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 intelligable.
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. A Zulu independent kingdom existed already in 1832.
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.
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 basepulazi bayayigawula.
- 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? |
| Uyangingasiza? | Can you help me? |
| 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 seperate 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 / uMzantsi Afrika
- Durban - iTheku (eThekwini)
- Johannesburg - iGoli (eGoli)
- Cape Town - iKapa (eKapa)
- Pretoria - iPitoli (ePitoli)
- Overseas - phesheya
On the usage of the name 'Zulu'
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 root word 'Zulu' can take many forms in Zulu, for example: KwaZulu = 'place of the Zulu' (KwaZulu-Natal is a province of the Republic of South Africa), umZulu = a Zulu person, amaZulu = Zulu people, izulu = weather/sky/heaven, phezulu = on top/above. Hence for native speakers the prefix isi- is necessary to distinguish the Zulu language from other forms of the word. However, since English grammar does not use prefixes such as isi-, the conventional name in English is merely 'Zulu'.
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
- Nguni culture
- Bantu language
- Tsotsitaal - a Zulu-based creole language spoken in Soweto
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
| Official Languages of the Republic of South Africa | 
| |
|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | English | Ndebele | Sepedi | Sesotho Tswana | Swazi | Tsonga | Venda | Xhosa | Zulu |
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