A Question of Identity? The Case of Sebirwa (Botswana, Zimbabwe, Republic of South Africa)

• Autores: Gabriele Sommer, Rainer Vossen
• Localización: The handbook of multilingualism, identity, and language endangerment in Africa / coord. por Alireza Korangy, Evgeniya Gutova, 2025, ISBN 9789819647293, págs. 501-537
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Birwa, Sebirwa, or Tjebirwa is a Bantu/Sintu variety whose linguistic status is not entirely clear. (We will use both terms Bantu/Sintu interchangeably in this chapter when referring to language classification (phylum: Niger Congo, primary branch: Benue Congo, family: Bantu).) It is spoken by a small number of people in a couple of settlements in the northeastern hardveld region of eastern Botswana and in neighboring Zimbabwe and South Africa. Although linguistic studies are still rare, historical accounts are more numerous. Some sources point to a multi-layered—and possibly multilingual—genesis of the Babirwa community. Current opinions about the status of Sebirwa are controversial. Some (perhaps a majority) hold that Sebirwa is to be considered a language in its own right. Others say that it is so closely related to Setswana, the national and beside English official language of Botswana, that it can be regarded as a member of the Setswana dialect cluster. Still others emphasize Ikalanga influence. While extra-linguistic aspects should of course also come into play here, we will foreground language-related ones. Conclusions will be derived from own field data, collected in the first half of the 1990s. And the aim is to contribute to the above-mentioned debate on Sebirwa.