Atlantic-Congo · ISO 639-3 ven · ve
Venda Language Tshivenḓa
Venda is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken by about 1.3 million people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Venda is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Venda
Language family
- Atlantic-Congo
- Volta-Congo
- Benue-Congo
- Bantoid
- Southern Bantoid
- Narrow Bantu
- East Bantu
- Southern Bantu
- Nuclear Southern Bantu
- Venda
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Venda language
Venda (Tshivenḓa) is spoken by about 1.3 million people, which makes it the 411th most spoken language in the world — just behind Masaaba (1.3 million) and ahead of Marma (1.2 million). It belongs to the Atlantic-Congo language family and, more precisely, to the Nuclear Southern Bantu group within the Benue-Congo branch.
Where is Venda spoken?
Venda is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in South Africa (1.4 million) and Zimbabwe (109,762).
Share of the population that speaks Venda: South Africa 2.3% (1.4 million) and Zimbabwe 0.6% (109,762).
Venda is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in South Africa.
Writing system and status
Venda 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 Zulu, Tsonga, Xhosa, Southern Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ve, ISO 639-3 ven.
Frequently asked questions about Venda
How many people speak Venda?
Where is Venda spoken?
What language family does Venda belong to?
What is Venda called in Venda?
Is Venda 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.