Nguni languages

For the cattle breed see Nguni cattle.

Nguni commonly refers both to a group of clans and nations living in south-east Africa, and to a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa including Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Phuthi and Ndebele (both Southern Transvaal Ndebele and Northern Ndebele).

The appellation "Nguni" derives from the Nguni cattle type. Ngoni (see below) is an older, or a shifted, variant.

It is sometimes argued that use of Nguni as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of the peoples in question where in fact the situation may have been more complex (Wright 1987). The linguistic use of the label (referring to a subgrouping of the Bantu languages) is relatively stable.

Social organization

Within the Nguni nations, the clan - based on male ancestry - formed the highest social unit. Each clan was led by a chieftain. Influential men tried to achieve independence by creating their own clan. The power of a chieftain often depended on how well he could hold his clan together. From about 1800, the rise of the Zulu clan of the Nguni and the consequent mfecane that accompanied the expansion of the Zulus under Shaka, helped to drive a process of alliance between and consolidation among many of the smaller clans.

For example, the kingdom of Swaziland was formed in the early nineteenth century by different Nguni groups allying with the Dlamini clan against the threat of external attack. Today the kingdom encompasses many different clans who speak an Nguni language called Swati and are loyal to the king of Swaziland, who is also the head of the Dlamini clan.

"Dlamini" is a very common clan name among all documented Nguni languages (including Swati and Phuthi).

Language classification

Within a subset of southeastern Bantu, the label "Nguni" is used both genetically (in the linguistic sense) and typologically (quite apart from any historical significance that it may accurately or inaccurately imply).

The Nguni languages are closely related, and in many instances mutually intelligible. The linguistic classificatory category "Nguni" is typically considered to subsume two subgroups: "Zunda Nguni" and "Tekela Nguni" (cf. Doke 1954, Ownby 1985). This division is based principally on the salient phonological distinction between corresponding coronal consonants: Zunda /z/ and Tekela /t/, but there is a host of additional linguistic variables that enables a relatively straightforward division into these two substreams of Nguni.

Zunda languages include Zulu, Xhosa, and Northern Ndebele (or 'Zimbabwean Ndebele'). Tekela languages include Swati, Phuthi, and the little-studied varieties Bhaca, Hlubi, Cele and Lala.

Comparative data

Compare the following sentences:

• I like your new sticks

Ndi-ya-zi-thanda ii-ntonga z-akho ezin-tsha (Xhosa)

Ngi-ya-zi-thanda izi-ntonga z-akho ezin-sha (Zulu)

Gi-ya-ti-tshadza ti-tfoga t-akho leti-tjha (Phuthi)

Note: Xhosa <tsh> = Phuthi <tjh> = IPA [tʃʰ]; Zulu <sh> = IPA [ʃ], but in the environment cited here [ʃ] tends to becomes [tʃ]. Phuthi <jh> = breathy voiced [dʒ] = Xhosa,Zulu <j> (in the environment here following the nasal [n]).

• I only understand a little English

Ndi-qonda isi-Ngesi ka-ncinci nje (Xhosa)

Ngi-qonda ka-ncane nje isi-Ngisi (Zulu)

Gi-visisa si-Kguwa ka-nci të-jhë (Phuthi)

Note: Phuthi <kg> = IPA [x].

Religion

Nguni people in Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, can be Christians (whether Catholics or Protestants), or practitioners of African traditional religions, or they may practise forms of Christianity modified with traditional African values (such as the Shembe Church of Nazarites).

Influence

The Nguni had influence over other tribes. For example, starting about the year 1300 AD, Nguni settlers arrived into the Waterberg with new technologies, including the ability to build dry-stone walls, which techniques were then used to add defensive works to the previous settlers' Iron Age forts, some of which walls survive to today. Archaeologists continue to excavate Waterberg to shed light on the Nguni culture and the associated dry-stone architecture. (Hogan, 2006)

See also

• Ngoni is the ethnonym and language name of a group living in Malawi, who are a geographically distant descendant of South African Nguni. Ngoni separated from all other Nguni languages subsequent to the massive political and social upheaval within southern Africa, the mfecane, lasting until the 1830s.

References

• Doke, Clement Martyn. (1954) The Southern Bantu Languages. Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hogan, C.Michael, Mark L. Cooke and Helen Murray, The Waterberg Biosphere, Lumina Technologies Inc, May 22, 2006.
• Ownby, Caroline P. (1985) 'Early Nguni History: The Linguistic Evidence and Its Correlation with Archeology and Oral Tradition'. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
• Wright, J. (1987) 'Politics, ideology, and the invention of the "nguni"', in Tom Lodge (ed.), Resistance and ideology in settler societies, 96-118.
• Shaw, E. M. and Davison, P. (1973) The Southern Nguni (series: Man in Southern Africa) South African Museum, Cape Town;