Tsotsi Taal

The term directly translate to "Criminal language". This is a vernacular derived from a variety of mixed languages, mainly spoken in the townships all over South Africa.

Each Kasi has its own tsotsi taal or its own way of speaking, meaning tsotsi taal from Soweto might differ from that of Pitori.

Teacher: You cannot speak that Tsotsi Taal in my class. Here we speak proper English.

1818

The lethal vodka that is produced by Sminnorf.

She was downing 1818, that's why she's this drunk.

Ayisecace

A Xhosa term for "It's so obvious". It is mostly used when someone asks something that is very obvious.

Girl 1: I know it's lockdown, but are you really going to buy a Smirnoff 1818 for R500?

Kasi

A South African slang term for township.

I come form ekasi.

Fede

A term generally used as an informal greeting around Gauteng. Chances are no one will know how to reply to you if you use this term anywhere other than Gauteng.

Sharp fede majita, dintshang da?

Hoezit

Slang word for "how is it". It comes from the Afrikaans term "Hoe is dit" and people just decided to change the spelling.

Man 1: Eita da, hoezit?

Diski

Kasi term that refers to soccer/football.

Everyone in my neighbourhood loves diski.

Mkhaba

A Zulu term that refers to a huge belly, mostly seen in tenderpreneurs. Sotho people can spell it as mokhaba.

Stomach in, chest out. Umkhaba must fall.

Tenderpreneur

In South Africa, a tenderpreneur is a person in government or the private sector who obtains private or government tenders and contracts to facilitate outsourced services. You see them by their huge mkhaba, flashy cars and expensive clothes and alcohol.

That mkhaba is not normal. It's definitely a mkhaba of a tenderpreneur.

SBWL

Sbwl is a Xhosa shorthand for “sabaweli”. Sabaweli, which in turn is a shorthand of “andisabaweli, andisayibaweli, etc.”, is built from the root word “ukubawela” which means to crave, want, desire, wish for, fancy, yearn, etc.

1. Umntu wakho xa ebona mna, uthi sbwl. >> When your person sees me, s/he says sbwl.