Puneet Varma (Editor)

Nguni languages

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Geographic distribution
  
Southern Africa

Glottolog
  
ngun1267

Linguistic classification
  
Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Southern Bantu Nguni

Subdivisions
  
Zunda languages Tekela languages

The Nguni languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni people. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Swati, Hlubi, Phuthi, Bhaca, Lala, Nhlangwini and the three languages called Ndebele: Southern Transvaal Ndebele, Zimbabwean Ndebele and Sumayela Ndebele (the last two sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"). The appellation "Nguni" derives from the Nguni cattle type. Ngoni (see below) is an older, or a shifted, variant.

Contents

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. The linguistic use of the label (referring to a subgrouping of Bantu) is relatively stable.

Classification

Within a subset of Southern Bantu, the label "Nguni" is used both genetically (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 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 consonants: Zunda /z/ and Tekela /t/ (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
  • Northern Ndebele (or 'Zimbabwean Ndebele')
  • Southern Ndebele

    • Tekela languages

  • Swazi
  • Northern Transvaal Ndebele (Sumayela Ndebele)
  • Phuthi
  • Bhaca
  • Hlubi (not the Hlubi dialect of Xhosa)
  • Lala
  • 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. (Phuthi has re-acquired a new series of superclose vowels from Sotho)
  • 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.
  • Development breathy-voiced consonants, acting as depressor consonants.
  • Development of aspirated consonants.
  • Development of click consonants.

    • Comparative data

    Compare the following sentences:

    Note: Xhosa ⟨tsh⟩ = Phuthi ⟨tjh⟩ = IPA [tʃʰ]; Phuthi ⟨tsh⟩ = [tsh]; Zulu ⟨sh⟩ = IPA [ʃ], but in the environment cited here /ʃ/ is "nasally permuted" to [tʃ]. Phuthi ⟨jh⟩ = breathy voiced [dʒʱ] = Xhosa, Zulu ⟨j⟩ (in the environment here following the nasal [n]). Zulu, Swazi, Hlubi ⟨ng⟩ = [ŋ].

    Note: Phuthi ⟨kg⟩ = IPA [x].

    Proto-Nguni

    Proto-Nguni is the reconstructed ancestor of the Nguni languages.

    Writing system

    The sintu writing system, Isibheqe Sohlamvu (also known in Sotho as Ditema tsa Dinoko), for Southern Bantu languages, is used to represent all Nguni languages consistently under one orthography. This includes Tekela languages, which, with the exception of Swati, are unstandardised in the Latin alphabet. For example, it contains a specific grapheme indicating vowel nasality – a feature which only occurs phonemically in Tekela languages:

    References

    Nguni languages Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA