| Revision as of 12:27, 13 July 2004 editTimwi (talk | contribs)Administrators32,135 editsm →See Also← Previous edit | Revision as of 13:17, 4 August 2004 edit undoBurschik (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users4,827 editsm changed categoryNext edit → | ||
| Line 29: | Line 29: | ||
| * | * | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
Revision as of 13:17, 4 August 2004
Zulu, also known as isiZulu, is a language of the Zulu people with about 9 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most spoken language in South Africa and became one of South Africa's 11 official languages at the end of apartheid.
Zulu is an agglutinative language which is part of the Nguni subfamily of the Bantu family of languages. One of its most distinctive features is the use of click consonants. This feature is shared with several other languages of Southern Africa, but is almost unique to this region. There are three basic clicks in Zulu:
These can be modified in several ways, eg. by aspiration, 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.
The written form of the language is controlled by the Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal.
The known history of the language is limited, but evidence of the language exists from the sixteenth century.
See Also
- Zulu (the ethnic group)
- Shaka Zulu
- Nguni culture
- Bantu language
Sources
Books
- Teach Yourself Zulu, by Arnett Wilkes. ISBN 0-07-143442-9