Group items tagged

ON THE ZULU DIALECT.

Syllabification

Euphony

This dialect is rich in nouns denoting different objects of the same genus, according to some variety of color, redundancy or deficiency of members, or some other peculiarity; thus, one noun signifies "a cow," another "a red cow," another "a brown cow," another "a white cow," another "a barren cow," etc. Abstract nouns are generally derived from adjectives by prefixing ubu, as: kulu, great; ubukulu, greatness. Proper names are taken from some object or incident in common life, thus: Untaba comes from intaba, a mountain; Ubalekile signifies "she has run away." There are very few nouns expressing the abstractions of mind, or spiritual things. Every noun consists of two parts: the initial, and the radical. The initial, whether a single letter or a syllable, is that part of the noun, which, in a modified form, re-appears in the beginning of all adjectives agreeing with it; from which also its pronoun is derived; and by which the number, class, and condition of the noun are determined. The rest of the noun is called the radical, or root. For example: um is the initial, andfazi the root, of the noun urnfazi, a woman; in the initial, and to the root, of the noun into, a thing. This initial element has sometimes been called a prefix. It is not, however, a prefix, but an essential part of the noun, without which the noun is not a noun, is not complete, and has no signification. The initial of a noun, in impressing its image upon an adjective, and in undergoing various inflections to assist in indicating the number and condition of the noun, bears a strong resemblance to the terminations of a noun in Latin and Greek. The initial elements and euphonic letters of the several classes are as follows:

The negative idea is affixed to verbs chiefly by means of the particles a and nga, thus: (1) a is inserted before the pronoun nominative, or nga before the verb, in all the modes and tenses, a, as the final vowel of a root, being changed into i in the indicative present and the imperative, and into i or e in the potential present, past, and future; (2) nga is appended to the verb in the indicative past; (3) nge is often used for nga in the potential; (4) the auxiliary ya, or za, is always omitted in the negative form of the indicative present. See the paradigm,

Prepositions.

manme! mamo! Derivation of Wo

The foregoing is the amount of the most authentic and recent information which I have been able to obtain, here and in Cape colony, respecting the languages of those numerous aboriginal tribes of Africa which dwell south of Jebel elKumr, or the Mountains of the Moon. I have already drawn out the subject to such an extent that I will say nothing of their probable orig

1820s and 1830s is described

on. John D. Omer-Cooper, in Zulu After math: A Nineteenth Century Revolution in Bantu Africa argues that the "wars and migrations of the Mfecane were the by products of a socio-political revolution towards larger communi ties and wider loyaltie

Omer-Cooper's Zulu Aftermath serves as a useful point of departure for an examination of the origins of the Zulu kingdom.

survived into modern times."3 Omer-Cooper includes among the mfecane's progeny the Basuto kingdom on the highveld forged during the difaqane and surviving to reach independence as Lesotho; the Swazi kingdom of the Dhlamini-Ngwane, founded in the 1840s and the basis for Swaziland; the Ngoni kingdoms in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania; the Kololo kingdom on the upper Zambesi river; and the Ndebele kingdom, settling eventually in southern Zimbabwe

Zulu Kingdom

The conventional emphasis on great men and the military institutions they orchestrated embraces at least two methodologi cal deficiencies. First, it is ahistorical—if one views the formation of the Zulu kingdom as a revolutionary outburst among the northern Nguni one may overlook subtle evolutionary processes of socioeconomic change; and second, it is myopic—the tendency to study Zulu state formation as a phase of military history betrays a cultural or ideological dimension that reveals a great deal about the "essence" of the Zulu kingdo

Although the Zulu was one of the least significant of the chiefdoms absorbed during the course of Mthethwa expansion, its status changed markedly when Shaka usurped the Zulu chieftainship from his brother in 1816

In 1959, anthropologist Monica Wilson initiated a second line of investigation by suggesting that scholars examine the role of long-distance trade as a factor in Zulu state formation. As evidence, she cites the statement of Henry Frances Fynn, an early Natalian trader, that Dingiswayo initiated trade with the northern part of Delagoa Bay as one of his first acts as Mthethwa chieftain.15 Alan Smith, drawing upon the journals and letters of Portuguese traders and missionaries, has advanced Wilson's proposal by arguing that a flourishing trade existed at Delagoa Bay between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The lucrative ivory trade with Europe during this period intensified in the second half of the eighteenth century and Smith demonstrates that a significant share of trade originated in Natal. Numerous accounts corroborate this view and indicate that trade routes extended as far south as the eastern Cape fro

Two other studies advance the hypothesis that trade was a major elemënt in the rise of the Zulu kingdom. Henry Slater argues that the effect of mercantile capital (i.e., the European demand for ivory at Delagoa Bay) placed unbearable tensions on a feudal social structure. The ensuing conflict over control of the means of production for the market transformed a feudal mode of production into an absolutist one.18 David W. Hedges argues that control of the ivory trade along the coastal lowlands between Delagoa Bay and northern Natal played an important role in Nguni state formation during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The conflict that ensued by the early nineteenth century did not result from an increase in ivory exports, as Smith suggests, but according to Hedges, from a change in the nature of the trade at Delagoa Bay. Hedges argues that the number of ships at Delagoa Bay decreased, and the export of cattle, a valuable commodity in Zululand, replaced that of

g the northern Nguni . . . must also be understood as encompassing a major social transformation cen

The Historian Given the spotty oral and documentary evidence, it is doubtful that scholars will ever know "precisely why the long-established equilibrium among the small autonomous northern Nguni chiefdoms rather suddenly collapsed."42 Yet it now seems clear that this collapse was not sudden, and it involved significant ideological, as well as socio-political change. At the same time scholars have also exaggerated the military features of the Zulu kingdom, thus missing the more complex character of Nguni amabutho. And finally, the extent of population loss on the highveld as a result of the Shakan wars remains unknown. Afrikaners may not have trekked into a demographic vacuum. Since dramatic depopulation is not a proven historical fact, it should not be treated as such. To do so, one risks contributing to the political mythology of apartheid.

The Bloody Story of the Zulu War of 18