Talk:Zulu language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
language Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] isizulu

Zulu is not called isiZulu. Its like saying German is also known as Deutch or French as Français, Spanish as Español. Zulu is isiZulu in Zulu. Furthermore there are good linguistic reasons not to include the prefixes when taking words from prefix based languages. In South Africa there are fearly well established ways in which words from the Bantu languages are taken up into the Germanic ones (English and Afrikaans). The prefix is almost always dropped. And yes, I do speak Zulu. --1 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)

Well, you know that the autonym for Zulu in Zulu is isiZulu. That's why it says "also known as isiZulu". As far as I can see, the article doesn't say that the language "is called isiZulu". The language table to the right, as a rule, includes first the English name for the language (Zulu in this case) and then, between brackets, the native name (autonym), which is isiZulu. See Turkana language and Maasai language for other examples. So, while I fully concur with what you're saying, I don't see why this article warrants this rant. — mark ✎ 1 July 2005 22:11 (UTC)
Ok. I see. My apologies for coming over as a rant - this issue just irritates me a bit. So would you say that Spanish is "also known as" Español? I see the Xhosa article simply says "Xhosa, or isiXhosa", giving a reader no information that it really isn't known as isiXhosa. Wouldn't it be better to mention it later and say that it is an autonym (first time I heard the word), rather than giving the impression that it has two names? --5 July 2005 21:25 (UTC)
Aha, I see your point. No, I wouldn't say that Spanish is "also known as" Español myself — but I don't think it's necessarily incorrect (well, at least I feel less strongly about it than you do). However, yours might be a good idea, feel free to carry it out. As for autonym, and the related endonym (self-name) and exonym (name given by strangers), I've been thinking for a while now that those terms need an article. At least among linguists and anthropologists, these are common terms. Incidentally, have you considered registering? Registering makes communication with fellow editors easier and enables you to take credit for your work. There are a lot more benefits, please refer to here for the details. Regards, — mark ✎ 6 July 2005 20:23 (UTC)
Ok. I'm not likely to edit - please go ahead. I'm spending all my free time at Afrikaans, where you can reach me at Gebruiker:Alias. My English login broke, and I haven't spoken to a developer to fix it (same name). If I had more time, I would be working at zu:, not here :-) --168.209.98.35 20:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty to fix it up a bit, clarifying that the isi- prefix identifies languages in Zulu and giving some further examples (isiNgisi etc). I deleted the reference to correctness as being confusing and prescriptivist, and changed the 'also known as' to a parenthetical '(isiZulu in Zulu)'. Mairead, 10 Jan 06

There appears to be an emerging trend in South African English (as used in the media) to refer to the various languages and ethnic groups using their own grammatical rules. For example the Sotho people are often reffered to as the BaSotho on radio. This is consistent with English allowing adoptive words to obey the grammar of the originating language for example the plural of the Hebrew derived word "cherub" is "cherubim". Anon, 16 Ferbruary 2006

I've added a table of prefixes to explain the reason for using 'isiZulu', and the counter-argument. Hope this clears everything up! Joziboy 24 February 2006, 11:42 UTC
I'm affraid I don't understand how/what this is supposed to clear up. We don't need to use isiZulu to distinguish it from umZulu, because umZulu is not an English word (and in my opinion, neither is isiZulu). Of course, just as "German" can refer to a language or to the German ways/culture, such an ambuity can exist, but is not solved by using "isiZulu" as the word for the language or "culture" is the same word in Zulu anyway. Context or prepositions probably solve all ambiguity problems, just as they do for all other languages spoken about in English. I believe KwaZulu is already an established place name, however. To say isiZulu is used in South African English is perhaps possible, but so many things are used in RSA English that are mostly also considered to be wrong. Zulu speakers will also sometimes use Zulu plurals for nouns, but I don't believe that dictates how those words should be pluralised in English in general. Many people will talk about uJohn, or boZama, but I don't consider that South African English suitable for an encyclopedia, even if the person was talking English at the time. --12:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well I was just putting it up because so many people disagree about it and wanted to show both sides of the argument. Personally I also prefer to just talk about 'Zulu' in English, rather than isiZulu. But there's also no set correct way of speaking English - as soon as the majority of speakers of a language do something, then that's the correct way. And I'm assuming SA English will become more influenced by the indigenous languages in future, rather than solely from Afrikaans. Joziboy 2 March 2006, 22:04 (UTC)

