Language · ISO 639-3 nbl · nr
South Ndebele Language isiNdebele seSewula
South Ndebele is a language spoken by about 900,000 people in 1 country. It is written in the Latin script.
Where South Ndebele is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak South Ndebele
Language family
No family classification is available.
Writing system
Latin script
About the South Ndebele language
South Ndebele (isiNdebele seSewula) is spoken by about 900,000 people, which makes it the 485th most spoken language in the world — just behind Guibian Zhuang (1.0 million) and ahead of Welsh (850,000).
Where is South Ndebele spoken?
South Ndebele is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in South Africa (967,081).
South Ndebele is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in South Africa.
Writing system and status
South Ndebele is written in the Latin script.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 nr, ISO 639-3 nbl.
Frequently asked questions about South Ndebele
How many people speak South Ndebele?
Where is South Ndebele spoken?
What is South Ndebele called in South Ndebele?
Is South Ndebele an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.