#siswati

(poll at the end)

Shongololo (siSwati)

[ʃonɡolôːlo]

Translation: Millipede

siSwati is an Atlantic-Congo language belonging to the Bantu branch, which covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is spoken by 960 000 people in Eswatini, where it is the national language, but by 4,7 million people in total, half of whom speak it as a second language. Most of them live in South Africa. The prefix si- in siSwati indicates the noun class, shortly explained as a gender system but with more (up to 20) classes, less arbitrary categorization and different but paired classes for singular and plural. From what I’ve found, si- is the prefix for class 7, indicating body parts or pairs in siSwati. From what I remember from a lecture, some Bantu languages use the same class to signify languages, which gives related names such as isiZulu and kinyaRwanda.

Motivation: I love how it feels when saying it! It also manages to seem both long and round, just like the animal itself. <3

Note: I found evidence of shongololo being used in siSwati, but the IPA transcription is taken from Zulu (ishongololo, in which the i- signifies noun class), which is closely related to siSwati. I thought it should have the prefix in- for objects and animals but couldn’t find evidence of that word ever being used, so probably not. Someone who knows siSwati, please tell me how it all works.

Oiseaux (French)

[wa.zo]

Translation: Birds

French is an Indo-European language belonging to the Romance branch originating in France, where it has 64 million speakers and is the national language. However, due to colonialism and historical popularity in Europe (language spread due to cultural, scientific and philosophical dominance and stayed an important lingua franca), French has almost 310 million speakers worldwide, although only 80 million speak it as their first language.

Motivation: Because it has 7 letters, every vowel except for y, and it’s still somehow only two syllables and pronounced wah-zoh.

Native: Xitsonga

Also speaks: English

Learning: Kiswahili, Mandarin Chinese

Planning to learn: Sepedi, Spanish, Tshivenda

(poll at the end)

Shongololo (siSwati)

[ʃonɡolôːlo]

Translation: Millipede

siSwati is an Atlantic-Congo language belonging to the Bantu branch, which covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is spoken by 960 000 people in Eswatini, where it is the national language, but by 4,7 million people in total, half of whom speak it as a second language. Most of them live in South Africa. The prefix si- in siSwati indicates the noun class, shortly explained as a gender system but with more (up to 20) classes, less arbitrary categorization and different but paired classes for singular and plural. From what I’ve found, si- is the prefix for class 7, indicating body parts or pairs in siSwati. From what I remember from a lecture, some Bantu languages use the same class to signify languages, which gives related names such as isiZulu and kinyaRwanda.

Motivation: I love how it feels when saying it! It also manages to seem both long and round, just like the animal itself. <3

Note: I found evidence of shongololo being used in siSwati, but the IPA transcription is taken from Zulu (ishongololo, in which the i- signifies noun class), which is closely related to siSwati. I thought it should have the prefix in- for objects and animals but couldn’t find evidence of that word ever being used, so probably not. Someone who knows siSwati, please tell me how it all works.

Robot (Czech)

[ˈrobot]

Translation: Robot

Czech is an Indo-European language belonging to the Slavic branch from Czechia, where around 9 400 000 of its 12 250 000 speakers live. It’s the main language and isn’t threatened.

Motivation: It was coined within the last 100 years (1921) by Josef Čapek for a sci-fi setting. It comes from "robota" (=serfdom/unpaid labour required by feudal lords and colloquially used derogatory for arduous work) and gave the name to mechanical humanoids used in many other languages! Current sci-fi media wouldn't be the same without this Czech word.

עם, am

(poll at the end)

Shongololo (siSwati)

[ʃonɡolôːlo]

Translation: Millipede

siSwati is an Atlantic-Congo language belonging to the Bantu branch, which covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is spoken by 960 000 people in Eswatini, where it is the national language, but by 4,7 million people in total, half of whom speak it as a second language. Most of them live in South Africa. The prefix si- in siSwati indicates the noun class, shortly explained as a gender system but with more (up to 20) classes, less arbitrary categorization and different but paired classes for singular and plural. From what I’ve found, si- is the prefix for class 7, indicating body parts or pairs in siSwati. From what I remember from a lecture, some Bantu languages use the same class to signify languages, which gives related names such as isiZulu and kinyaRwanda.

Motivation: I love how it feels when saying it! It also manages to seem both long and round, just like the animal itself. <3

Note: I found evidence of shongololo being used in siSwati, but the IPA transcription is taken from Zulu (ishongololo, in which the i- signifies noun class), which is closely related to siSwati. I thought it should have the prefix in- for objects and animals but couldn’t find evidence of that word ever being used, so probably not. Someone who knows siSwati, please tell me how it all works.

עם, am (Hebrew)

[am]

Translation: Tends to be translated as 'people (as a group like 'the jewish people')' but also its... so much stronger than that. It's like... group? Tribe? But like. Bigger. Not necessarily in size but in... feeling i guess? It's stronger.

Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language belonging to the Semitic branch and is the Jewish language in which the Tanakh was written down, originating in today’s Israel. Even after Hebrew stopped being spoken by Jews, it lived on as a literary medium and religious language. Using a modern version of Hebrew as a daily language was promoted principally by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in the late 19th century. Reviving efforts went well and Hebrew is now the official language of Israel, where it's spoken by 8 million people. 1 million people outside Israel also speak Hebrew.

Motivation: I'm kinda sad it doesn't really have an equivalent in English because it means there's no way to really express what a lot of ethnic groups are on a deeper cultural level. Are Jewish people an ethnic group? A religious group? A culture? A 'people'? We're all of them at the same time. We're עם. It's a fairly simple word yet it carries so much power that I find most of the English equivalents (despite how precise they are at describing different types of groups) kind of lack.

Note: Another possible translation is nation, in the sense of a people not a state