Talk:National anthem of South Africa

Link
Without the Afrikaans and english it is not the national anthem of South Africa thus the link should be removed as it plays some song that is not the official anthem of South Africa!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.90.105.63 (talk • contribs) 11:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

On respecting primary sources
Dwo,

Have you taken a look at the external links at the bottom of this article and read them? Was not this article an almost verbatim copy of the prime source? .... hunting for and removing two … letters from articles which numerous South Africans find acceptable (just like changing instances of kilometers to miles, this is truly not productive).

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * — D. Wo. 00:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The primary sources on included in this article use Sotho along with Sesotho. Since the article for this language is located at Sotho language instead of Sesotho, it is fitting that this article use Sotho. Besides, unless the article is directly quoting the sources in question, there is no need to retain the original words verbatim. — D. Wo. 21:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I was about to offer a third opinion per your request, but I see that there is no dispute. Unless you are in dispute with another editor, 3O is not relevant. For what it is worth, I visited the Sotho article and found "Sesotho is, and has always been, the name of the language in the language itself, and this term has come into wider use in English and other non-Bantu languages since the 1980s", which confirms what I had thought.  Adrian  M. H.  22:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * ( Interjection: The dispute was hard to see because a post had been removed.) — Athaenara ✉ 04:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is all news to me... o.O?

I think the main difference of opinion here (and I'm trying to be nice) is about whether or not the popularity of view is a pointer of its correctness, though this is obviously a lot more complicated than that as revealed e.g. in some edit summaries etc.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 22:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Having read the Third Opinion request, I believe that Sotho is the correct term to use. I say this because this is the English wikipedia, and in general English names should be used, particularly in articles dealing with countries as multi-lingual as South Africa. Otherwise, for example, we would need to makes changes such as "Zulu" to "isuZulu", and arguably a great deal more, until eventually it would become impossible to read the article without knowing many languages. There might also be cases where two non-English languages could be argued to be the "right" language to use. According to WP:ENGLISH, English is the language to be used in cases of doubt. SheffieldSteel 00:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

And I put it to you that Sesotho is a perfectly acceptable and commonly used name in the English name. I believe that "Sotho" is more confusing in an article as it can mean quite a lot of things (Sesotho language, Basotho, Northern Sotho, Sepedi, Sotho-Tswana, Sotho-Tswana languages) although "Sesotho" can ultimately only refer to one thing.

There are numerous arguments I've made about this all over Wikipedia, more numerous and less condescending and empty than "WP is in English", and I ask all involved to please do their research first, because I'm tired. Thank you.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 09:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * By your reasoning, the official national languages of Canada should be English and Français. I'm sorry to hear that you have had to make arguments all over wikipedia on the subject. I suggest you concentrate your efforts on renaming the Sotho language page to Sesotho language, after which you will have a very strong precedent for changing this and every other case - I for one would certainly have no opposition to changing the entry on this page, assuming you can get agreement for the above move. SheffieldSteel 19:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the Canadian constitution -- does the English version say that the official languages are "English and French" or "English and Francais"? The South African constitution speaks of "Sesotho." That's yet another point I've raised repeatedly which everyone seems to ignore. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 20:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Third opinion
This seems pretty clear to me, and I am unsure why there is even a debate. The primary source from the South African government is in English, and it uses the term "Sesotho" - in fact "Sotho" doesn't appear anywhere on that page. I agree above that "Sotho" would be ambiguous in this context. =Axlq 04:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Inaccuracies
First of all, people, I would like to know whether any of you are actually South African? If not, please do not argue about languages you will never come into contact with, and have not grown up with and around.

My second point is that, while you have all been arguing about something which you know nothing about, frankly, inaccuracies have been added to this page, such as the English "bridge" between the Sesotho and Afrikaans verses. The editor who made that edit is not qualified to edit pages about South Africa, because they have listened to the anthem and decided that the so called "bridge" (the 'South Africa - South Africa' section) is in fact English. This is a personal insult, because people unqualified are editing a page about the national anthem of my home country. If you are not South African, please DO NOT comment, edit or otherwise try to double-step and think ahead of others, you do not have the required social and geographical heritage and backgrounds to do such.

My point overall, probably, is that unqualified people should stay away, and the people who perhaps believe yourselves qualified should worry about real and large mistakes such as the one I have brought to attention and edited, rather than mere language points, ones which you shouldn't be arguing over and aren't qualified to argue over. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.171.197.52 (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

neo-modal
What does neo modal mean? 213.136.61.140 (talk) 15:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I also have no idea whatsoever! Can this be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.121.239.110 (talk) 13:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I hereby declare this discussion page neo-modal, by virtue of being the only one that does not finish in the home key. / 213.136.61.140 (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The translation into English
The purpose of the second column of the table with the English translation is to show what the words in the first column actually mean in English. Yes, I know the old national anthem had an official translation into English for the existing Afrikaans text, but that was a stylised translation and did not reflect what the Afrikaans literally meant. -- leuce (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC) Direct translation makes little sense here, and considerable trouble was made to capture Langenhoven's sentiment in English. For instance "echoing crags resound" is a far more precise equivalent of Langenhoven than simply transliteration of the original words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.143.123.66 (talk) 04:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

1994 version
I have heard somewhere (can't remember where and when though) that besides the 1997 hybrid version, the 1994 version (with the stanza removed in 1997 from Die Stem) is also still in use sometimes. And that it's even allowed to play Nkosi sikelele Afrika and Die Stem seperatly. Does anyone know? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't know about that, but the hybrid version has been in use since at least February 1997 even though it was published in the Gazette in October '97. I saw a video from February '97 that had it in it. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 14:47, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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Which languages?
According to this article, the last two lines of the first verse are in Zulu language. However, the article on the Xhosa language hymn these strem from, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, has these two lines with the exact same words and states the entire hymn is in Xhosa language. So which language are these lines in then?Tvx1 16:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Xhosa and Zulu are mutually intelligible to some degree. Sheila1988 (talk) 17:34, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Could the pronunciation be added? I can't find a source, but this is onthe Italian wiki:

Sheila1988 (talk) 17:34, 1 August 2020 (UTC)