Lesotho Shebeen

Lesotho: Le-su-tu (meaning country of mountains, an independent country inside the country of South Africa); Basotho: Ba-su-tu (the term used to refer to the people who live in Lesotho, the word actually means high); Sesotho: Se-su-tu (the language spoken by the Basotho people)

We ducked through the low door of the hut and nestled our way into the cramped and dark inner circle lined with benches. The Basotho elders inched toward the front of the hut to make room for us, moving closer to the bucket of brew for which we’d come. A shebeen is a traditional African pub, and this beer had been brewed by hand. The five or six people who sat around the brew all had the look of having passed beyond the counting of years and marking of age. Their faces were deeply lined, their teeth were few, and their smiles wide. They wore the traditional hats and blankets customary in Lesotho and welcomed us by immediately filling a large plastic cup with brown, grainy liquid. As we passed the cup around the circle each of us took a sip. Grains of maize clung to the sides of the white plastic as the liquid sloshed around the cup, and felt as though they’d get stuck in my teeth as I swallowed the lumpy mix. The beer was musky, smelling of corn and fermented fruit, and warm. The cup was passed around twice, as the rolling, quick-paced consonants of Sesotho pushed against the thatched roof and walls of the little hut.

Learned: Sesotho Language

Thank you very much: Ke leboha haholo

Sesotho is amongst the first African languages to be written and has an extensive and growing literature which covers a wide field of human experience. Throughout the years the language has undergone a constant uniform writing method called disjunctive writing. The writing convention in Lesotho differs from that of South Africa although the language is the same.

Sesotho is the only language in the Sotho group which, unlike Setswana and Sepedi, borrows click sounds from the Nguni languages. Sesotho is intelligible to the Batswana and Bapedi. Therefore it may be spoken over a large area in South Africa.

from “South Africa ‘Phrased’: A Quick Reference Guide to South Africa’s Eleven Official Languages