uMabhengwane
I posted this on FB recently, and there has been some debate. I offer it now to the wider internet. Let me know what you think. Um, in my humble opinion there are a few issues with this poster. 1. I-Johannesburg isn’t a thing. I know that you might be meaning to say ‘Johannesburg Metro’, […]
I was humbled to read the awesome work done in Xitsonga about Mathematics Terminology, and inspired to write this blog. I’m still researching different ways of talking about geometry and rates of change, but numbers are things with which I am familiar. I teach the same lesson in many different ways, depending on whom I’m […]
This is one area in which isiZulu is fundamentally different from isiLungu. In isiLungu, there are tendencies toward creating compound verb-forms using prepositions (partially in the isiJalimani family (verander, income ensovoorts), but also in isiLatini (perfacere, inducere etcetera) and isiGiliki (katabaino, periphrazo kai ta loipa). These verb-forms are quite often paired up with a prepositional […]
The following is a list of words derived from nouns in the ulu- / izin- Noun Class (which I call the Concepts NC). Some of them are Relatives (descriptive things used to draw a relationship between a noun and something else), while others are Adverbs (descriptive things used to enlarge on or modify verbs). Read […]
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 […]
Example from lesson with Josh – Ubungathini? I parsed this as follows: U-be-{wo-}nga-THI-ni? The root of this predicative interrogative sentence is the following: THI, an irregular verb denoting to Say, Speak or Mean. Reading the particles of the verb as it is expressed, the following is the combined meaning: You-contingent-{remote}can-SAY-what? Translated as: What would you […]
The loss of language, and so the imperative to preserve language, is actually a fight about the basic metaphors that make up our world. Language is not just language. Language is also the impetus for culture, in that the metaphors and ways of seeing and being and doing, and even the very structure of each […]
What monoglots, especially English monoglots, fail to realise is just how limited their world is. Their perception of the universe is coloured by the fact that they can only interact with people who speak their language, and they judge people based on how well or badly they speak it. They can only think about the […]