[File:South Africa Northern Sotho speakers proportion map.svg|thumb|Geographical distribution of Northern Sotho in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks a form of Northern Sotho at home. ]] [File:South Africa Northern Sotho speakers density map.svg|thumb|Geographical distribution of Northern Sotho in South Africa: density of Northern Sotho home-language speakers. ]]
Northern Sotho (
Sesotho sa Leboa, also known by the name of its standardized dialect
Sepedi or
Pedi) is a
Bantu language spoken primarily in
South Africa, where it is one of the
11 official languages. According to the
2011 census it was the
first language of 4,618,576 people in South Africa, principally in the provinces of
Limpopo,
Gauteng and
Mpumalanga.