Editing Sotho language (section)

==Dialects==
[[File:National Women's Day detail Sesotho.jpg|left|thumb|A Mosotho woman holding up a sign protesting violence against women, written in her native Sesotho language, at a [[National Women's Day]] protest at the National University of Lesotho. The sign translates: "If you do not listen to women, we will lose patience with you." (2008)]]
Except for faint lexical variation within Lesotho, and for marked lexical variation between the Lesotho/[[Free State (province)|Free State]] variety and that of the large urban townships to the north (such as [[Soweto]]) due to heavy borrowing from neighbouring languages, there is no discernible dialect variation in this language.

However, one point that seems to often confuse authors who attempt to study the dialectology of Sesotho is the term ''[[Basotho]]'', which can variously mean "[[Sotho-Tswana peoples|Sotho–Tswana speakers]]", "Southern Sotho and [[Northern Sotho people|Northern Sotho speakers]]", "Sesotho speakers", and "residents of Lesotho." The [[Nguni languages|Nguni language]] [[Phuthi language|Phuthi]] has been heavily influenced by Sesotho; its speakers have mixed Nguni and Sotho–Tswana ancestry. It seems that it is sometimes treated erroneously as a dialect of Sesotho called "Sephuthi." However, Phuthi is mutually unintelligible with standard Sesotho and thus cannot in any sense be termed a dialect of it. The occasional tendency to label all minor languages spoken in Lesotho as "dialects" of Sesotho is considered patronising,{{by whom|date=July 2019}} in addition to being linguistically inaccurate and in part serving a national myth that all citizens of Lesotho have Sesotho as their mother tongue.

Additionally, being derived from a language or dialect very closely related to modern Sesotho,{{efn|To the extent that it even has several words that resemble Sesotho words with clicks:
: ''ku kala'' to begin (Sesotho ''ho qala'' {{IPA|[hʊǃɑlɑ]}})
: ''ku kabana'' to quarrel (Sesotho ''ho qabana'' {{IPA|[hʊǃɑbɑnɑ]}}),
one could just as easily say that these words were imported from Nguni languages (''ukuqala'' and ''ukuxabana'', which is where the Sesotho versions come from), and the language does also contain words resembling click words from Nguni but not from Sesotho (such as ''ku kabanga'' to think, cf. Zulu ''ukucabanga'').}} the [[Zambia]]n Sotho–Tswana language [[Lozi language|Lozi]] is also sometimes cited as a modern dialect of Sesotho named ''Serotse'' or ''Sekololo''.

The oral history of the Basotho and Northern Sotho peoples (as contained in their [[diboko|liboko]]) states that 'Mathulare, a daughter of the chief of the ''Bafokeng'' nation (an old and respected people), was married to chief Tabane of the (Southern) ''Bakgatla'' (a branch of the ''Bahurutse'', who are one of the most ancient of the Sotho–Tswana tribes), and bore the founders of five tribes: ''Bapedi'' (by Mopedi), ''Makgolokwe'' (by Kgetsi<!-- not Mokgolokwe?? -->), ''Baphuthing'' (by Mophuthing, and later the Mzizi of [[Dlamini]], connected with the present-day [[Ndebele people (Zimbabwe)|Ndebele]]), ''Batlokwa'' (by Kgwadi), and ''Basia'' (by Mosia). These were the first peoples to be called "Basotho", before many of their descendants and other peoples came together to form [[Moshoeshoe I]]'s nation in the early 19th century. The situation is even further complicated by various historical factors, such as members of parent clans joining their descendants or various clans calling themselves by the same names (because they honour the same legendary ancestor or have the same totem).

An often repeated story is that when the modern Basotho nation was established by King [[Moshoeshoe I]], his own "dialect" Sekwena was chosen over two other popular variations Setlokwa and Setaung and that these two still exist as "dialects" of modern Sesotho.{{citation needed|date=February 2016}} The inclusion of Setlokwa in this scenario is confusing, as the modern language named "Setlokwa" is a Northern Sesotho language spoken by descendants of the same Batlokwa whose attack on the young chief Moshoeshoe's settlement during [[Difaqane|Lifaqane]] (led by the famous widow [[Mmanthatisi]]) caused them to migrate to present-day Lesotho. On the other hand, Doke & Mofokeng claims that the tendency of many Sesotho speakers to say for example ''ke ronngwe'' {{IPA|[kʼɪʀʊŋ̩ŋʷe]}} instead of ''ke romilwe'' {{IPA|[kʼɪʀuˌmilʷe]}} when forming the perfect of the passive of verbs ending in ''-ma'' {{IPA|[mɑ]}} (as well as forming their perfects with ''-mme'' {{IPA|[m̩me]}} instead of ''-mile'' {{IPA|[mile]}}) is "a relic of the extinct Tlokwa dialect".