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Tsotsitaals are a variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province, such as Soweto, but also in other agglomerations all over South Africa. ''Tsotsi'' is a Sesotho slang word for a "thug" or "robber" (possibly from the verb "ho tsotsa" "to sharpen" — whose meaning has been modified in modern times to include "to con"; or from the tsetse fly, as the language was first known as Flytaal, although "flaai" also means ''cool'' or ''street smart'') and ''taal'' is the Afrikaans word for "language". A tsotsitaal is built over the grammar of one or several languages, in which terms from other languages or specific terms created by the community of speakers are added. It is a permanent work of language-mix, language-switch, and terms-coining. ==History== The tsotsitaal phenomenon originates with one variety known as Flaaitaal or Flytaal, and then Tsotsitaal, which became popular under this latter name in the freehold township of Sophiatown, west of Johannesburg, in the 1940s and 1950s. Tsotsitaal, the original variety, is based on Afrikaans, in which were originally added Tswana terms, and later terms from Zulu and other South African languages. Tsotsitaal spread first as a criminal language, as it had the power of insuring secrecy in the speech: only criminals at first could understand it. Later, as a prestigious sign of rebellion against the state and its police, and as gangsters were admired by youths who would see in them examples of success, Tsotsitaal became a youth and street language. At the time, it would exceptionally be heard in households, as tradition did not allow a gangster language to be used in the house. But it quickly became a symbol of the ethnically, culturally, and linguistically mixed culture of Sophiatown. Tsotsitaal is now a moribund variety in the black townships, as its speakers are mainly above the age of 70. However, it has maintained in slightly different forms as a prison language and among the black communities who are Afrikaans-speaking. From the original Tsotsitaal, the noun tsotsitaal came to refer to any gang or street language in South Africa. However, the specific variety behind the term would depend on the languages actually present in the specific urban environment were one tsotsitaal appears. The most important tsotsitaal nowadays in South Africa is the one from the township of Soweto, the largest township and the place which shows the most diverse linguistic setting in the country. It was originally known as Iscamtho or Isicamtho (from Zulu, it is a combination of the class 7 prefix isi- here representing language — see grammatical gender and Sesotho nouns; with a derivation of ''ukuqamunda'' (), meaning “talk volubly”), but it is now more often referred to as Ringas (from English ringers, as people form a ring to chat). Other alternative names are ''Isitsoti'' or ''Setsotsi'' (the ''tsotsi'' language in Zulu or Sotho), ''Sekasi'' (the township language, from the Iscamtho word ''kasi'' meaning township, itself derived from Afrikaans ''lokasie''), or simply ''i-taal'', the language. However, Iscamtho is quite different from the original Tsotsitaal. It originates in a different criminal argot created in the 1920s by the AmaLaita gang and known as Shalambombo. It is not based on Afrikaans, but on Bantu grammars, mainly Zulu and Sotho. The Zulu-based and Sotho-based varieties are the most widespread in Soweto, but one can actually build Iscamtho over any grammar of the South African Bantu languages, such as Xhosa, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda and others. But as Zulu is the dominant language in Soweto, and as Sotho in Soweto often unifies Sesotho, Setswana and Sepedi in one single variety and is the second most popular language in the township, Iscamtho is more often used "in" Zulu or "in" Sotho. Tsotsitaal has been a model for Iscamtho, due to the cultural prestige of Sophiatown. But the youth abandoned it in the 1970s, when Afrikaans came to be no more associated with the power of the state, as it had been so far, but was recognized as the language of apartheid and oppression (especially after the 1976 Soweto Uprising). Iscamtho then became the one youth language in Soweto. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tsotsitaal and Camtho」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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