THE TSONGA ARE A BANTU-SPEAKING PEOPLE numbering about 1,200,000 in Mozambique and 700,000 in the Northern Transvaal. They distinguish themselves from the Tonga of Zambia and Rhodesia, and from the Tonga of the Inhambane area, by the use of a prefix; thus, Shangana-Tsonga, Soshangane being the name of a celebrated nineteenth-century Tsonga warlord, and Tsonga meaning "people of the east." Despite many cultural similarities between the Tsonga and the Nguni group (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi), the lack of clicks in the languages suggests that the Tsonga did not participate in that phase of Nguni history when clicks were absorbed from the languages of the aboriginal Bushmen and Hottentots.