162-644: The Zulu Kingdom ( / ˈ z uː l uː / ZOO -loo ; Zulu : KwaZulu ), sometimes referred to as the Zulu Empire, was a monarchy in Southern Africa . During the 1810s, Shaka established a standing army that consolidated rival clans and built a large following which ruled a wide expanse of Southern Africa that extended along the coast of the Indian Ocean from the Tugela River in
324-399: A homorganic nasal consonant (so-called "prenasalisation", described in more detail below) and optionally followed by the consonant /w/ . In addition, syllabic /m̩/ occurs as a reduction of former /mu/ , and acts like a true syllable: it can be syllabic even when not word-initial, and can also carry distinctive tones like a full syllable. It does not necessarily have to be homorganic with
486-424: A breathy consonant syllable, like dla , are [ɮǎ̤ ɮa̤᷈ ɮà̤] . A depressor does not affect a syllable that's already low, but it blocks assimilation to a preceding high tone so that the tone of the depressor syllable and any following low-tone syllables stays low. Prenasalisation occurs whenever a consonant is preceded by a homorganic nasal, either lexically or as a consequence of prefixation. The most notable case of
648-471: A contest of ideologies between the two nations. It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was at risk: Napoleon threatened to invade Britain itself, just as his armies had overrun many countries of continental Europe . The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy , which won
810-629: A decisive victory over a French Imperial Navy - Spanish Navy fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those of the Netherlands, which was annexed by Napoleon in 1810. France was finally defeated by a coalition of European armies in 1815. Britain was again the beneficiary of peace treaties: France ceded the Ionian Islands , Malta (which it had occupied in 1798), Mauritius , St Lucia ,
972-719: A dependency of the New South Wales colony. From 16 June 1840 New South Wales laws applied in New Zealand. This transitional arrangement ended with the Charter for Erecting the Colony of New Zealand on 16 November 1840. The Charter stated that New Zealand would be established as a separate Crown colony on 3 May 1841 with Hobson as its governor. During the 19th century, Britain and the Russian Empire vied to fill
1134-623: A form that attempted to be more inclusive by showcasing the empire as a family of newly birthed nations with common roots. The last decades of the 19th century saw concerted political campaigns for Irish home rule . Ireland had been united with Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the Act of Union 1800 after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , and had suffered a severe famine between 1845 and 1852. Home rule
1296-408: A high-tone syllable and another tonic syllable assimilates to that high tone. That is, if the preceding syllable ends on a high tone and the following syllable begins with a high tone (because it is high or falling), the intermediate toneless syllable has its pitch raised as well. When the preceding syllable is high but the following is toneless, the medial toneless syllable adopts a high-tone onset from
1458-437: A labial consonant plus /w/ . Whenever /w/ follows a labial consonant, it changes to /j/ , which then triggers palatalization of the consonant. This effect can be seen in the locative forms of nouns ending in -o or -u , which change to -weni and -wini respectively in the locative. If a labial consonant immediately precedes, palatalization is triggered. The change also occurs in nouns beginning in ubu- with
1620-579: A land deal for the voortrekkers. In November, about 1,000 Voortrekker wagons began descending the Drakensberg mountains from the Orange Free State into what is now KwaZulu-Natal . Dingane asked that Retief and his party retrieve some cattle stolen from him by a local chief as part of the treaty for land for the Boers. This Retief and his men did, returning on 3 February 1838. The next day,
1782-597: A lion, Father ) and Siyonqoba (English: We will conquer ) was used. In some movie songs, like "This Land", the voice says Busa leli zwe bo ( Rule this land ) and Busa ngothando bo ( Rule with love ) were used too. The song Siyahamba is a South African hymn originally written in the Zulu language that became popular in North American churches in the 1990s. The remix of the 2019 worldwide hit Jerusalema contains lyrics in Zulu language. Standard Zulu as it
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#17327661084431944-417: A lowering effect on pitch, adding a non-phonemic low-tone onset to the normal tone of the syllable. Thus, in syllables with depressor consonants, high tones are realised as rising, and falling tones as rising-then-falling. In both cases, the pitch does not reach as high as in non-depressed syllables. The possible tones on a syllable with a voiceless consonant like hla are [ɬá ɬâ ɬà] , and the possible tones of
2106-782: A major contributing source of income is derived from tourism – the area is known for its savanna covered hills. It is home to a WWF Black Rhinoceros reintroduction project known as "The Black Rhino Range Expansion Project" within the Zululand Rhino Reserve (ZRR) . The ZRR is a 20,000 hectare reserve consisting of 15 individually owned farms that have lowered their fences in order to further conservation. The Zulu royal family still fulfils many important ceremonial duties. 28°17′51″S 31°25′18″E / 28.29750°S 31.42167°E / -28.29750; 31.42167 Zulu language Zulu ( / ˈ z uː l uː / ZOO -loo ), or isiZulu as an endonym ,
2268-588: A minor settlement, and other treaty ports including Shanghai . During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British Crown began to assume an increasingly large role in the affairs of the company. A series of Acts of Parliament were passed, including the Regulating Act of 1773 , Pitt's India Act of 1784 and the Charter Act of 1813 which regulated the company's affairs and established
2430-553: A murderous campaign against other Nguni tribes and clans, setting in motion what became known as Difaqane or Mfecane , a mass-migration of tribes fleeing the remnants of the Ndwandwe fleeing the Zulu. The Ngoni people fled as far north as Tanzania and Malawi. The death toll has never been satisfactorily determined, but the whole region became nearly depopulated. By 1822, Shaka had conquered an empire covering an area of around 80,000 square miles (210,000 km), covering Pongola to
2592-545: A new leader, Andries Pretorius , who led a successful defence of the Voortrekker position from the Zulu forces and Dingane at the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838, when 15,000 Zulu impis (warriors) attacked a group of 470 Voortrekker settlers led by Pretorius. Following his defeat, Dingane burned his royal household and fled north. Mpande , the half-brother who had been spared from Dingane's purges, defected with 17,000 followers, and, together with Pretorius and
2754-558: A perceived violation of the guaranteed Rights of Englishmen . The American Revolution began with a rejection of Parliamentary authority and moves towards self-government. In response, Britain sent troops to reimpose direct rule, leading to the outbreak of war in 1775. The following year, in 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the colonies' sovereignty from
2916-472: A rapid escalation in the number of slaves transported. British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.5 million Africans —until the abolition of the trade by Parliament in 1807 (see § Abolition of slavery ). To facilitate the shipment of slaves, forts were established on the coast of West Africa, such as James Island , Accra and Bunce Island . In
3078-731: A redirection of the war effort, and the British, though outnumbered, began winning small engagements and later larger setpiece encounters. The fighting culminated in the Siege of Ulundi , the Zulus' capital city, and the subsequent defeat of the Zulu Kingdom. Cetshwayo was captured a month after his defeat, and then exiled to Cape Town . The British passed rule of the Zulu kingdom onto 13 "kinglets", each with his own subkingdom. Conflict soon erupted between these subkingdoms, and in 1882, Cetshwayo
3240-448: A result of word position as well. The remote demonstrative pronouns may appear with the suffix -ana when sentence-final, but only as -ā otherwise. Likewise, the recent past tense of verbs ends in -ile sentence-finally, but is reduced to -ē medially. Moreover, a falling tone can only occur on a long vowel, so the shortening has effects on tone as well. Some words, such as ideophones or interjections, can have stress that deviates from
3402-536: A security threat to Great Britain or mark the beginning of the break-up of the empire. A second Home Rule bill was defeated for similar reasons. A third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented because of the outbreak of the First World War leading to the 1916 Easter Rising . By the turn of the 20th century, fears had begun to grow in Britain that it would no longer be able to defend
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#17327661084433564-797: A series of Anglo-Mysore wars in Southern India with the Sultanate of Mysore under Hyder Ali and then Tipu Sultan . Defeats in the First Anglo-Mysore war and stalemate in the Second were followed by victories in the Third and the Fourth . Following Tipu Sultan's death in the fourth war in the Siege of Seringapatam (1799) , the kingdom became a protectorate of the company. The East India Company fought three Anglo-Maratha Wars with
3726-540: A stem beginning with a vowel. The following changes occur as a result of palatalization: Zulu employs the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet . However, some of the letters have different pronunciations than in English. Additional phonemes are written using sequences of multiple letters. Tone, stress and vowel length are not indicated. Reference works and older texts may use additional letters. A common former practice
