Is Khelobedu a language or a dialect?

The primary aim of this article is to investigate whether Khelobedu should be considered a language in its own right or it has correctly been classified as one the dialects Sepedi, referred Section 6(1) Constitution Republic South Africa, 11 official languages Africa. was initiated by dialectal controversy surrounding politics and Dialectology conceptual framework body theory that guides buttresses authors’ point view. purely qualitative nature employed content analysis supplemented focus group interviews with members Modjadji Traditional Council face-to-face 20 university students who ethnically identified themselves Balobedu. Participants for were purposively selected based on their proficiency knowledge about researched phenomenon articulated Creswell Creswell. Based lexical dissimilarities realised between concludes not dialect, but own. findings reveal decision classify dialect Sepedi meant accommodate administrative system apartheid regime, being political exercise which lacked transparency, consultation linguistic justification. It further found decisions speech forms constitute an independent are ideology criteria.