Nguni, noun and & adjective

Origin:
IsiZuluShow more IsiZulu, noun stem of umnguni (a person of) the Nguni group (plural abanguni, abenguni), and of isinguni the Nguni language group.
A. noun
1.
a. plural. (The) members of a subdivision of the Sintu-speaking (Bantu-speaking) peoples, comprising the Ndebele, Ngoni, Swazi, Xhosa, Zulu, and some smaller peoples, all of whom have a common historical origin and speak closely-related languages.
Note:
Originally and mainly resident in the eastern regions of southern Africa.
1929 A.T. Bryant Olden Times in Zululand & Natal 3The natives of South-Eastern Africa we distinguish as of three separate families, which we call respectively Ngúni, in Zululand, the Transvaal, Natal and the Cape; Sutú..and Tónga.
1939 N.J. Van Warmelo in A.M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes III. i. 14The cattle of the Nguni are tended and milked only by males, and for a female even to enter the cattle kraal would be the breach of a strict tabu.
1961 T.V. Bulpin White Whirlwind 171You must know that we were then of the same people as the Zulus, and were known as the Nguni. Our chief was a warrior of great renown, a hero named Dlamini, who led us down in search of a new home.
1976 West & Morris Abantu 7Within South Africa, where the most accurate statistical information is available, the largest group is the Nguni who make up 66% of the black population. Best known within this group are the Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa and Ndebele.
1979 E. Prov. Herald 30 June 7Nguni people to meet in Grahamstown...Material gathered will probably be used in a book to become the first comprehensive cross-cultural analysis on the Nguni. The Nguni people are widely spread over the subcontinent and include the Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Shangaa[n], Ndebele and Ngoni.
1986 P.A. McAllister Xhosa Beer Drinks. 42The ritual significance of beer, common throughout Africa, seems to have been greater among Sotho-speakers and Venda than among Nguni.
b. plural With qualifying word:
Cape Nguni, Southern Nguni (see below);
East Nguni or Natal Nguni, the Zulu;
Northern Nguni, the Nguni living in KwaZulu-Natal and in areas further north;
Southern Nguni, the Nguni living in the former Transkei and in areas further south. Also attributive.
1957 C.G. Seligman Races of Afr. (1939) 168This group (sc. Eastern Southern Bantu) consists of two main subdivisions Nguni and Tsonga. The former include the Cape Nguni of the Ciskei and Transkei..together with the ‘Fingo’, fugitive remnants of tribes broken up in Natal..; the Natal Nguni or ‘Zulu’ of Natal and Zululand, with their offshoot the Ndebele (Tebele) of Southern Rhodesia; the Swazi of Swaziland and the Eastern Transvaal; and the ‘Transvaal Ndebele’ of Central and Northern Transvaal.
1955 E.A. Ritter Shaka Zulu 1When the time came for the passing of that chieftain in 1816 it marked the end and the beginning of two distinct periods in East Nguni political history.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 57Among these performers were a number of African men, particularly Cape or Natal Nguni (Amafengu, Xhosa, Zulu, Baca) from Cape Town or the towns of the Eastern Cape and Natal.
1980 Lye & Murray Transformations 30As the frontier passed beyond the Northern Nguni clans, they had ever reducing opportunities to segment and move to unoccupied land.
1981 J.B. Peires House of Phalo 18The creation of the major political groupings of the southern Nguni area, the Xhosa, the Thembu, the Mpondo and the Mpondomise, resulted from the rise of particular descent groups, respectively the Tshawe, Hala, Nyawuza and Majola, to a position of dominance over their localities.
1990 Weekend Post 7 July 4Xhosa tribal art is breaking artistic records in Port Elizabeth. The exhibition of Southern Nguni art..is set to become one of the most popular and longest-running ever held in the city.
2.
a. Used collectively: the group of languages spoken by the Nguni, the dominant languages being isiNdebele, siSwati, isiXhosa, and isiZulu.
Note:
Formerly called the kaffir group of languages (offensive).
1939 N.J. Van Warmelo in A.M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes III. i. 13Nguni..occupies a unique position in the non-Bantu family of languages, in so far as words containing the non-Bantu clicks occur in great abundance.
1970 M. Wilson 1000 Yrs before Van Riebeeck 1From 1593 they spoke a language identifiable from the words recorded as Nguni, that is Zulu or Xhosa or a dialect close to them.
1981 Star 18 June 3Programmes, he said, would reflect black viewers’ tastes and he expected black viewership to be about eight people a set, compared with about 3,5 white people a set. ‘I see it as a service for black people, run and produced by black people.’ It will start on one channel broadcasting in both Nguni and Sotho, but within a year will expand to two channels.
b. comb. (objective)
Nguni-speaking participial adjective, having as a home language one of these languages. Also attributive, and transferred (used of an area inhabited by speakers of any of these languages).
