Silozi - English Dictionary

Author: Barotseland
Publisher: Barotseland
Number of pages: 535Silozi - English Dictionary. A language of Zambia
The earliest known language spoken by the Luyi peoples who came to the the Upper Zambezi Valley in a stepped migration from the Katanga region sometime in the sixteenth/seventeenth century is known as Siluyana. This language was spoken by all the peoples who were absorbed into the Luyi family up to the time of the invasion of the Makololo in the late 1820s/1830s. The Makololo were a fairly mixed group of people by the time they moved into Barotseland but were led by a stong Sotho speaking clan headed by their charismatic and highly respected leader, Sibituane.
By the time of the overthrow of this Sotho clan by a Luyi force led by Njekwa in 1864, the name of the Luyi had become Lozi, a name given to the Luyi by the Makololo, and the lingua franca of the country had become Sikololo, based on Sesotho but with considerable input from the old Siluyana language of the Luyi.