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Talk:Tsotsitaal and Camtho

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Two problems:

1. the term "patois". This term is generally avoided, except for situations where the speakers of the language themselves chose to use it themselves (as in Jamaica).

2. Ethnologue lists isiCamtho as having second-language speakers only. Assuming this is correct and taking the whole sociolinguistic situations of its speakers into accout, isiCamtho cannot be considered a creole and is therefore a pidgin. (See for example John HOLM: Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, Cambridge University Press 2004).

I suggest a) removing the term "patois" and replacing it by "language" and b) removing the term "creole" from the second sentence and rephrasing the sentence. If there are no objections, I will edit the article to that effect.

--Bulbul 01:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am under the impression that it is spoken as a first language for many. I am surprised to hear that Ethnologue says this isn't the case. They may very well be right. --AStanhope 05:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm South African, and I have never heard of anybody speaking it (or claiming to speak it) as a first language, so I have taken the liberty of removing the creole part. Elf-friend 10:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Thank you.--AStanhope 14:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like Thuglingo as an easy English equivalent.. Gregorydavid 15:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The word is used in Sesotho slang, not in the standard language itself. I can't tell you exactly where it comes from, though. Is someone willing to change the text? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 16:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That new link to an entry on "fly", which redirects to Ethnologue, is dodgey. The corresponding Ethnologue page says that Tsotsitaal is Afrikaans-based, which it isn't. And the Ethnologue link at the bottom of the page says it's Zulu-based, which is closer to the truth. How can it be both? Joziboy 18:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When was the last time ethnologue got anything right? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 19:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue appears to differentiate between Tsotsitaal (fly) and Camtho (cmt); whether this is a legitimiate distinction is unclear – and would quite possibly be unclear to a linguist on the ground, given the nature of the language[s]. -Ahruman 18:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fly (or Flaai) was the old Sophiatown mixed language, it had an Afrikaans base. I saw an interview with Miriam Makeba (or maybe another singer of the same era) talking about Sophiatown culture of the 1950s where she spoke of "fly-taal". Roger (talk) 21:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue categorizes isiCamtho not as a pidgin but as a mixed language and according to Wikipedia the difference is:

"A mixed language differs from a pidgin in that its speakers are fluent, even native, speakers of the languages involved in the mixture whereas a pidgin develops when groups of people with no knowledge of each other's languages come into contact and have need of a basic communication system"

Is it really a pidgin or maybe a mixed language? 87.78.251.148 23:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a perculiar slang spoken by people who speak many languages, but are not perfectly fluent in all of them. I'm not sure what that makes it, but I don't really care for these labels.

Also, this article ignores an extremely important point: the fact that Tsotsitaal is not an independent language but is rather used within the context of other languages (either a mixture of Sesotho and Setswana, as used eg in some regions of Soweto, or the more popular variety based on isiZulu). "Tsotsitaal" itself is a different vocabulary and general attitude based on the township culture.

Eg the Tsotsitaal spoken by S'bu on the weekly game show "Friends like these" on SABC 1 (I believe it's on every Friday at 19:00) is the first variety while the language used on many Kwaito songs is the second variety.

So yes, this article does actually need quite a bit of work. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 00:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could Tsotsitaal be desribed as a type of "structured/formalised" code-switching between 3 or more languages? With the choice of languages in the mix depending on the speaker's preference/fluency in each? (Ordinarily code-switching involves only 2 languages.) Roger (talk) 21:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is very confusing. It says that Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho have two different origins in one place but in another says that Tsotsitaal was originally known as Iscamtho. Iscamtho is redirected to Tsotsitaal and the info box says Tsotsitaal use died out in the 1980s.

I propose that an Iscamtho article be created and that this one have the Iscamtho sections be removed. Tsotsitaal is apparently a dead language and Iscamtho is a growing one. Bob (talk) 17:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Camtho is evidently Zulu- (or at least Nguni-) based, while Tsotsitaal is Afrikaans-based. So yes, they should be separate articles. I don't know anything about them, though. — kwami (talk) 07:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't this have qualified as a cant, at least originally? Prinsgezinde (talk) 13:19, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]