This is a pre-copy edited version of the chapter which appears as follows:

Hurst, E. 2018. Tsotsitaal. In: Tomek Ency & Finex Ndhlovu (eds) An Encyclopedia
of the Social and Political History of Southern Africa’s Languages. Palgrave.

Tsotsitaal

Dr Ellen Hurst

Abstract

‘Tsotsitaal’ is one of a number of names given to a language phenomenon

common to the major urban centres and, increasingly, rural towns of

South Africa. The phenomenon involves a set of lexical items that are

implanted into whichever South African language is being spoken. It is

alternately known as, among others, Iscamtho, Flaaitaal, isiTsotsi, Ringas,

and Kasitaal. It is primarily spoken by black male South Africans, in

particular, township residents who occupy the lower end of the socio-

economic scale in South African society.

Introduction

Not strictly a ‘language’ in the usual sense of the word, ‘Tsotsitaal’ is one

of a number of names given to a language phenomenon common to the

major urban centres and, increasingly, rural towns of South Africa. There

is also evidence that the phenomena extends into neighbouring countries,

particularly Zimbabwe (Ndlovu 2012). The phenomenon involves a set of

lexical items that are implanted into whichever South African language is

being spoken. According to Mesthrie and Hurst (2013:125), a tsotsitaal is

‘essentially a highly stylised slang register of an urban form of [a South

African] language’. It is alternately known as, among others, Iscamtho,

1
Flaaitaal, isiTsotsi, Ringas, Kasitaal etc. Speakers themselves may use a

preferred term, a geographically specific term (e.g. isiTsotsi is common to

Durban), or may not call it by any particular name. Because of these

inconsistencies, the naming of tsotsitaals has been contested in the

literature, with some researchers claiming specific terms for varieties with

particular base or matrix languages (Slabbert & Myers-Scotton 1997).

Current researchers tend to use the lower-case term tsotsitaal to describe

the whole range, while the upper-case name Tsotsitaal is used to refer to

the originating variety from the Johannesburg township Sophiatown in the

1940s and 1950s.

The original variety of Tsotsitaal from the Sophiatown era (also often

referred to as Flytaal/Flaaitaal or Kofifitaal) has been described as

‘essentially a language made up of elements of Afrikaans and other

languages spoken in South Africa’ (Molamu 1995). Molamu suggests that

it was a ‘pidgin’, which derived from a brand of Afrikaans spoken by black

domestic workers, referred to as kombuistaal (‘kitchen language’), and

that it relied on Afrikaans for its base language.

Tsotsitaal was linked to a clothing style worn by young men in the

township, which marked them as ‘streetwise’; so was closely linked to the

rapid urbanization and modernization of the townships of Johannesburg

during that period.

Tsotsitaal and its accompanying clothing style became linked to gangs

who adopted the variety and popularized developments in consumer

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styles. These gangs tended to be involved in criminal activity, and the

name tsotsi, which originally referred to some narrow-bottomed trousers

from the American style ‘zoot-suit’ (Glaser 2000), later came to mean

‘criminal’. Today it is defined in the South African English dictionary to

mean ‘a young black urban criminal’ (Silva 1996).

The term tsotsitaal combines ‘tsotsi’ with ‘taal’ - the Afrikaans word for

language. In this way, the term tsotsitaal came to imply a manner of

speech intimately linked to crime. However, tsotsitaals today are used by

a broad range of speakers in South Africa, and are certainly not restricted

to use by criminals (therefore the phenomenon cannot be classified as

‘argot’).

Tsotsitaal is at its heart a form of youth language similar in purpose to

that described by Rampton (2011) as variously ‘multi-ethnic adolescent

heteroglossia’ or ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’. Rampton critiques

previous characterisations of these varieties in the British context,

suggesting that the relevance of youth is receding and that these varieties

have ’enduring significance’ for speakers. Similarly, the use of tsotsitaal is

not restricted to youth in the South African context, and the use of the

variety continues to have salience in peer groups as speakers grow older.

Tsotsitaal takes the form of a partly-consistent set of lexical items that are

reproduced across a range of base languages around the country. South

Africa has 11 official languages, and tsotsitaals have been reported in the

majority of these (c.f Mulaudzi & Poulos 2001, Cook 2009, Nkosi 2008,

3
Sekere 2004, Rudwick 2005, Mokwana 2009, Mesthrie & Hurst 2013).

There are some indications that the syntax of the base languages are

inflected by the use of tsotsitaals (Gunnink 2012, Hurst & Buthelezi 2012),

and at the least it seems that tsotsitaals always take the most urban form

of the matrix language as their base. As Mesthrie & Hurst describe (2013:

125-126): ‘The base of a tsotsitaal itself is not a standard variety, but

always a partially restructured urban one, often having the most deviant

syntax on this continuum that young speakers can come up with.’

