I am HIV positive, and I have informed my friends.] [Participant 4, 30s, Potchefstroom]

In this example, three of the lexical items are drawn from the national tsotsitaal lexicon. The term authi (n) derives from Afrikaans ou for ‘man’ and refers to a ‘same/similar-aged male’ or ‘peer’. It is very popular in many versions of tsotsitaal across South Africa, and was also captured by Molamu (2003) who states that it refers to a ‘lad’ or ‘young man’. In actual fact, authi is not limited to a ‘young man’ because males of the similar age (e.g. one aged 39 and another aged 41) can use the term to refer to one another. The commonly used tsotsitaal term for a ‘lad’ or ‘young-er man’ is a laaitie (also in common usage in South African English and in Afrikaans!) and it is also linked to age because a much older male (say, aged 49) can use the term to refer to one who is not old enough to be his peer (say, aged 41). Verstanisitse (v) past tense of verstanisa, means ‘to make understand’ and is adopted into tsotsitaal from an Afrikaans word verstaan, which means ‘to understand’. Majita (n) refers to ‘guys’ or ‘friends’. It is very popular in many versions of tsotsitaal across South Africa, and was captured by Sekere (2004) amongst speakers of Sesotho-based tsotsitaal. Its origins are disputed, but Hurst and Mesthrie (2013:9) suggest that it possibly comes from the English word ‘jitterbug’, which was the name of a style of dance in the 1930s to the 1940s in the United States. It should be noted, however, that slang etymologies tend to be complex and multiple, rarely linear, and that slang terms may hold different meanings for different speakers.

The expression gatile cable refers to being ‘HIV positive’. In this expression, gatile is a Setswana verb (past tense of gata) for ‘stepped over something’, which may be dangerous. In this context, to gata cable refers to ‘stepping over’ a live electricity ‘cable’ or being infected with HIV. There is therefore a reliance on an understanding of both Setswana and English for the metaphorical meaning to be understood in this expression. Dowling (2004) wrote about expressions relating to HIV/AIDS and how taboo and avoidance are bypassed through metaphorical expressions to refer to this subject.

Example 5

Participant responded:

‘Ke tsamaya le palone boy vandag; sepokothedi, tang ya mannete.’ [I am accompanied by a rich boy today; someone who really has money.] [Participant 5, 30s, Potchefstroom]

Again in this example, the majority of the words are derived from English or Afrikaans. For example, palone boy or cheese boy (n) refers to a ‘young male from a well-off family’. In some black communities, particularly those with a lower socio-economic status, bread and butter, peanut butter or jam were eaten for breakfast, but well-off families in addition to bread, butter, peanut butter or jam had other food items, such as polony and cheese. Over time, families which could afford polony and cheese were presumed to be well-off families, leading to coining tsotsitaal terms to refer to such families’ children as polony boys and polony girls (or the more popular terms cheese boys and cheese girls). However, as some respondents from Rustenburg suggested, the term has also been extended to black children who went to private or multiracial schools and speak English in a former Model C6 accent or an accent demonstrating having been educated at a suburban school, regardless of their families’ socio-economic standing or status.

Vandag (n) means ‘today’ and is adopted into tsotsitaal from an Afrikaans word with the same meaning. This is also seen in Cape Town tsotsitaal (Hurst 2008). Tang (n) is an Afrikaans term for (a pair of) ‘pliers’ and in this context means a ‘person with loads of cash’. Respondents stated that (a pair of) ‘pliers’ is an instrument that has the capacity to tightly hold many materials at a time; thus, someone who has lots of money is a tang, and would use a hand gesture to illustrate the sign for holding loads of cash. Upon probing in Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom, it emerged that a tang not only has loads of cash but also would be willing to spend it. Interestingly, tsotsitaal speakers at GaRankuwa (a Setswana-dominant township in Gauteng province [henceforth Gauteng]) use the term for the diametrically opposite meaning; to them, a tang is a ‘miser’ as a (pair of) ‘pliers’ holds tight, a reference to someone who is very reluctant to part with money.

Sepokothedi (n) means a ‘rich person’. In Sesotho, a ‘pocket’ is called pokotho (it is called pata or kgwatlha in Setswana). Also, the act of putting one’s hands in their pockets (trousers) is called ‘go pokothela’, and it follows that colloquially, one who puts his or her hands in his or her pockets (trousers) is called ‘sepokothedi’. Having said that, tsotsitaal speakers in Potchefstroom (and this holds true for Klerksdorp as well) have extended this act of putting hands in one’s pockets to ‘having money’ because upon further probing they mentioned that sepokothedi is someone with ‘deep pockets’.

[…]

Similarities and differences in the three cities

In terms of the spread of terms within the province, the use of the following terms appears to be predominantly used⁷ in the areas mentioned, whilst the rest are used across the three cities.

Rustenburg:

• technician
• matšhobotla
• donti funda centre
• donti tšhawa/chawa
• raba

Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom:

• legaza
• sepokothedi
• pinana
• japa

[...]
 