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 78By this time, mission communities were well established throughout the southern Cape and Transkei, swelled by members of homeless Nguni-speaking clans pushed into Xhosa country by Zulu expansionism during the 1820’s and 1830’s.
1988 I. Davis in S. Afr. Panorama Feb. 48Aubrey, an expert on traditions, tribal customs and clothing of the Nguni-speaking peoples (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Swazi) recently held an exhibition of his photographs in Pretoria.
1993 M. Oettle in Weekend Post 20 Nov. (Leisure) 4Vigne has..collected accounts from all quarters..but all need careful editing before being put together to tell about..the activities of shipwreck survivors on the Nguni-speaking coasts.
1994 N. Naudé in Conserva MayJuly 14The same colours are found among..the Nguni-speaking groups along the South African east coast.
3. In full Nguni cattle: a breed of cattle related to the Sanga, indigenous to Africa and traditionally the breed most commonly kept by Nguni people; Zulu noun sense 3. Also attributive. See also Native adjective sense 2. Cf. Nkone.
1939 N.J. Van Warmelo in A.M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes III. i. 14The Nguni Cattle..belong to one distinct strain (termed Zulu cattle by investigators), whereas two other distinct strains (Tswana and Kalanga Cattle) were bred by the non-Nguni tribes of the interior plateau.
1975 B. Arnott in Farmer’s Weekly 2 July 40The KwaZulu Government is breeding a vastly improved strain of indigenous Nguni cattle for resale to Africans in order to increase the performance of their stock. The Nguni is the ‘other’ indigenous breed in South Africa.
1981 S. Afr. Panorama Nov. 27The..Drakensberger..is particularly resistant to disease and drought and able to live largely off the veld, as can the animal’s Africander and Nguni cousins of Zulu fame.
1989 J. Blades in Sunday Times 3 Dec. 3He discovered his Garden of Eden a few years ago when he was looking for land to re-introduce the kingdom’s traditional Nguni cattle which now make Mkhaya pay.
1994 S. Chetty in Sunday Times 30 Jan. 15Among the livestock kept are Nguni cattle, goats and sheep.
B. adjective
1. In, of, or pertaining to one or more of the languages of the Nguni. See also sense A 2 a.
1929 A.T. Bryant Olden Times in Zululand & Natal 5Captured Bushwomen became common in their homes...And the children..adopted..in a Bantuized form, much of the slave-girl’s speech. Hence the clicks in Nguni speech.
1939 N.J. Van Warmelo in A.M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes III. i. 13The Nguni language, which is spoken in several fairly divergent forms, is yet basically uniform; for while vocabularly differs appreciably between, say, Xhosa, Zulu and Ndebele, in point of grammatical form the difference is remarkably small.
1982 Voice 24 Jan. 16Why did they have to squeeze all the African languages into one channel?..If they had decided on one common Nguni language and one Sesotho one, it would have been much easier for them and less irritating for the viewer.
1988 [see Sindebele].
2. Of or pertaining to the Nguni (see sense A 1). Occasionally in the collocation Nguniland ?nonce [English land], that area of the province of KwaZulu-Natal generally known as ‘Zululand’.
1939 [see sense A 3].
1959 L. Longmore Dispossessed 27There were, also, antagonisms between Nguni groups. For example, the Xhosa despise the Zulu for not circumcising and maintain that the Zulu for this reason are never fully mature.
1978 A. Elliott Sons of Zulu 13I refer to the country before about 1819 as ‘Nguniland’ because, until then, it was not ruled by the Zulu nor was there even a Zulu nation as such, only a tiny clan by that name.
1980 J. Cock Maids & Madams 197Nguni disintegration was a slow, uneven and painful process. Leftwich points out that they were more numerous, their economy more resilient, and their capacity to withstand military defeat greater than that of the nomadic Khoikoi and San people.
1992 G. Templeton in Weekend Post 8 Feb. (Leisure) 4The path up the river bank leads to a cave, probably used by early San (Bushmen) and Nguni people, and across a wooden bridge to another cave from where the lovely Strandloper Falls can be seen.
plural. (The) members of a subdivision of the Sintu-speaking (Bantu-speaking) peoples, comprising the Ndebele, Ngoni, Swazi, Xhosa, Zulu, and some smaller peoples, all of whom have a common historical origin and speak closely-related languages.
the group of languages spoken by the Nguni, the dominant languages being isiNdebele, siSwati, isiXhosa, and isiZulu.
In full Nguni cattle:a breed of cattle related to the Sanga, indigenous to Africa and traditionally the breed most commonly kept by Nguni people; Zulu noun sense 3. Also attributive.
In, of, or pertaining to one or more of the languages of the Nguni. See also sense A 2 a.
Of or pertaining to the Nguni (see sense A 1). Occasionally in the collocation Nguniland ?nonce [English land], that area of the province of KwaZulu-Natal generally known as ‘Zululand’.
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19291994