I understand it now. When you’re faced with guilt, the automatic response is complete and utter denial. That explains Mr Shifty’s (aka Msholozi’s) actions of late. He’s issuing a programmatic response in accordance with this bit of wisdom, this isaga. Here’s how it works. First, icala (3.2.2-8.9): anything wrong, deserving of complaint; a defect. a […]
Category: umbhudulo
It was with some surprise that I heard the news – uKhongolose is intending to charge Malema with treason. Surprise turned to curiosity (of course) about the linguistic aspects of the word. Treason. Firstly, the technical term for the charge (in Latin, of course) is maiestas. As a legal concept, it’s as old as the […]
When I get to this word, in that first explanation of the complex beauty of the izigaba zamabizo, I can barely contain my excitement. I’m sure that people I’ve taught can attest to this. I try my hardest to keep to the Socratic method, and to rely on the learner’s knowledge. This is important. It’s […]
The last time I looked at the election posters, I focused on a subtle difference in word choice. The ruling party chose a verb that signified a gang mentality, overpowering a submissive public into continuing to vote for them. The blue house chose something different, opting for using isiZulu’s penchant for reciprocity. This time round, […]
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uku-val-el-is-an-a
Since I haven’t yet written a proper post about izimpambosi, I must begin this one with an apology – although this will serve as a practical explication of the concept. Yesterday, I navigated the northern channels of the Jozi vascular system, charting a course once again along roads named after dead white men until I […]
Today, the last in the month of uMandulo, there are people marching against corruption. They are marching in all the major centres of Mzansi. Elsewhere I have spoken about the connection between forgetting, deception and corruption. It is a complex dance of backward glances, envelopes under the table and vocal dissimulation, designed to perpetuate an […]
I’ve been wanting to write about these for a very long while already. They have always fascinated me, and I believe that they are the heart of isiZulu. For all of you who don’t know what an ideophone is, I’ll explain here. For those of you that know already, proceed to the next paragraph. Let’s […]
WARNING / ISEXWAYISO – NSFW / AkuVunyelwe emSebenzini In teaching someone a language, there are those discussions which step directly into (or onto) taboos – words for different forms of sex, heinous insults involving mothers and their pudenda, and this one, about excrement. There is no way to avoid the taboos, and I think that […]
1994. Three things happened that year, in my life. I’ve been thinking of those three things a lot today, remembering that day 21 years ago when we watched the news at school and saw the snaking multicoloured lines of people casting the first free ballot ever. I knew what that meant, then. I was only […]
Iconoclasm – etymology: Ancient Greek, eikono-klazo (statue-smash). I’ve been listening to, and reading, reports on our recent spate of statue-phobia ngesiZulu recently – it’s been difficult not to do so, what with catchy hashtags and clashing rhetoric and escalating levels of mutual disrespect becoming the order of things. Iconoclasm is tricky business, you see. Whose icons do […]
uMabhengwane 