Tsotsitaals involve relexicalisation, often in keeping with what Halliday

(1975), referring to ‘antilanguages’, describes as ‘overlexicalisation’ of

specific fields. Antilanguage is another useful classifier for the linguistic

character of tsotsitaals. In Halliday (1975:570), an antilanguage is

generated by an anti-society, wherein:

‘An anti-society is a society that is set up within another society as a

conscious alternative to it. It is a mode of resistance, resistance

which may take the form either of passive symbiosis or of active

hostility and even destruction. An anti-language is not only parallel

to an anti-society; it is in fact generated by it’.

Antilanguage has been users by authors such as Stone (1995) and

Makhudu (1995) to explain the nature of tsotsitaals.

In terms of status, Rudwick’s (2005) suggestion is that it holds a diglossic

relationship to Zulu in her region of study (Durban). In all its

4
manifestations it is non-prestigious; its very nature as an antilanguage

demands a non-prestigious status, as it is aligned with a subculture.

Tsotsitaals have historically been, and are still linked to particular

gestures, body language, music, clothing, and other ideological lifestyle

markers (Hurst 2009). Hurst (2008) proposed the term ‘stylect’ to

describe the language as a combination of ‘two meanings of ‘style’ –

linguistic styling along with discursive performance – and posits that

tsotsitaal is a lexicon, inseparable from a discursive practice (style), which

results in the construction of a relatively stable identity’ (Hurst & Mesthrie

2013).

Slabbert & Myers-Scotton (1997) proposed a clarification relating to the

base languages of Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho, wherein Iscamtho utilizes an

African language matrix, while Tsotsitaal utilizes an Afrikaans one.

However, this is challenged by African-language varieties that go by the

name of Tsotsitaal, and Afrikaans-based varieties that are called Iscamtho

(Calteaux 1996:213-14). Current research suggests that naming

conventions have little to do with linguistic distinctions, and Mesthrie

(2008) proposes the term tsotsitaals (lower case) for all examples of the

phenomenon, for ease of linguistic description.

Another possible point of confusion or contention concerning tsotsitaals is

the cross-over between urban forms of African languages (e.g. urban

Zulu, urban Xhosa) and the tsotsitaals used in those communities. There

is some agreement that the distinction is a matter of degree, not form, in

5
other words tsotsitaals feature more neologisms and relexification than

the urban varieties. In this way tsotsitaals can be understood as the most

stylized registers of urban forms of African languages in contemporary

urban South Africa. There also appear to be particular lexical items that

are clearly associated with tsotsitaal, and appear across all its different

manifestations (Mesthrie & Hurst 2013). In general there is agreement

that these varieties operate on a ‘continuum’ (Calteaux 1996) in which the

deepest forms are spoken by the least respectable peer groups in the

community, while the lightest forms are known to almost everyone in the

township, and are often indistinguishable from the urban form of the local

African language.

As is common with stylized registers, a speaker will use a deeper or

lighter version depending on who they are speaking to – so for example

speaking to a grandmother or older woman in the community would result

in very few tsotsitaal lexical items being used, while talking to a close

friend in a peer group context would elicit a much higher frequency and

possibly terms known only within young male peer groups. Terms are

innovated locally, with only some terms becoming salient at a national

level, and then being reproduced through media and internal (urban-

urban or urban-rural) migration. Within specific peer groups there may

also be tsotsitaal terms that are known and popular only in the local

context.

As previously mentioned, tsotsitaal originated in the mixed townships of

Johannesburg during the 1940s/50s. It was employed variously for

6
secrecy, to appear ‘streetwise’, to participate in an in-group. Its original

speakers were black Africans, but the phenomenon is thought to have

emerged through contact with Afrikaans-speaking ‘Coloured’ residents of

‘crucial style-generating townships such as Sophiatown and Marabastad

(in Pretoria)’ (Glaser 2000: 70). The term ‘Coloured’ in South Africa

refers to people who are descendants of a mixture of indigenous Khoisan,

indigenous Africans, whites, and slaves brought to South Africa from

islands in the Indian Ocean and other parts of Africa.

Since those early days it has primarily been spoken by black male South

Africans, in particular, township residents who occupy the lower end of the

socio-economic scale in South African society. The use of tsotsitaal has

revolved around the South African ‘street corner’ – a hive of activity in the

poverty-stricken townships of South Africa. Brookes (2004: 188) explains

how young men ‘spend much of their time on the township streets

participating in the network of street‐corner groups that forms the basic

social organizational structure’. She goes on to highlight how mastery of

the latest tsotsitaal repertoire helps men within these contexts to gain and

maintain access and status.

