The Batswana (singular Motswana) in Southern Africa speak the Tswana language which is also known as Setswana.
The largest number of Batswana live in South Africa, and until 1994 were notionally citizens of the bantustan of Botswana, and the word is sometimes used to cover all citizens of Botswana.
In the 19th century, a common spelling and pronunciation was Bechuana, and the area where they lived was known as Bechuanaland.
It would appear that the forerunners of the movement were the Bakalahari and Balala, who were subsequently reduced to the condition of serfs by the later arrivals, and who by intermingling to a certain extent with the aborigines gave rise to the "Kalahari Bushmen" (see Kalahari Desert).
The Bechuana proper consist of a large number of tribes, whose early history is extremely confused and involved owing to continual inter-tribal wars and migrations, during which many tribes were practically annihilated.
The Bechuana language, which belongs to the Bantu linguistic family, is copious, with but few slight dialectic differences, and is free from the Hottentot elements found in the Kaffir and Zulu tongues.
There is no certainty however, about the timing or the route followed by those who moved south from Kaokoland into the south western and
That there was contact with the Bechuana, who in earlier times were in areas northeast of Okahandja, is generally accepted as the time of their arrival in the Okahandja district, which is estimated as about 1790.
During the last ten to fifteen years of the 19th century, the Herero settled down in the areas around Okahandja, Waterberg/Okakarara and eastwards, Omaruru and Otjimbingwe.
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