Swati

The Swati language, also known as siSwati, is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Eswatini (Swaziland) and South Africa by the Swazi people. It is also one of the official languages of Eswatini, along with English and Emakhuwa. Swati is a tonal language, with four tones: high, low, rising and falling. Swati is one of the easiest African languages to learn, due to its regularity and similarity to other Bantu languages. It is estimated that there are about 1.5 million speakers of Swati, most of whom live in Eswatini. The Swati language is part of the Nguni group of Bantu languages, which includes isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele and siSwati. These languages are all very closely related, and share a common ancestor. Swati is most closely related to isiZulu. Swati is an official language of Eswatini, along with English and Emakhuwa. It is also one of the 11 official languages of South Africa. Swati is taught in schools and used in the media in Eswatini. Swati is a tonal language, with four tones: high, low, rising and falling. This means that the pitch of a word can change its meaning. For example, the word 'uma' can mean 'mother', 'house' or 'to carry', depending on the tone. Swati has a simple grammatical structure, and is mainly agglutinative. This means that most words are made up of a root plus a number of affixes. For example, the word 'umntwana' means 'child'. It is made up of the root '-ntwana', which means 'child', plus the prefix 'u-', which indicates the subject, and the suffix '-a', which indicates the plural. Swati has two main dialects: the Standard dialect, which is spoken in the cities, and the Rural dialect, which is spoken in the countryside. There is also a significant difference between the Swati spoken in Eswatini and that spoken in South Africa. The Swati alphabet consists of 24 letters, which are all consonants. The only vowel is 'i', which is pronounced like the 'ee' in 'tree'. There are no capital letters in Swati. Swati is one of the easiest African languages to learn, due to its regularity and similarity to other Bantu languages. It is estimated that there are about 1.5 million speakers of Swati, most of whom live in Eswatini.