There isn't a "trend" at all (as asserted by Anon. above) to include the prefix inflexions in English. The articles here, under Xhosa language and elsewhere are quite correct and consistent in stating that the English word for the language spoken by the Zulu people is Zulu (Xhosa by Xhosa, etc.) (And thanks to Mairead for a sensible resolution of the also known as debate above.) Whenever the Zulu language is referred to in the article, it is called, correctly, Zulu, because Zulu is the correct name of the language in English.
There was indeed a silly pretension in some quarters to try to impose the vernacular forms of various words on to English, thus isiXhosa for Xhosa, isiZulu for Zulu, seTswana for Tswana, tsiVenda for Venda, etc. This silly argument often seemed to be made by pc-minded non-native-speakers, and often, as you allude to, in the media, and questions of usage were muddled with questions of "respect". The protagonists in this debate have generally recognised that it is spurious to claim that there is some sort of disrespect in saying "Pasha speaks fluent Russian" instead of "Pasha speaks fluent русский язык", or "Ganesh sings beautifully in Zulu" instead of "Ganesh sings beautifully in isiZulu".
&cet.Brockle 13:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Compiling all this

Wish I'd found this discussion earlier! I'm trying to accummulate refs to different names for languages at User:JackyR/African language names - current usage. Feel free to ADD YOUR KNOWLEDGE here! Cheers! JackyR 19:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] learning zulu language

zulu is one of the african languages i'm attempting to learn. as i mentioned elsewhere, i've made very little progress so far.

Gringo300 04:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Eish (I am completely flabbergasted by what just happened, and words fail me.)
Heh... sorry, but that is just too funny for words! Perhaps the funniest definition ever! Thank you for the laugh!

[edit] On linguistic description

Recently, the following addition caught my attention:

  • There is no verb 'to have', nor is there 'to be' (although the infix -ngu- is sometimes used)
  • There are no articles the or a/an.

I feel that this is not the most helpful way of presenting facts about Zulu. The problem is that it is modelled too much on the English language. Compare the following example that I made up (it would've been stronger if it was written in Zulu, but you get the point): English lacks the umu-/aba-, u-/o-, umu-/imi-, ili-/ama-, isi-/izi-, in-/izin-, ulu-/u-, ubu-, uku-, pha- and ku- noun class prefixes (although nouns are sometimes divided in three broad groups according to something called gender). Furthermore, there are no tense affixes -a-, -ile, -zo-/-zoku- or -yo-/-yoku-. Instead, different tenses are expressed by morphological changes to the verb, sometimes together with grammatical particles.

Most probably it is true that it's impossible to avoid imposing language structures of the language we use on the language we are describing, but we can do our best not to model our description of the latter on the structure of the former. In this case, I would recommend describing the facts about Zulu as comprehensively as possible, instead of pointing to grammatical structures Zulu lacks in comparison with English. — mark ✎ 19:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry! I was reading through the Finnish language article and noticed that a lot of the things it pointed out were also true of Zulu (the lack of 'to have' etc) so was just adding them for general interest/to point out differences between Zulu and English (for learners). But you're right, it's probably best without them as it doesn't sound very encyclopedic. I'll remove them. Joziboy 15 March 2006, 19:53 (UTC)
Nevertheless, these are interesting facts that a non-specialist reader may never infer from the article. Rather than removing them, I would suggest representing the other differences next to them; perhaps, not in the form of statements about what English does not have (this is not an article about English, after all; although this may be a good subject for the article on English in the Zulu Wikipedia), but in the form of statements about what isiZulu does have. Not that a language not having something is necessarily a bad thing. --Leokor 02:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jawa language

Is there a reference for the claim that the fictional Jawa language from Star Wars is electronically sped-up Zulu? Joziboy 28 June 2006, 17:29 (UTC)

Even if there was, I think a reference to that belongs only in some Star Wars sub-article. We're not the encyclopedia of pop-culture. — mark ✎ 06:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed that; the alien race doesn't even have its own article. Graham talk 12:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transation from German article

The sections about phonology and grammar of the German wikipedia are much much better then those sections in this article. Would anybody try to translate these sections to the english section. I do not have the time to do it and neither German nor English is my first language. If nobody does it I will do it in a few weeks, but I rather see it done by somebody who knows German better than I do.

[edit] Needs some fixing

The article needs a more refined tone. Also, the consonants and vowels sections are not complete. Azalea pomp 01:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gender 17?

isiZulu.net lists the gender 17 on their grammar page. But this article doesn't. Who is right? --Leokor 02:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Voiced velar implosive

The 'k' consonant in "ukuza" is not ejective, as described in the article. It's a voiced velar implosive. --Leokor 19:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)