Post by Maurice Mackenzie > Nodumo! Isikhova isisilwane esiphila ebusuku, esizingela namehlo alandela izindlebe ezicosha umsindwana ozo veza izilwane ezi phuma sekuhlwile. Sidalwe nobuhlakana olungapezu’kwezinye izilwane. Abadala bathe simela abaphansi ngoba ima sikhala kungathi kumemezana amadlozi noma amandiki. Ngqungqulu ‘dla madoda Translation by Cullen Mackenzie > One-who-thunders-with-thought! The owl is a creature that lives at […]
Category: isiZulu
Categories
*hlung {word route}
There are two separate ideas that converge in this word, along with the strange shapes that they make with your mouth when you say it. The first idea is that of ‘winnowing’ or sifting, from the ur-Bantu stem -ĸuÅ‹ga, meaning ‘sift’. And the second centres on what I would argue is the nominalised form of […]
Headline from November 1st’s Isolezwe: Waphuza ugologo wadlwengula ugogo. Horrific but rhetorically interesting. The phrase contains homoeoarxheia (words sharing the same prefix), alliteration (words sharing consonants), assonance (words sharing vowel-sounds) and it scans as a pair of semi-inverted 7-beat dactylic pentameters: {long-short-short / short-short-long / short} where Greek would have : ‘Raspberry Strawberry Jam’ {long-short-short […]
I found a cartoon by Qaps Mngadi from the 4th of December, which you can find on my ‘Political Zulu’ blog here:Â http://politicalzulu.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/zuma-do-you-feel-lucky-punk/
Headline from pg 6 of today’s Isolezwe Newspaper: Bazalela ukuthola imali yeqolo: ucwaningo Translated, this means: They have kids to get welfare money: research Now, apart from the obviousness of this headline, there’s an interesting bit of linguistics, and specifically metonymy. iqolo is ‘the small of the back; the lumbar region’ – so imali yeqolo […]
This is a column in Isolezwe Newspaper, written by Volovolo Memela. He has a crazy style of writing, and is usually very amusing (and sometimes a bit harsh and biting, in the way of all satire). Today’s Ngeso likaVolovolo had the following headline: Ningabhubhudli imali ngoKhisimusi nibhave ngobhiya bese sinibona ngoJanuwari seniphashile! When translated, this […]
This morning, listening to uKhozi as usual on my way to work, I heard the latest incarnation of the ‘No Limits’ adverts for Telkom. And it’s worse. I didn’t think it could be, but it is. It seems that, in their effort to cling to the English phrase ‘No Limits’, they’ve found another word to […]
Categories
uKhozi FM Snippet (1)
Listening to the traffic report this morning on uKhozi FM: “…umgwaqo phakathi kukaKranskop neShowe, lapho kukhona iNtunjambili noKhomo…” It was like a snippet from a Sunday morning memory for me – we had woken early, when the horns of the otter are the only thing above the grey sky, and driven bumping along the dirt, […]
Today I’m cheating a bit – you’ll find the blog on my other page: http://anthrozulu.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/continuum-of-respectful-language/ Of interest in this blog is the way that language is used in different situations, depending on the level of familiarity and respect in the interaction. Enjoy! 🙂
Categories
Abandonment Parsing
When I was walking back from the Southdale centre, tramping through the dust and skirting the fresh puddles from the 3am thunderstorm, I saw MaSibeko approaching (uZodwa). Since we had already greeted each other that morning, she simply continued the conversation from three hours earlier: … sekushiyelekile. It took me a moment to realise what […]
uMabhengwane 