Notes on Hlonepha among the Southern Sotho

Discourse, culture and the law

“…Finlayson, 1995) refers to the language of respect for women. While in Xhosa, this phenomenon (known as ukuhlonipha) is expressed in the avoidance, by women, of any syllables that occur in the names of their in-laws (see Finlayson, 1995 on a detailed analysis of this phenomenon), in Sesotho this practice is characterized by lexical substitutions of such names (Kunene, 1958). This cultural phenomenon, originally spelt hlonepha by Kunene (1958), has now become standardized as hlonipha in South African sociolinguistic studies of women's language (e.g.…”

Allusive References and Other‐Oriented Stance in an Affinal Avoidance Register

“…In traditional Datooga society, married women show respect to their senior in‐laws by avoiding not only their names but also the lexical items from which the names derive, as well as similar‐sounding words. This is an example of what Fleming (, 146) has called “referentially based avoidance registers,” which include the well‐known case of hlonipha in several Nguni languages of southern Africa (Finlayson ; Kunene ; Luthuli ), and the affinal avoidance registers of Highland East Cushitic languages of Ethiopia (Treis ) (and see other examples listed in Fleming [, 126]). As in these other cases, Datooga‐speaking women have developed a highly conventionalized avoidance vocabulary to replace taboo words.…”

Linguistic Bearings and Testimonial Practices

“…Linguistic practices are clearly age and gender marked in Southern Africa. For example, in both Nguni and Sotho groupings, women's speech, particularly that of newly-wed women, is (or ought to be) hedged with respect terms and phrasing (see Kunene 1958;Finlayson 1984;Dowling 1988). Known as ukuhlonipha, this form of speech is an ideal-type, linked with behavioural prohibitions.…”