# Dinaane (South African)



## SoleBlu

This is the title of a collection of short stories. Maybe its meaning is 'story/ies' because other titles (in other languages) of the same series mean 'legend' or 'fable' or 'story'. I would like to know which language is, too. I thought it would be in Setswana or Sotho but I can't be sure. Thank you.


----------



## L'irlandais

Hello SoleBlu,
Welcome to the forums.  
In the context of a (2007) book by Maggie Davey, I guess that the language is Tswana (Setswana) as you have suggested :


			
				on-line examples said:
			
		

> South Africian author BJ Rantao has written this book in Tswana
> _*Dinaane* tsa Setswana_  (Published 1988)
> +
> _*Dinaane* Tsa Ga Rona_ (Folklore) by BM Malefo (1993)
> _Ntlhabele *Dinaane*_ (1993) traditional literature by Z.S Dipale
> 
> The word occurs many times on this Unesco webpage about the language :
> eg. Padasi ya *dinaane* tsa Batswana



Unfortunately it doesn't appear in any of these On-line short word lists, so I can't help you with it's meaning :
*Translations* of all 11 official RSA languages

Ciao,

ps : "Teaching for Cultural Relevance and Restoration in the Multi-lingual South African Setting :"
(The Pedagogical Potential of Bi-lingual Setswana-English Stories)
by Karen Haire and D.S. Matjila (2008) translates it once as "stories" but several times it uses an entirely different word for "story".


----------



## SoleBlu

Thank you very much!
I already run into _*Dinaane* tsa Setswana _and the_ Webster's Dictionary _but your links are very useful, at least to put forward a hypothesis!!

Setswana belongs to the Sotho (sub)group. I've found that, in both languages, the plural form can be formed by the prefix *di- *or *din- *so I claimed that the singular form could be something like *_naane._ So I found in a Sesotho dictionary the words:

'*naha*' that means _country, land, region or state, _plural '*dinaha*'
'*nahana*'= _to consider, to think, to reason_
'*nahanelong'= *_to considerate

_Maybe this isn't useful but I trust in one's knowledge!!!


----------



## L'irlandais

Hi SoleBlu,
I know nothing of African languages.  Perhaps this on-line PDF documents may be of help to you :  On page 166 of Karen Haire and D.S. Matjila's study we find this sentence :  





> *Dinaane tse ... *= * These stories *make the Batswana aware that they are products of their culture,


A little further on 





> "Batswana, ka jalo, ba tshwanetse go ithuta gape mo *dinaaneng tse *gonne..." gives "The Batswana can therefore learn from* these stories*, which"


Compare the use of "story" on page 158 of the same study.

*Source*


----------



## SoleBlu

Many thanks L'irlandais. This helps me to confirm my thesis!


----------



## jcoleporter

Dumelang ditsala!
Yes you're right, dinaane is stories. It is similar to diane, which are proverbs. They are traditionally told stories that carry a deeper cultural meaning than just simple stories. 
It's definitely setswana. Setswana and Sesotho have similarities, but are also different in a lot of ways. 
Source: I speak Setswana


----------



## SoleBlu

jcoleporter said:


> Dumelang ditsala!
> Yes you're right, dinaane is stories. It is similar to diane, which are proverbs. They are traditionally told stories that carry a deeper cultural meaning than just simple stories.
> It's definitely setswana. Setswana and Sesotho have similarities, but are also different in a lot of ways.
> Source: I speak Setswana



Wow! Great! I was always afraid that some native speaker would "question" my attempts (I would have to eliminate some pages of my thesis...). Anyway, you would have been welcome the same... Thank you very much!!!
Ps: sorry for my bad English...


----------