3888-631: A treaty was signed, wherein Dingane ceded all the land south of the Tugela River to the Mzimvubu River to the Voortrekkers. Celebrations followed. On 6 February, at the end of the celebrations, Retief's party were invited to a dance, and asked to leave their weapons behind. At the peak of the dance, Dingane leapt to his feet and yelled "Bambani abathakathi!" ( isiZulu for "Seize the wizards"). Retief and his men were overpowered, taken to
4050-610: A wave of Boer (also known as Voortrekkers) migration northwards from 1836 onwards in order to establish autonomous Boer states independent of British control. The Boers settlers began moving across the Orange River northwards. While travelling they first collided with the Ndebele kingdom, and then with Dingane's Zulu kingdom. In October 1837, the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief visited Dingane at his royal kraal to negotiate
4212-675: A way station for its ships travelling to and from its colonies in the East Indies . Britain formally acquired the colony, and its large Afrikaner (or Boer ) population in 1806, having occupied it in 1795 to prevent its falling into French hands during the Flanders Campaign . British immigration to the Cape Colony began to rise after 1820, and pushed thousands of Boers , resentful of British rule, northwards to found their own—mostly short-lived— independent republics , during
4374-694: Is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken and indigenous to Southern Africa . It is the language of the Zulu people , 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
4536-399: Is a contraction of an earlier ilithambo /ílítʰámbó/ , which may still be used by some speakers. Likewise, uphahla /úːpʰaɬa/ "roof" is a contraction of the earlier uluphahla /ulúpʰaɬa/ . In addition, the vowel of the penultimate syllable is allophonically lengthened phrase- or sentence-finally. The use of click consonants is one of the most distinctive features of Zulu. This feature
4698-465: Is a sequence of high-low and occurs only on long vowels. The penultimate syllable can also bear a falling tone when it is long due to the word's position in the phrase. However, when it shortens, the falling tone becomes disallowed in that position. In principle, every morpheme has an inherent underlying tone pattern which does not change regardless of where it appears in a word. However, like most other Bantu languages, Zulu has word tone , meaning that
4860-771: Is a table with some words constructed from the roots - Zulu and -ntu (the root for person/people ): The following is a list of phrases that can be used when one visits a region whose primary language is Zulu: The following is from the preamble to the Constitution of South Africa : Thina, bantu baseNingizimu Afrika, Siyakukhumbula ukucekelwa phansi kwamalungelo okwenzeka eminyakeni eyadlula; Sibungaza labo abahluphekela ubulungiswa nenkululeko kulo mhlaba wethu; Sihlonipha labo abasebenzela ukwakha nokuthuthukisa izwe lethu; futhi Sikholelwa ekutheni iNingizimu Afrika ingeyabo bonke abahlala kuyo, sibumbene nakuba singafani. British Empire The British Empire comprised
5022-602: Is mostly predictable and normally falls on the penultimate syllable of a word. It is accompanied by an allophonic lengthening of the vowel. When the final vowel of a word is long due to contraction, it receives the stress instead of the preceding syllable. Lengthening does not occur on all words in a sentence, however, but only those that are sentence- or phrase-final. Thus, for any word of at least two syllables, there are two different forms, one with penultimate length and one without it, occurring in complementary distribution. In some cases, there are morphemic alternations that occur as
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5184-418: Is often not understood by young people. The vowel system of Zulu consists of five vowels. /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are pronounced [ e ] and [ o ], respectively, if the following syllable contains the [+ ATR ] vowels /i/ or /u/ . They are [ɛ] and [ɔ] otherwise: There is limited vowel length in Zulu, as a result of the contraction of certain syllables. For example, the word ithambo /íːtʰámbó/ "bone",
5346-561: Is seen by some historians as the event defining the transition between the first and second empires, in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to
5508-502: Is shared with several other languages of Southern Africa, but it is very rare in other regions. There are three basic articulations of clicks in Zulu: Each articulation covers five click consonants, with differences such as being slack-voiced, aspirated or nasalised , for a total of 15. Zulu syllables are canonically (N)C(w)V , and words must always end in a vowel. Consonant clusters consist of any consonant, optionally preceded by
