Zulu is one of South Africa's official languages and is spoken by millions across the country. With a rich cultural and linguistic history, it is renowned for its distinctive click sounds and poetic nature.
Zulu (isiZulu)
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Classification
Niger-Congo > Bantu
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Speakers
14.5 million
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Script
Roman
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Text direction
Left-to-right
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Official language
South Africa
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Other names
IsiZulu
Zulu (isiZulu)
Zulu is a Bantu language together with other African languages such as Tswana, Kinyarwanda, Swahili and Lingala to name but a few.
Zulu is one of 12 official languages and the most spoken language in South Africa. The dialect of Zulu spoken in Zimbabwe is referred to as Northern Ndebele, which is not to be confused with the Southern Ndebele spoken in South Africa. Zulu is mutually intelligible with Xhosa and Swati.
The language makes use of click sounds, just like Xhosa, and Zulu speakers refer to themselves as speakers of isiZulu where the prefix “isi-” is added to imply “language”.
The National Anthem of South Africa is sung in five different languages –the first two lines in Xhosa, the second two lines in Zulu, then Sotho, Afrikaans and finally English for one stanza each.
At Geo Language Services, our Zulu translations ensure your content is accurately conveyed while respecting the cultural depth and nuances of the Zulu-speaking community.
Services offered for this language
Translation / Transcreation / Subtitling / Localization / Adaptation / Copywriting / Authoring / Proofreading / Revision / Editing / Translation quality assurance / Terminology / Linguistic validation / Glossary creation / Dubbing / Voice-overs / Transcription / Typesetting / Simultaneous interpreting / Consecutive interpreting / Conference interpreting / Telephone interpreting / Public service interpreting / Interpreting equipment hire / Foreign language consulting
Interesting fact
The Zulu word for mobile phone is "umakhalekhukhwini", but in urban areas it's rather more efficiently called an "icell".
