Zulu language
| Zulu | |
|---|---|
| isiZulu | |
| Native to | South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland |
| Region | Zululand, Durban, Johannesburg |
Native speakers | First language - 10 million Second language - 25 million |
| Official status | |
Official language in | South Africa |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | zu |
| ISO 639-2 | zul |
| ISO 639-3 | zul |
Zulu (isiZulu in Zulu), is a language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population) as well as being understood by over 50% of the population (Ethnologue 2005). It became one of South Africa's 11 official languages in 1994 at the end of apartheid.
Geographical distribution
Zulu belongs to the South-Eastern group of Bantu languages (the Nguni group).
The language is widely spoken in KwaZulu-Natal (81% of the province's population are Zulu first language speakers), Mpumalanga (26%) and Gauteng (21%). It is also spoken in some other African countries, with significant Zulu-speaking populations in Lesotho and Swaziland. Ndebele, spoken in Zimbabwe, Swazi and the Ngoni language formerly spoken in Malawi are all closely related to Zulu and developed from nineteenth century Zulu migrant populations. Xhosa, the predominant language in the Eastern Cape, and Zulu are also mutually intelligible.
History
The original Zulu homeland seems to have been in the region of modern Tanzania. The Zulu presence in South Africa dates from about the fourteenth century AD. Much like the Xhosa who had moved into South Africa during earlier waves of the Bantu migrations, the Zulu assimilated many sounds from the San and Khoi languages of the country's earliest inhabitants. This has resulted in the preservation of click consonants in Zulu and Xhosa, (the sounds are unique to Southern Africa) despite the extinction of many San and Khoi languages.
Zulu, like all indigenous Southern African languages, was an oral language until contact with missionaries from Europe, who documented the language using the Latin alphabet. The first written document in Zulu was a Bible translation that appeared in 1883. In 1901 John Dube (1871-1946), a Zulu from Natal, created the Ohlange Institute, the first native educational institution in South Africa. He was also the author of Insila kaChaka, the first novel written in Zulu (1933). Another pioneering Zulu writer was Reginald Dhlomo, author of several historical novels of the 19th-century leaders of the Zulu nation: : U-Dingane (1936), U-Shaka (1937), U-Mpande (1938), U-Cetshwayo (1952) and U-Dinizulu (1968). Other notable contributors to Zulu literature include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi and, more recently, Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali.
The written form of Zulu is controlled by the Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal.
Contemporary Usage
Like most indigenous languages, Zulu was largely ignored by the apartheid governments, and all education in the country was in English or Afrikaans. Since the demise of apartheid in 1994, Zulu has been enjoying a marked revival. The SABC now broadcasts shows in Zulu, and there has been a proliferation of Zulu radio programmes and newspapers in the country's two largest cities, Johannesburg and Durban. Recently, the first full length feature film in Zulu (Yesterday) was nominated for an Oscar.
South African matriculation requirements no longer specify which South African language needs to be taken as a second language, and many people have made the switch to learning Zulu. This, coupled with the mutual intelligibility of many Nguni languages, has increased the likelihood of Zulu becoming the lingua franca of the Eastern half of the country. (The predominant language in the Western Cape and Northern Cape is Afrikaans - see the map below)
Phonology
One of the most distinctive features of Zulu is the use of click consonants. This feature is shared with several other languages of Southern Africa, but is almost entirely constrained to this region. There are three basic clicks in Zulu:
These can have several variants such as being voiced, aspirated or nasalised so that there are a total of about 15 different click sounds in Zulu. The same sounds occur in Xhosa, where they are used more frequently than in Zulu.
Like the great majority of other Bantu and African languages, Zulu is tonal; that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said with a rising or falling or high or low intonation. Unfortunately, like nearly all other such languages, it is conventionally written without any indication of tone. As a rough rule of thumb, drop the voice on the next-to-last syllable of each word, and lengthen that syllable as well.
Grammar
Some of the main grammatical features of Zulu are:
- Constituent word order is Subject Verb Object.
- Morphologically, it is an agglutinative language.
- As in other Bantu languages, Zulu nouns are classified in fifteen morphological classes (much like masculine and feminine nouns in certain European languages), with different prefixes for singular and plural. Various parts of speech that qualify a noun must agree with the noun according to its morphological class. These agreements usually reflect part of the original class that it is agreeing with. An example of this is the use of the class 'aba-':
- Bonke abantu abaqatha basepulazini bayagawula.
- All the strong people of the farm are felling (trees).
- Here, the various agreement that qualify the word 'abantu' (people) can be seen in effect.
- Its verbal system shows a combination of temporal and aspectual categories in their finite paradigm. Typically verbs have two stems, one for Present-Indefinite and another for Perfect. Different prefixes can be attached to these verbal stems to specify subject agreement and various degrees of past or future tense. For example, in the word uthanda ("he loves"), the Present stem of the verb is -thanda, and the prefix u- expresses third-person singular subject.
- Suffixes are also put into common use to show the causitive or reciprocal forms of a verb stem.
