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About Zulu Language



Countries

Countries
South Africa

Total No. Of Countries
1 14

National Language
South Africa

Second Language
Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe

Speaking Continents
Africa

Minority Language
Not spoken in any of the countries

Regulated By
Pan South African Language Board

Interesting Facts
  • The meaning of word "Zulu" means "Sky"and Zulu was the name of the ancestor who founded the Zulu royal line in about 1670.
  • Zulu language has many loanwords borrowed from Afrikaans and English Languages.

Similar To
Xhosa Language

Derived From
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in
Zulu-Alphabets.jpg#200

Alphabets
57 34

Phonology

How Many Vowels
7 4

How Many Consonants
50 35

Scripts
Latin

Writing Direction
-

Hard to Learn

Language Levels
3 2

Time Taken to Learn
44 weeks 17

Greetings

Hello
Sawubona

Thank You
Ngiyabonga

How Are You?
unjani

Good Night
okuhle ebusuku

Good Evening
okuhle kusihlwa

Good Afternoon
okuhle ntambama

Good Morning
okuhle ekuseni

Please
Ngiyacela

Sorry
Ngiyaxolisa

Bye
bye

I Love You
Ngiyakuthanda wena

Excuse Me
Uxolo

Dialects

Dialect 1
Qwabe

Where They Speak
Gabon, South Africa

How Many People Speak
28,000,000.00 24

Dialect 2
central KwaZulu-Natal Zulu

Where They Speak
Georgia, South Africa

How Many People Speak
28,000,000.00 22

Dialect 3
Ndebele

Where They Speak
Zimbabwe

How Many People Speak
28,000,000.00 20

Total No. Of Dialects
4 4

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?
30.00 million 36

Speaking Population
0.16 % 51

Native Speakers
12.00 million 44

Second Language Speakers
16.00 million 33

Native Name
isiZulu

Alternative Names
Isizulu, Zunda

French Name
zoulou

German Name
Zulu-Sprache

Pronunciation
[zuːlu]

Ethnicity
Zulu people

History

Origin
19

Language Family
Niger-Congo Family

Subgroup
Benue-Congo

Branch
Beatu

Language Forms

Early Forms
urban Zulu

Standard Forms
Deep Zulu

Language Position
87 68

Signed Forms
Zulu Sign Language

Scope
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1
zu

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T
zul

ISO 639 2/B
zul

ISO 639 3
zul

ISO 639 6
zul

Glottocode
zulu1248

Linguasphere
99-AUT-fg

Types of Language

Language Type
Living

Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Verb-Object

Language Morphological Typology
-

Summary >>
<< Code

Know Alphabets in Zulu

When you start learning to write in any language the Alphabets form a skeleton of any language. Let's talk About Zulu Language, where you will learn the number of letter in Zulu Alphabets. Every language has its own set of alphabets or characters so it is necessary to know alphabets in Zulu. Zulu phonology gives Zulu vowels and Zulu consonants. There are 7 vowels and 50 consonants in Zulu language. Based upon the number of alphabet, vowels and consonants in the language we can check if Zulu is one of the Most Difficult Languages. All about Zulu language is given in detail in this section.

Most Difficult Languages

All Zulu countries

Want to explore all Zulu countries? About Zulu language serves you with all Zulu Speaking Countries. Countries that use Zulu as official language are called as Zulu countries.

  • Countries that use Zulu as their National Language are: South Africa.

Second language indicates to any language which the person learns in addition to first or native language.

  • Countries that use Zulu as second language are: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe.

You can also go through all European Languages and explore more about their speaking population, alphabets, greetings, dialects and many more.

Compare Most Difficult Languages

Learn Zulu greetings

Languages are used by every human being to communicate. And communication begins with the greetings. First step to form any interaction is to learn Zulu Greetings. Whenever you are travelling to new country where in you don’t know the local language of that country then you should at least be familiar with some greetings to start any formal or informal conversion. When we talk about Zulu language, we are always interested in learning useful phrases in Zulu language.Learn Zulu greetings that can be used in formal situations:

  • Hello: Sawubona
  • Thank you: Ngiyabonga
  • Good Morning: okuhle ekuseni
  • Good Evening: okuhle kusihlwa
  • Good Afternoon: okuhle ntambama

All Zulu Language Codes

Get to know all Zulu language codes here. There are several languages spoken all over the world where in most of the languages have alternate names which come from diverse sources. All Zulu Language Codes are assigned with unique code. There is usually two or three letters code for each language. In most of the applications, these language codes are used where it is tedious to use language names.

Most Difficult Languages

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Compare Most Difficult Languages

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