I arrive at my lesson a little early, and catch my student unawares. While he gets his mind in order, and I unpack my stuff, I offer him tea. Yes, I know I’m the guest – but I make myself at home wherever I go. Boarding-school vibes. I say: ufuna nhloboni yethiye? He understands the […]
Tag: word route
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Hláka – Word Route
Sometime this week, I was listening to Ezisematheni (stories-on-the-saliva or on-the-tip-of-the-tongue) when I heard the following phrase: i-NFP iyahlakaza izinhlaka ezintsha e-KZN the NFP is hlakaza-ing new izin-hlaka in KZN So of course my first thought was this: there must be an ideophone lurking at the heart of both those words. And I was right. […]
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Word Route – notha
Does an etymological difference make any difference to the perception of a thing? This is the question I drove home with after Thursday morning’s lesson with Paul. I had introduced a discussion I’d begun with Claire, about the etymology of the word ‘economy’ and its isiZulu translation ‘umnotho’. ‘Economy’ is traditionally derived from the Greek […]
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Word Route – Lee
I found this one while translating, as usual, and noted it down while I searched for ‘intimacy’ and ‘alienation’ (it’s a marriage preparation course – interesting linguistically because so many of the English words relating to romance and love and relationships are based on only two or three roots in isiZulu). When I came to […]
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*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 -ĸuŋga, meaning ‘sift’. And the second centres on what I would argue is the nominalised form of […]
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Word Route – *hlang
When it comes to this word, there are two interesting aspects – the way that the noun is used relative to the creation myths of the amaZulu, and the link with the verb *hlangana. The pictures created by these two aspects are intriguing and evocative – you’ll see why. At the heart of today’s word […]
*ba, *fa, *ga, *hlwa, *kha, *lwa, *ma, *mba, *na, *nya, *pha, *sa, *sha, *sho, *tha, *thi, *va, *wa, *ya, *za & *zwa These are the smallest verbs that there are in isiZulu, although many of them have a huge impact on the language. I have called them ‘monoconsonantal’ because the meaning doesn’t actually lie in […]
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Word Route – *fa
It’s one of the 21 monosyllabic (or, more correctly, monoconsonantal) verbs in isiZulu (which I’ll write more about in another blog post): *ba, *fa, *ga, *hlwa, *kha, *lwa, *ma, *mba, *na, *nya, *pha, *sa, *sha, *sho, *tha, *thi, *va, *wa, *ya, *za & *zwa It has 5 major meanings (and countless idiomatic ones), 8 nominal […]
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Word Route: -vuma
This is by no means a simple word route today (not that they ever are, really) – 23 separate derivations from the original stem, which itself has over 11 subtly different meanings. The history of the word is important – it’s derived from the ur-Bantu root -lûma, meaning ‘to roar’ and ‘to allow’. For its […]
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Word Route: -Lo
Looking at the two letters above, it’s hard to imagine how significant they are in the language of the amaZulu. You may even be thinking I’m crazy, or lost, or both. Let me show you. -lo is the meaning portion (the root) of the noun isilo, which has izilo as its plural. It has numerous […]
uMabhengwane 