Consonants
The Sotho–Tswana languages are peculiar among the Bantu family in that most do not have any prenasalized consonants and have a rather large number of heterorganic compounds. Sesotho, uniquely among the recognised and standardised Sotho–Tswana languages, also has click consonants acquired from the Khoisan and Nguni languages.
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | ||||||||
| Click | glottalized | ǃˀ | |||||||
| aspirated | ǃʰ | ||||||||
| nasal | ᵑǃ | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Stop | ejective | pʼ | tʼ | kʼ | |||||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | ||||||
| voiced | b | (d)1 | |||||||
| Affricate | ejective | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | |||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tʃʰ | kxʰ / x | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ɬ | ʃ | h ~ ɦ | |||
| voiced | ʒ / dʒ | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||||
| Trill | ʀ | ||||||||
- is an allophone of /l/, occurring only before the close vowels (/i/ and /u/). Dialectical evidence shows that in the Sotho–Tswana languages /l/ was originally pronounced as a retroflex flap before the two close vowels.
Sesotho makes a three-way distinction between lightly ejective, aspirated and voiced stops in several places of articulation.
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Stops
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