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Zulu

Also known as isiZulu, Zulu language

Nguni language of eastern South Africa and neighbouring countries

AI overview

Zulu is a language spoken by millions of people in eastern South Africa and nearby regions. It belongs to the Nguni language family and is one of the major languages of the area.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: modern language
Subclass of: Nguni
Country: South Africa
Image: Potgietersrus, South Africa - panoramio (14).jpg

Show 15 more facts

language regulatory body: Pan South African Language Board
linguistic typology: synthetic language
Wikimedia language code: zu
Commons category: Zulu language
topic's main category: Category:Zulu language
writing system: Latin script
native label: isiZulu
category for films in this language: Category:Zulu-language films
indigenous to: KwaZulu-Natal
exact match: data.linguistik.de/bll/bll-ontology#bll-133091783
P10369: Esperanto
number of speakers, writers, or signers: 15700000
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
has tense: future tense
has grammatical case: locative case

Sources (13)

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Encyclopedic overview

Zulu (/ˈzuːluː/ ZOO-loo), also known by its endonym isiZulu, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in, and indigenous to, Southern Africa with about 13.56 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The word "KwaZulu-Natal" translates into English as "Home of the Zulu Nation is Natal". Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. It became one of South Africa's 12 official languages in 1994.

According to Ethnologue, it is the second-most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Swahili. Like many other Bantu languages, it is written with the Latin alphabet.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Zulu” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.