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The Nguni languages are a group of closely related
Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...
spoken in southern Africa by the
Nguni people The Nguni people are a Bantu ethnic group from South Africa, with off-shoots in neighbouring countries in Southern Africa. Swazi (or Swati) people live in both South Africa and Eswatini, while Northern Ndebele people live in both South Africa (a ...
s. Nguni languages include
Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...
, Zulu,
Ndebele Ndebele may refer to: *Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa *Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe and Botswana Languages * Southern Ndebele language, the language of the South Ndebele *Northern Ndebele language Northern ...
(sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"), and
Swazi Swazi may refer to: * Swazi people, a people of southeastern Africa * Swazi language * Eswatini Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked coun ...
. The appellation "Nguni" derives from the
Nguni cattle The Nguni is a cattle breed indigenous to Southern Africa. A hybrid of different Indian and later European cattle breeds, they were introduced by pastoralist tribes ancestral to modern Nguni people to Southern Africa during their migration from ...
type. ''Ngoni'' (see below) is an older, or a shifted, variant. It is sometimes argued that the use of ''Nguni'' as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of the people in question, where in fact the situation may have been more complex. The linguistic use of the label (referring to a subgrouping of Bantu) is relatively stable. From an English editorial perspective, the articles "a" and "an" are both used with "Nguni", but "a Nguni" is more frequent and arguably more correct if "Nguni" is pronounced as it is suggested.


Classification

Within a subset of
Southern Bantu The Southern Bantu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92).Tore Janson (1991-92) "Southern Bantu and Makua", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' (''SUGIA'') Vol. 12/13: 63-106, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag ...
, the label "Nguni" is used both
genetically Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working i ...
(in the linguistic sense) and typologically (quite apart from any historical significance). The Nguni languages are closely related, and in many instances different languages are mutually intelligible; in this way, Nguni languages might better be construed as a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
than as a cluster of separate languages. On more than one occasion, proposals have been put forward to create a unified Nguni language. In scholarly literature on southern African languages, the linguistic classificatory category "Nguni" is traditionally considered to subsume two subgroups: "Zunda Nguni" and "Tekela Nguni." This division is based principally on the salient phonological distinction between corresponding
coronal consonant Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Among places of articulation, only the coronal consonants can be divided into as many articulation types: apical (using the tip of the tongue), laminal (using the bla ...
s: Zunda and Tekela (thus the native form of the name ''Swati'' and the better-known Zulu form ''Swazi''), but there is a host of additional linguistic variables that enables a relatively straightforward division into these two substreams of Nguni.


Zunda languages

* Zulu *
Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...
* Southern Ndebele *
Ndebele Ndebele may refer to: *Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa *Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe and Botswana Languages * Southern Ndebele language, the language of the South Ndebele *Northern Ndebele language Northern ...
(Northern Ndebele or 'Zimbabwean Ndebele')


Tekela languages

*
Swazi Swazi may refer to: * Swazi people, a people of southeastern Africa * Swazi language * Eswatini Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked coun ...
* Northern Transvaal Ndebele (Sumayela Ndebele) *
Phuthi Phuthi (''Síphùthì'') is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati (or ''Siswati''), spoken in Eswatini and the Mp ...
* Bhaca *
Hlubi The Hlubi people or AmaHlubi are an Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa, with the majority of population found in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. List of AmaHlubi kings Origins The Hlubi, similar to o ...
*
Lala Lala may refer to: Geography * Lala language (disambiguation) Places * Lala (Naples Metro), an underground metro station in Naples, Italy * Lala, Assam, a town in Assam, India * Lala, Ilam, a village in Ilam Province, Iran * Lala, Lanao del ...
* Nhlangwini Maho (2009) also lists S401 Old Mfengu


Characteristics

The following aspects of Nguni languages are typical: * A 5-vowel system, by merging the near-close and close series of
Proto-Bantu Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon.Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. ( ...
. (Phuthi has re-acquired a new series of superclose vowels from
Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana * Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an off ...
) * Spreading of high tones to the antepenultimate syllable. * A distinction between high and low tones on noun prefixes, indicating different grammatical roles, accompanied in some cases by an overt pre-prefix called the ''
augment Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language *Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages * Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...
''. * Development of breathy-voiced consonants, acting as
depressor consonant A depressor consonant is a consonant that depresses (lowers) the tone of its or a neighboring syllable. This is a consequence of the phonation (type of voicing) of the consonant. The Nguni languages of South Africa are well known for the lowering ...
s. * Development of
aspirated consonant In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with the ...
s. * Development of
click consonant Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' ...
s.


Comparative data

Compare the following sentences: Note: Xhosa = Phuthi = IPA ; Phuthi = ; Zulu = IPA , but in the environment cited here is "nasally permuted" to . Phuthi = breathy voiced = Xhosa, Zulu (in the environment here following the nasal ). Zulu, Swazi, Hlubi = . Note: Phuthi = IPA .


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 The Mfecane (isiZulu, Zulu pronunciation: ̩fɛˈkǀaːne, also known by the Sesotho names Difaqane or Lifaqane (all meaning "crushing, scattering, forced dispersal, forced migration") is a historical period of heightened military conflict a ...
, lasting until the 1830s. *
IsiNgqumo IsiNgqumo, or IsiGqumo, (literally "decisions" in the language itself) is an argot used by homosexuals of South Africa and Zimbabwe who speak Bantu languages, as opposed to Gayle, a language used by the homosexuals of South Africa who speak Germani ...
is an
argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...
spoken by the homosexuals of South Africa who speak
Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...
; as opposed to
Gayle Gayle or Gayl may refer to: People * Gayle (given name), people with the given name * Gayle (surname), people with the surname * Gayle (singer) (born 2004), American singer-songwriter Places * Gayle, North Yorkshire, England * Gayle, Jamaica, a ...
, the argot spoken by South African homosexuals who speak
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
. IsiNgqumo is based on an Nguni lexicon.


References


Bibliography

* * * * *


Further reading

* Shaw, E. M. and Davison, P. (1973) ''The Southern Nguni'' (series: Man in Southern Africa) South African Museum, Cape Town * Ndlovu, Sambulo. 'Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Nguni Phonology' {{DEFAULTSORT:Nguni Languages Languages of South Africa Languages of Eswatini Languages of Lesotho Languages of Mozambique Languages of Zimbabwe