Phuthi is a member of the Nguni branch of the Bantu language family. It has about 20,000 speakers mainly in southern Lesotho, and also in the north of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The actual number of speakers may be higher, however no census data is available to confirm this.
Speakers of Phuthi call their language Síphùthì and themselves ebaPhuthi. Phuthi has no official recognition, and is considered endangered. Few children are acquiring the language at home, and there is a shift to Sesotho and Xhosa. Efforts are are being made by organizations such as Libadla le Baphuthi to promote and revitalize the language and culture. Linguists are also working to document to language. There are two dialects: Mpapa and Daliwe, and Phuthi is closely related to Swati, and is influenced by Sesotho and Xhosa.
Phuthi is largely an oral language, but can be written with the Latin script. There is no standard spelling system.
Download an alphabet chart for Phuthi (Excel)
Details of the Phuthi alphabet provided by Wolfram Siegel (PDF)
Information about Phuthi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuthi_language
https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/phut1246
https://www.sheenashah.co.uk/siphuthi.html
https://endangeredvoices.org/phuthi-linguistic-information/
https://thetribalsociety.com/the-phuthi/
https://uvelaphi.africa/cultures/phuti.html
Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page created: 15.12.25. Last modified: 16.12.25
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