At this stage, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which these new tsotsitaal terms whose source language is Setswana have become ‘conventionalised’ and are being used by speakers whose base languages are not Sotho-Tswana languages. As such, more data need to be gathered, and it would be an interesting exercise to trace the geographical spread of terms, and their mode of distribution, for example, through popular music (Ditsele 2015).

Most of the tsotsitaal terms used in the three cities were known in each of the cities. However, there were terms which appeared to be used in Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom, but not known in Rustenburg (e.g. legaza). Similarly, there were terms which were used in Rustenburg, but not known in Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom (e.g. kobo for a R10 note). In Klerksdorp, only one respondent knew what kobo meant, and he indicated that he went to high school in Rustenburg and only used the term when he visits this city. So despite these cities sharing a common language, there are even more local innovations that do not make it into the tsotsitaal of the wider language community.

Conclusion

This study shows that the tsotsitaal spoken in the North West uses Setswana as its ML, and this is consistent with Brook’s findings, who submits the following:

The individuals who responded to my search for tsotsitaal speakers had mother tongues including isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho, Setswana and English. What I discovered was that these native speakers all spoke a different version of tsotsitaal that appeared to depend on the speaker’s native language, while incorporating lexicon from Afrikaans as well as isiZulu and isiXhosa, and, to lesser degrees, Sesotho, Setswana, Sepedi, Tshivenda and Xitsonga. (2010:2)

Brook’s (2010) respondents incorporated lexicon from languages which had vitality in areas where data were gathered. Consistent with this finding was that, in Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom, pockets of Sesotho lexicon made it into the Setswana dialects (and by default the tsotsitaal versions), a phenomenon which was not picked up in Rustenburg’s Setswana dialect because of the city’s much lower population of speakers of other Bantu languages.

Respondents used many widely used terms such as medi, ringa, authi, majita, vaya, tiger, klipper and spana. This confirms the findings of previous studies which noted that tsotsitaal is a dynamic language, and its terms travel from its epicentre to other regions; yet, although speakers used many terms which, according to previous studies, were coined in Gauteng (particularly Johannesburg), they also used new or local coinages. These coinages were often developed from Setswana – the local language – using sematic shift and metaphor, and some exhibited multiple meanings as in the case of pakistan. Items with multiple meanings, and therefore wider salience, seem more likely to be adopted outside the language community and thus make it into the ‘national’ tsotsitaal lexicon, although terms may also be popularised through routes such as popular music and television. There is some suggestion that words derived from English and Afrikaans are more likely to make it into the national lexicon as many South Africans speak these languages as an additional language. Therefore, their (metaphorical) meaning is accessible to a wider proportion of South Africans than words developed from languages that do not have a national footprint. However, these findings are tentative, and more research needs to be conducted on the phenomenon.

The authors found that each city believed that its tsotsitaal version was the most sophisticated as one respondent from Rustenburg submitted, ‘Rusty e thôpa di-kasi tse baie ka language ya se-cleva’ (Rustenburg outperforms many townships when it comes to township lingos.). More interestingly, respondents suggested that the tsotsitaal versions spoken in the other cities in the North West were heavily influenced by standard Setswana, and that made such versions less sophisticated. In other words, they believed that the strong influence of standard Setswana depicts less sophistication. One respondent in Klerksdorp remarked, ‘If you want pure Setswana, you should go to Rustenburg, Mafikeng or Potchefstroom; here we speak mixed languages.’ Be that as it may, the authors observed that the Setswana dialect spoken in each city was the ML for the tsotsitaal versions spoken; thus, the suggestion about the strong influence of standard Setswana elsewhere was just a perception. The data also confirmed the idea that the most urban or colloquial form of the local language is used as the base language of tsotsitaals."...

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ADDENDUM- EXCERPT FROM WIKIPEDIA'S PAGE ON TSOTSITAAL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsotsitaal_and_Camtho
*Tsotsitaal is a vernacular derived from a variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province (such as Soweto), but also in other agglomerations all over South Africa. Tsotsi is a Sesotho, Pedi or Tswana slang word for a "thug" or "robber" or "criminal", possibly from the verb "ho lotsa" "to sharpen", whose meaning has been modified in modern times to include "to con"; or from the tsetse fly, as the language was first known as Flytaal, although flaai also means "cool" or "street smart". The word taal in Afrikaans means "language".

A tsotsitaal is built over the grammar of one or several languages, in which terms from other languages or specific terms created by the community of speakers are added. It is a permanent work of language-mix, language-switch, and terms-coining.

[...]

Tsotsitaal has been a model for Iscamtho, due to the cultural prestige of Sophiatown. But the youth abandoned it in the 1970s, when Afrikaans came to be no more associated with the power of the state, as it had been so far, but was recognized as the language of apartheid and oppression (especially after the 1976 Soweto Uprising). Iscamtho then became the one youth language in Soweto."...

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