Abstract
Theoretically the Northern Sotho language is made up of almost 30 dialects while practically it is not so, because the standard language was formed from very few of its dialects. As a result, even today the language has no corpus which is balanced or representative owing to the fact that almost all of the available corpora are compiled from the written standard language and the written dialects. The majority of the Northern Sotho dialects do not have written orthographies, and the few dialects which had written orthographies prior to standardization came to monopolize the standard language and the Northern Sotho corpora. Therefore, the compilation of a corpus-based dictionary in Northern Sotho is tantamount to a continuation of producing unbalanced and unrepresentative dictionaries, which continue to sideline and to marginalize the majority of the communities and the linguistic varieties which could potentially enrich both the Northern Sotho standard language and the Northern Sotho corpora. The main objective with this research is to analyze, to expose and to suggest ways of correcting these irregularities so that the marginalized Northern Sotho dialects can be accommodated in the standard language. This will obviously increase the size of the Northern Sotho standard language and the corpus by more than 50%.
Highlights
Northern Sotho, or Sesotho sa Leboa, presently has corpora which were built entirely from published materials, and as such representing only the written and documented dialects. This is a major shortcoming, because the published documents in indigenous languages like Northern Sotho are usually based on the few dialects which are restricted to certain parts of society, while the majority of the undocumented dialects are sidelined
This means that these dialects are not included in written standard Northern Sotho. This written Northern Sotho language, which is derived from the few documented dialects, i.e. the 'prestige' dialects which were fortunate to have written and published materials prior to standardization, are the ones which are represented in Northern Sotho corpora today. These irregularities are the subject of investigation in this research, whose objectives can be summarized as follows: (a) to discuss the shortcomings and disadvantages of relying solely on corpus-based dictionary compilations in indigenous languages like Northern Sotho, (b) to demonstrate that Northern Sotho does not have a 'balanced or representative' corpus, (c) to analyze factors leading to the marginalization of the majority of the Northern Sotho dialects, and (d) to show how purism and monopolies influenced the standardization of Northern Sotho, thereby leading to the marginalization of the majority of its dialects
— Of the approximately 30 Northern Sotho dialects, the only dialects which are represented in standard Northern Sotho and the available corpora are Sekone, Sekopa and Sepedi, which are used in the Sekhukhune district and Sekgaga, as well as the few dialects spoken in the Mankweng and Mamabolo areas
Summary
Northern Sotho, or Sesotho sa Leboa, presently has corpora which were built entirely from published materials, and as such representing only the written and documented dialects. This is a major shortcoming, because the published documents in indigenous languages like Northern Sotho are usually based on the few dialects which are restricted to certain parts of society, while the majority of the undocumented dialects are sidelined. This means that these dialects (or 'languages' as the communities themselves regard their dialects) are not included in written standard Northern Sotho. (c) to analyze factors leading to the marginalization of the majority of the Northern Sotho dialects, and (d) to show how purism and monopolies influenced the standardization of Northern Sotho, thereby leading to the marginalization of the majority of its dialects
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