The phenomenon of tsotsitaal appears to be country-wide. Reports on

tsotsitaal varieties are emerging from all the major urban centres, as well

as from some of the smaller rural towns and cities in South Africa and its

neighbouring countries. A current project funded by the South Africa-

Netherlands Project for Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) is

attempting to identify common features and local distinctions between the

7
various regional varieties of tsotsitaal (Hurst 2010-13). However, despite

growing evidence of its impact and spread, the number of speakers of

tsotsitaal is completely unknown. Its nonstandard status means it has not

featured in census data.

Up to this point there has been no evidence to suggest that tsotsitaal can

be described as a first language used by monolingual speakers. Current

research indicates that due to the nature of the phenomenon, fluency in at

least one language (even if the urban form of that language) is a

prerequisite for the use of tsotsitaal. Speakers in the mixed language

townships of Johannesburg are often highly multilingual; in that context

tsotsitaal appears to use a mixed base, employing code-switching. On the

other hand, in the Xhosa-speaking townships of Cape Town speakers may

be (theoretically) monolingual; the tsotsitaal there only requires

proficiency in Xhosa.

However, some recent studies suggest that this picture may be changing,

and that some children in urban townships may be growing up speaking

tsotsitaal itself (Aycard 2007). This picture is however complicated by the

aforementioned crossovers between the urban forms of African languages

and their tsotsitaal registers.

Codification

Tsotsitaals have always been primarily an oral medium. They have never

been standardized, nor taught. However, tsotsitaals have found their way

into some written domains. Some novelists and writers during the

8
Sophiatown era wrote using tsotsitaal, for example, a photo-story called

‘Baby Come Duze’ (baby come closer), written entirely in Tsotsitaal by

Cam Themba was published in the April 1956 issue of Drum. Today, a

number of poets (for example, Ike Mboneni Muila, a member of the poetry

performance group the Botsotso Jesters), use tsotsitaal in their work.

Spelling of tsotsitaal words in written media is often phonetic and

inconsistent. However there has been some limited standardization of

spelling through media and advertising, and modern communication forms

such as mobile texts and social media platforms like facebook are possibly

contributing to stabilization of the written forms. For example, a facebook

page called ‘Ikasi Ringas – School of Tsotsi Taal’ provides a forum where

people share words from their local tsotsitaal varieties, and in the process

also share spellings for tsotsitaal words. Tsotsitaal is written in the Roman

(Latin) alphabet, in common with almost all South African languages.

A dictionary by Louis Molamu (2003) called ‘Tsotsitaal: A dictionary of the

language of Sophiatown’ documents a number of lexical items from the

early variety of Tsotsitaal based on Afrikaans. His dictionary is considered

the authoritative one for the original variety, although it was written many

years after the forced removals of Sophiatown ended the township.

Some more recent popular dictionaries include Township Talk: the

language, the culture, the people: the A-Z Dictionary of South Africa's

Township Lingo by Lebo Motshegoa (2005), and a set of fridge magnets

called ‘Traditional Township Slango’ by Translate SA (2006).

9
There have been some recent calls to standardize tsotsitaal as an official

language, under the assumption that tsotsitaal enables mutual

intelligibility across African languages. This is based on the false premise

that it is a form of ‘contact’ language, or a mixed language primarily

signified by ‘code-switching’ (as in the account of Slabbert & Myers-

Scotton 1997). Because knowledge of the linguistic form actually

presupposes knowledge of at least one other South African language, and

does not ensure mutual intelligibility between varieties of tsotsitaal, this

request currently seems ill-informed.

Social, Cultural and Official Dimensions

As indicated above, tsotsitaal currently has no official or legal status

although calls have been made for it to be recognised as an official

language (Mesthrie & Hurst 2013). There have also been a number of

reports of the use of tsotsitaal in classrooms (Cook 2009, Nkosi 2008), but

the general trend seems to be that school teachers discourage it, although

reports indicate it is sometimes used to explain difficult concepts to

children who have grown up speaking a non-standard/urban form of an

African language.

Tsotsitaal is often used in popular culture. It is spoken on popular radio,

television, and featured in ‘soap operas’. The South African music group

‘Die Antwoord’ released a song called ‘Tsotsi Taal’ in 2012. There have

been a number of advertising campaigns and local brands which have

made use of tsotsitaal lexical items. The most significant recent example

10
is that of a mobile phone network owned by Telkom which was branded

‘8ta’ on its launch in 2010. Interestingly, ‘8ta’ is a shortened ‘sms’ spelling

of the tsotsitaal lexical item ‘heita’ which means hello.

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Websites:

a) Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsotsitaal

b) Ikasi Ringas School of Tsotsi Taal (Facebook page):

https://www.facebook.com/TsotsiTaal?ref=ts&fref=ts

c) South African Informal Urban Language Varieties: The

National Picture – Project website:

https://sites.google.com/site/tsotsitaalresearch/

d) Ike Mboneni Muila:

http://www.othervoicespoetry.org/vol2/botsotso/muila.html

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