Etymology
The name Gauteng comes from the Sesotho word meaning "Place of Gold", the Sesotho name for Johannesburg and surrounding areas. This referred to the thriving gold industry in the province following the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg. The Sesotho word is a locative derived from the Afrikaans goud (gold) plus the locative suffix "-ng". When properly pronounced, the first letter of the name Gauteng is a voiceless velar fricative, pronounced similarly to the "ch" in the German achtung or Scottish loch and the same as the Dutch "g" or the Spanish "g" as in gente. The sound exists natively in Dutch, Sesotho and Afrikaans.
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