A LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION OF LANGUAGE VARIETIES IN VENDA

VENDA LANGUAGE VARIETIES In this work, it has been noted that the term 'dialect' is far too restricted in its application to account for the various spoken forms which characterised Venda language. Hence the term 'language variety' has been introduced in this study to address the shortcomings of the traditional approach to language differences. In addition, the term 'variety' can be interpreted in a wider sense to refer to various speech varieties, be they of illiterate, women, men, juveniles, the educated, religious groups and others, and at the same time it also includes members of a community located in a particular area, i.e. as covered by the tradtional term 'dialect'. There is no doubt that the term 'variety' is an umbrella term which includes amongst others, dialects as well.