Zulu language

Zulu (pronounced ZOO-loo), or isiZulu as its speakers call it, belongs to the Nguni branch of the Southern Bantu language family and is native to Southern Africa. Roughly 13.56 million people speak it as their first language, making it the most common home language in South Africa—spoken by 24 percent of the population—and more than half of all South Africans can understand it.

The language is one of South Africa’s twelve official languages, a status it gained in 1994. According to Ethnologue, it ranks as the second most widely spoken Bantu language globally, behind only Swahili. Like many Bantu languages, it uses the Latin alphabet for writing. In South African English, people often refer to it by its native name, isiZulu.

Zulu has spread to neighboring areas through migration, particularly into Zimbabwe, where the closely related Northern Ndebele (isiNdebele) is spoken. Xhosa, the main language of the Eastern Cape, is generally considered mutually intelligible with Zulu, as is Northern Ndebele. Linguist Maho (2009) identifies four dialects: central KwaZulu-Natal Zulu, northern Transvaal Zulu, eastern coastal Qwabe, and western coastal Cele.

The Zulu people, like the Xhosa and other Nguni groups, have inhabited South Africa for centuries. Their language features several click sounds typical of Southern African languages but absent elsewhere on the continent. The Nguni have long coexisted with other Southern tribes, including the San and Khoi.

Before European missionaries arrived, Zulu—like most indigenous Southern African languages—had no written form. Missionaries documented it using the Latin script. The first Zulu grammar book was published in Norway in 1850 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder. The earliest written document in Zulu was a Bible translation that came out in 1883. In 1901, John Dube, a Zulu from Natal, founded the Ohlange Institute, the first native educational institution in South Africa. He also wrote *Insila kaShaka* (1930), the first novel ever published in Zulu. Another early Zulu writer, Reginald Dhlomo, authored several historical novels about 19th-century Zulu leaders: *U-Dingane* (1936), *U-Shaka* (1937), *U-Mpande* (1938), *U-Cetshwayo* (1952), and *U-Dinizulu* (1968). Other notable literary figures include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi and, more recently, Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali. The Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal once regulated the written form, but that board has since been dissolved and replaced by the Pan South African Language Board, which promotes all eleven of South Africa’s official languages.

Before 1994, only English and Afrikaans (and earlier Dutch) were official in South Africa. However, within the KwaZulu bantustan, Zulu was widely used. High school education across the country was conducted solely in English or Afrikaans. Since apartheid ended in 1994, Zulu has experienced a notable revival. The SABC introduced Zulu-language television in the early 1980s, and it now broadcasts news and many shows in Zulu. Zulu radio remains very popular, and newspapers like *isoLezwe*, *Ilanga*, and *UmAfrika* are available in KwaZulu-Natal and Johannesburg. In January 2005, *Yesterday*, the first full-length feature film in Zulu, received an Oscar nomination.

In the 1994 film *The Lion King*, the song “Circle of Life” includes Zulu phrases such as *Ingonyama nengw' enamabala* (“A lion and a leopard spots”), *Nans' ingonyama bakithi Baba* (“Here is the king, my people”), and *Siyonqoba* (“We will conquer”). Other songs in the film, like “This Land,” feature *Busa leli zwe bo* (“Rule this land”) and *Busa ngothando bo* (“Rule with love”). The hymn *Siyahamba*, originally written in Zulu, became popular in North American churches during the 1990s. The 2019 song *Jerusalema* also includes Zulu lyrics in its remix.

Standard Zulu—what schools teach, also called “deep Zulu” (*isiZulu esijulile*)—differs noticeably from the Zulu spoken in cities (Urban Zulu, *isiZulu sasedolobheni*). Standard Zulu tends to be purist, creating new terms from Zulu roots, while Urban Zulu speakers freely borrow words, mainly from English. This gap has created educational challenges, as young people often do not understand standard Zulu.

Zulu has five vowels. The vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are pronounced [e] and [o] when the following syllable contains the [+ATR] vowels /i/ or /u/, and [ɛ] and [ɔ] otherwise. For example, *umgibeli* (“passenger”) is pronounced [úm̩̀ɡìɓé(ː)lì], while *ukupheka* (“to cook”) is [ùɠúpʰɛ̀(ː)ɠà]. Vowel length is limited and results from syllable contraction; for instance, *ithambo* [íːtʰámbó] (“bone”) comes from an earlier *ilithambo*, and *uphahla* [úːpʰaɬa] (“roof”) from *uluphahla*. Additionally, the vowel of the penultimate syllable is lengthened phrase- or sentence-finally.

Plain voiceless plosives, affricates, and clicks are pronounced as ejectives: [pʼ], [tʼ], [kʼ], [tsʼ], [tʃʼ], [kxʼ]. When not preceded by a nasal, /ɠ/ is nearly in complementary distribution with /k/ and /kʰ/: the latter two appear almost exclusively at the start of roots, while /ɠ/ occurs only medially. Recent loanwords, however, introduce /k/ and /kʰ/ in other positions—for example, *isekhondi* [iːsekʰoːndi] (“second”) and *ibhayisikili* [iːbajisikiːli] (“bicycle”). Slack-voiced consonants act as depressor consonants, lowering the tone of their syllable. The consonant /ŋ/ appears in some dialects as a reduction of the cluster /nɡ/.