Atlantic-Congo · ISO 639-3 ssw · ss
Swati Language siSwati
Swati is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken by about 2.1 million people in 3 countries. It is an official language of Eswatini. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Swati is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Swati
Language family
- Atlantic-Congo
- Volta-Congo
- Benue-Congo
- Bantoid
- Southern Bantoid
- Narrow Bantu
- East Bantu
- Southern Bantu
- Nuclear Southern Bantu
- Dimsuffix Southern Bantu
- Nguni-Tsonga-Copi
- Nguni (S.40)
- Nuclear Nguni
- Southern Ndebele-Lowland
- Swatic
- Swati
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Swati language
Swati (siSwati) is spoken by about 2.1 million people, which makes it the 297th most spoken language in the world — just behind Mobwa Karen (2.2 million) and ahead of Lango (Uganda) (2.1 million). It belongs to the Atlantic-Congo language family and, more precisely, to the Swatic group within the Benue-Congo branch.
Where is Swati spoken?
Swati is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in South Africa (1.6 million), Eswatini (660,092) and Lesotho (53,461). More than half of the population speaks it in Eswatini — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Swati: South Africa 2.7% (1.6 million), Eswatini 58% (660,092) and Lesotho 2.4% (53,461).
Swati is an official language in 1 country: Eswatini. It also has regional official status in South Africa.
Writing system and status
Swati is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are North Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa, Tsonga, Tswa, Ronga and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ss, ISO 639-3 ssw.
Frequently asked questions about Swati
How many people speak Swati?
Where is Swati spoken?
In which countries is Swati an official language?
What language family does Swati belong to?
What is Swati called in Swati?
Is Swati 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.