Tswana is the most widely spoken language in Botswana. The language is also commonly spoken in parts of South Africa. It is a Bantu language within the Niger-Congo language family. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Tswana are Sepedi, Sesotho, Zulu, Bemba, and Nyakyusa.
- Sepedi (73.6)
Sepedi is spoken primarily in South Africa, especially in the Limpopo Province, which borders Botswana. Historically, the Sepedi-speaking people have had close interactions with the Tswana, resulting in shared cultural practices. They share similar sentence structures, vocabulary, and phonological features. - Sesotho (63.2)
Like Sepedi, Sesotho is part of the broader Sotho-Tswana language family, meaning it has a common linguistic ancestry with Tswana. While Sesotho is primarily spoken in Lesotho and parts of South Africa, it shares historical roots with Tswana. In fact, the separation between Tswana and Sotho speakers likely happened only a few centuries ago. - Zulu (46.5)
Although Zulu belongs to the Nguni branch of the Bantu languages, rather than the Sotho-Tswana group, it still shares many characteristics with Tswana. Due to historical migrations and intertribal interactions across Southern Africa, Zulu has influenced and been influenced by neighboring languages, including Tswana. - Bemba (40.4)
Bemba is a Bantu language spoken in Zambia, a country that borders Botswana. Many words in Bemba and Tswana have similar meanings or cognates, reflecting their shared linguistic heritage. However, the vocabulary between these languages differs more significantly than between Tswana and Sepedi or Sesotho. - Nyakyusa (40.2)
Nyakyusa is spoken in Tanzania and Malawi, far from the Tswana-speaking regions, yet it remains closely related to Tswana due to its classification within the Bantu family. Due to the geographical distance, the two languages have developed distinct vocabularies over time, making mutual intelligibility more challenging.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)