Gauteng

Gauteng (Merriam-Webster Online. They transcribe it , with the stress on the first syllable, but the audio file is , with the stress on the second; the latter more closely matches the Sotho. or ; ) is ane o the nine provinces o Sooth Africae. It wis formit frae pairt o the auld Transvaal Province efter Sooth Africae's first aw-race elections on 27 Aprile 1994. It wis initially namit Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (or PWV) an wis renamit 'Gauteng' in December 1994.

Situatit in the hert o the Highveld, Gauteng is the smawest province in Sooth Africae, wi anerlie 1.4% o the land aurie, but it is heichlie urbanised, containin the ceeties o Johannesburg an Pretoria.  , it haed a population of nearly 10.5 million, makin it the maist populous province in Sooth Africae.

Etymology
The name Gauteng comes frae the Sesotho wird meanin "Place o Gowd", the historical Sesotho name for Johannesburg an surroondin auries.  This referred tae the thrivin gowd industry in the province follaein the 1886 discovery o gowd in Johannesburg. The Sesotho wird is a locative derived frae the Afrikaans goud (gowd) plus the locative suffix "-ng."  When properly pronoonced, the first letter o the name Gauteng is a voiceless velar fricative, pronoonced similarly tae the "ch" in the German achtung or Scots loch.  This pronunciation is naitural in baith the Sesotho an Afrikaans leids.

References


Category:Provinces o Sooth Africae
Category:States an territories established in 1994