Discourse analysis is about asking two questions about word choice (diction) and sentence structure – “why?” and “why not?”. For example: “WHY did the ANC choose to use the word hlanganyela on their isiZulu election posters?” and “WHY did the ANC choose NOT to use other words for togetherness on their isiZulu election posters?” The […]
Category: Linguistics / ubuLimi
It’s been four months since our last lesson. I realise that as my brain sends the car down unconscious turns, around familiar doglegs and across cautious intersections, through the streets spattered unexpectedly ngomkhemezelo-nje, ngovivi lokusa. The radio plays in the background – Ezanamuhla on uKhozi FM, JGZ spouting promises of an end to corruption while union leaders […]
Waking up to the rain, on this morning of all mornings, this word is in my head. Usually, it’s accompanied – esikaNandi. In recorded Zulu memory, the greatest lamentation ever felt is idiomatically captured as “the lamentation of Nandi”. EsikaMadiba. Namuhlanje sikhala isililo sikaMadiba. isiLilo is the wailing, the lamentation, over the dead. It consumes […]
<<recording starts>> Post Mortem Recording 1a. November, 2012. Subject(s): 4 suspected victims of the ‘Blue House’ serial-killer Scene of Crime: Atholl-Oaklands Road, near Melrose Arch, Gauteng Presiding Doctors: Dr S’khovana and Dr S’khothane ———————- “Scalpel, Dr S’khothane” “Of course, Dr S’khovana” “I am now making the first vertical incision along the sternum. Note that there appears […]
This is a moon with three names – uMandulo, uMpande & iSokanqangi. andula – the herald, the harbinger, the rituals to bring about fertility, the kites wheeling like whirlwinds in the sky. this name was adopted after the accession of uMpande to the throne, as an isihlonipho. Before Cetshwayo’s father, youngest son of uSenzangakhona, acceded […]
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O- (12 iziqu)
ngesiZulu, very few iziqu (word stems) begin with the sound ‘O’. The sound is used very often elsewhere in the language, as it the result of a coalescence of ‘A’ and ‘U’ and it is the prefix for plurals of all names, many family members and some borrowed titles (like omama, ogogo, othisha etc) – […]
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Today’s oddest isihloko
I tweeted this isihloko this morning: Ugibelise obephethe ikhanda lomuntu (She gave a ride to a person who was in possession of a person’s head). This definitely wins the “oddest story from today” prize. So here’s a précis/translation of the story (credit to Themba Ntshingila): Mrs Zwane and her husband, from Newcastle, were driving home […]
In trying to explain the way that words are modified ngesiZulu, I often find that the words that isiZulu uses for grammatical terms are far more useful than their English equivalents. The two words above both denote ‘suffixal change’, but they have completely different ways of getting there. isijobelelo – a suffix (literally the modifiable […]
Last week I began with -bomvu, only to be interrupted by the horrors of living in a world where a little girl can almost be raped by a man who’s only defence is that he’s drunk. I’m going to move on now, in the hopes that this will be somewhat therapeutic. Red is -bomvu, as […]
Just to be safe, I’m stating this up front – this is not a blog about the US spying on everything we do (although the principle is almost exactly the same). This is a blog about one of my favourite occupations as an undercover polyglot in South Africa, and about the flip-side of it: eavesdropping […]