7-557: The Xesibe People are a Nguni -speaking people that are found in the North-Eastern Parts of Eastern Cape Province , South Africa and the Southern Parts of KwaZulu-Natal , South Africa . Spirit possession appears among them, and the majority of possessed are married women. The condition of spirit possession among them is called intwaso . Those who develop the condition of intwaso are regarded as having
14-472: A group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa (mainly South Africa , Zimbabwe and Eswatini ) by the Nguni people . Nguni languages include Xhosa , Zulu , Ndebele , and Swati . The appellation "Nguni" derives from the Nguni cattle type. Ngoni (see below) is an older, or a shifted, variant. It is sometimes argued that the use of Nguni as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of
21-456: A special calling to divine the future. They are first treated with sympathy, and then with respect as they develop their abilities to foretell the future. This article about an ethnic group in Africa is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This South Africa-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Nguni language The Nguni languages are
28-415: 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
35-491: 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. Note: Maho (2009) also lists S401 Old Mfengu . The following aspects of Nguni languages are typical: Compare the following sentences: Note: Xhosa ⟨tsh⟩ = Phuthi ⟨tjh⟩ = IPA [tʃʰ] ; Phuthi ⟨tsh⟩ = [tsʰ] ; Zulu ⟨sh⟩ = IPA [ʃ] , but in
42-440: 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
49-425: The people 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. From an English editorial perspective, the articles "a" and "an" are both used with "Nguni", but "a Nguni" is more frequent and more correct especially if "Nguni" is pronounced as it is suggested ( /ŋˈɡuːni/ ) . Within a subset of Southern Bantu ,
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