- Most property words (words which are encoded as adjectives in English) are morphologically verbs, such is the sentence umuntu uBomvu ("the person is red"), the word uBomvu (root -Bomvu) behaves exactly as a verb, including the agreement prefix u-, as in the example above.
Phrases
The following is a list of phrases that can be used when visiting a region where the primary language is Zulu.
| Sawubona | Hello, to one person |
| Sanibonani | Hello, to a group of people |
| Unjani? / Ninjani? | How are you (sing.)? / How are you (pl.)? |
| Ngiyaphila / Siyaphila | I'm okay / We're okay |
| Ngiyabonga (kakhulu) | Thanks (a lot) |
| Ngubani igama lakho? | What is your name? |
| Igama lami ngu... | My name is... |
| Isikhathi sithini? | What's the time? |
| Ngingakusiza? | Can I help you? |
| Uhlala kuphi? | Where do you stay? |
| Uphumaphi? | Where are you from? |
| Hamba kahle / Sala kahle | Go well / Stay well (used as goodbye) |
| Hambani kahle / Salani kahle | Go well / Stay well, to a group of people |
| Eish! / Hhayibo | Wow! (both used in South African English too) |
| Yebo | Yes |
| Cha | No |
| Ukhuluma isiNgisi na? | Do you speak English? |
| Ngisaqala ukufunda isiZulu | I've just started learning Zulu |
Sample Text
(From the preamble to the South African Constitution)
Thina, bantu baseNingizimu Afrika, Siyakukhumbula ukucekelwa phansi kwamalungelo okwenzeka eminyakeni eyadlula; Sibungaza labo abahluphekela ubulungiswa nenkululeko kulo mhlaba wethu; Sihlonipha labo abasebenzele ukwakha nokuthuthukisa izwe lethu; futhi Sikholelwa ekutheni iNingizimu Afrika ingeyabo bonke abahlala kuyo, sibumbene nakuba singefani.
Translation:
We, the people of South Africa, Recognise the injustices of our past; Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
Common place names in Zulu
Zulu place names usually occur in their locative form, which combines what would in English be separate prepositions with the name concerned. This is usually achieved by simply replacing the i- prefix with an e- prefix (for example, 'eGoli' translates literally as 'to/at/in/from Johannesburg' when iGoli is simply Johannesburg), but changes in the name can also occur (see Durban below). The locatives are given in brackets.
- South Afrika - iNingizimu Afrika / uMzansi Afrika
- Durban - iTheku (eThekwini)
- Johannesburg - iGoli (eGoli)
- Cape Town - iKapa (eKapa)
- Pretoria - iPitoli (ePitoli)
- Overseas - phesheya
The 'Zulu'/'isiZulu' debate
Native speakers of the language tend to refer to it as 'isiZulu', since isi- is the prefix associated with languages (e.g., isiNgisi = English, isiXhosa = Xhosa, isiBhunu = Afrikaans, isiJalimane = German, etc.).
The name 'isiZulu' is becoming increasingly popular in South African English as well. However, many argue that, since German is not known as Deutsch in English (or French as Français, etc.) that Zulu should continue to be known in English by its English name (Zulu).
The reason for the debate is that the root word Zulu can take many forms in Zulu and that the specific prefix is necessary to distinguish one form from the other. Here is a table comparing the shifts in meaning for the root Zulu and ntu corresponding to changes in the prefix.
| Prefix | -zulu | -ntu |
|---|---|---|
| um(u) | umZulu (a Zulu person) | umuntu (a person) |
| ama, aba | amaZulu (Zulu people) | abantu (people) |
| isi | isiZulu (the Zulu language) | isintu (culture, heritage, mankind) |
| ubu | - | ubuntu (humanity, compassion) |
| kwa | kwaZulu (place of the Zulu people) | - |
| i(li) | izulu (the weather/sky/heaven) | - |
| phe | phezulu (on top) | - |
| e | ezulwini (in, at, to, from heaven) | - |
Zulu words in South African English
South African English has absorbed many words from the Zulu language. Others, such as the names of local animals (impala and mamba are both Zulu names) have made their way into standard English. A few examples of Zulu words used in South African English:
- Muti (from umuthi) - medicine
- Donga (from udonga) - ditch (udonga actually means 'wall' in Zulu)
- Indaba - conference (it means 'an item of news' in Zulu)
- Shongololo (from ishongololo) - millipede
- Ubuntu - compassion/humanity
See also
- Zulu (the ethnic group)
- Shaka Zulu
- List of Zulu first names
- Nguni culture
- Bantu language
- Tsotsitaal - a Zulu-based creole language spoken in Soweto
- Swadesh list of Zulu words
Sources
Books
- Doke, C.M. (1947) Text-book of Zulu grammar. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
- Wilkes, Arnett, Teach Yourself Zulu. ISBN 0-07-143442-9
External links
- Ethnologue report on Zulu
- South African Languages -- IsiZulu
- Grammars
- Dictionaries
- Newspapers
- Software
- Literature and culture