Voice on the left, with a loooooong excursus into isiZulu’s preference for the passive. Archaic transitive/intransitive switches in isiZulu, combined with more recent izimpambosi structures.
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Tag: isiZulu
Mehlo madala! It’s been a long time since there’s been a fresh discussion of izaga nesisho here, so I thought we’d talk about izinyoni. Inyoni is one of those isiZulu words that has a high variety of specific words underneath it (338 to be precise), much like utshwala, inja, ibutho and inyoka. The entry in […]
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Khetha
Ngakhetha ukungena ngesango elincane, nokuhamba ngendlela eyingcingo. Emva koKhetho, nasemva kokuba kwaphinda kwacweba iziziba, ngizithola ngihlukile. Izwe lethu libukeka sengathi nalo lihlukile – kunenhlasana yethemba, kungaqhutshekwa emva kweminyaka yenkohlakalo. Kodwa sengiqala ukuwuzwa umehluko kimina. Kusengathi ngaba yisiphungumangathi esalenga iminyaka emoyeni, kwaqhamuka esinye isilwane kunalesiya esangena kusona. Kodwa abakwaziyo bathi isiphungumangathi singathatha iminyaka ukuze okungaphakathi kwaso […]
Umuntu uyakhuluma, kodwa iSilo siyaphefumula. A person speaks, but the ‘Beast’ ‘breathes’. This was just one thing I figured out a little while ago, on the birthday of the current ruling monarch (iSilo) of the amaZulu, uNgangezwe-lakhe, uHlanga-lomhlabathi, uBhejan’ophum’es’qiwini. Out of respect, I shall not refer to this person by his igama. If you are […]
Happy St Patrick’s Day! Make sure you’re wearing into eluhlaza! Blue-green conflation is what I like to call it. Others prefer ‘confusion’ rather than ‘conflation’, and still others talk about ‘Grue’ languages – ones that do not have separate words for those two colours. What matters to me is that my students almost universally react […]
On Wednesday, the report was made public. You must know which one I’m talking about – it’s all anyone can talk about. And while I’m interested in many aspects of it, for me the choice of language on uKhozi FM was… enlightening. You see, two weeks ago, the phrase for ‘state capture’ was ukugwamanqa kombuso. […]
I folded the A3 sheet into 8 rectangular sections, and laid it out in landscape – 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. I arranged four different coloured pens, each for a specific aspect of the exercise. And then, from memory and from various sources scattered around the room, I began to fill […]
There’s been a lot of this lately, in various different forms. Asinavalo. Abanavalo. Uvalo. For those of you needing clarification, here’s a short dissertation on the word. Firstly, it comes from a verb – uku-vala. The verb means the following things: close or shut suppress or deceive; bribe; bluff; cheat protect against evil or use […]
The idea of choice is at the heart of an election. E-leg-ere is a Latin verb, meaning ‘to pick out’ or ‘to select’ from a list of candidates. And the Zulu verb uku-khetha means exactly the same thing. I’ve spoken about it before, I think. I should have, at any rate – my darling wife’s […]
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’, […]
uMabhengwane 