5670-442: Is taught in schools, also called "deep Zulu" ( isiZulu esijulile ), differs in various respects from the language spoken by people living in cities (Urban Zulu, isiZulu sasedolobheni ). Standard Zulu tends to be purist , using derivations from Zulu words for new concepts, whereas speakers of Urban Zulu use loan words abundantly, mainly from English. For example: This situation has led to problems in education because standard Zulu
5832-422: Is thus still lower in pitch than both of the adjacent syllables. Depressor consonants have an effect called tone displacement . Tone displacement occurs whenever a depressor occurs with a high tone, and causes the tone on the syllable to shift rightward onto the next syllable. If the next syllable is long, it gets a falling tone, otherwise a regular high tone. If the penultimate syllable becomes high (not falling),
5994-725: The Acts of Union 1707 . The 18th century saw the newly united Great Britain rise to be the world's dominant colonial power, with France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire continued the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted until 1714 and was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht . Philip V of Spain renounced his and his descendants' claim to
6156-671: The American War of Independence towards the end of the 18th century, has been referred to by some historians as the "First British Empire". England's early efforts at colonisation in the Americas met with mixed success. An attempt to establish a colony in Guiana in 1604 lasted only two years and failed in its main objective to find gold deposits. Colonies on the Caribbean islands of St Lucia (1605) and Grenada (1609) rapidly folded. The first permanent English settlement in
6318-858: The Americas and Asia . A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America . Britain became a major power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company 's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. While retaining control of British North America (now Canada ) and territories in and near
6480-715: The Battle of Ulundi , ending the war. The area was absorbed into the Colony of Natal and later became part of the Union of South Africa . Shaka was the illegitimate son of Senzangakhona , Chief of the Zulus. He was born c. 1787. He and his mother, Nandi , were exiled by Senzangakhona, and found refuge with the Mthethwa . Shaka fought as a warrior under Dingiswayo , leader of the Mthethwa Paramountcy . When Senzangakona died, Dingiswayo helped Shaka become king of
6642-652: The British economy . Added to this was the cost of suppressing regular slave rebellions . With support from the British abolitionist movement, Parliament enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the empire. In 1808, Sierra Leone Colony was designated an official British colony for freed slaves. Parliamentary reform in 1832 saw the influence of the West India Committee decline. The Slavery Abolition Act , passed
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6804-860: The Caribbean in the British West Indies , British colonial expansion turned towards Asia, Africa , and the Pacific . After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. It pursued trade concessions in China and Japan, and territory in Southeast Asia . The " Great Game " and " Scramble for Africa " also ensued. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which
6966-809: The First Anglo-Afghan War was a disaster for Britain. When Russia invaded the Ottoman Balkans in 1853, fears of Russian dominance in the Mediterranean and the Middle East led Britain and France to enter the war in support of the Ottoman Empire and invade the Crimean Peninsula to destroy Russian naval capabilities. The ensuing Crimean War (1854–1856), which involved new techniques of modern warfare ,
7128-683: The Government of India Act 1858 , establishing the British Raj , where an appointed governor-general administered India and Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India . India became the empire's most valuable possession, "the Jewel in the Crown", and was the most important source of Britain's strength. A series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century led to widespread famines on
7290-761: The Great Trek of the late 1830s and early 1840s. In the process the Voortrekkers clashed repeatedly with the British, who had their own agenda with regard to colonial expansion in South Africa and to the various native African polities, including those of the Sotho people and the Zulu Kingdom . Eventually, the Boers established two republics that had a longer lifespan: the South African Republic or Transvaal Republic (1852–1877; 1881–1902) and
7452-422: The Khedivate of Egypt into the 20th century, it was officially a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire and not part of the British Empire. The French were still majority shareholders and attempted to weaken the British position, but a compromise was reached with the 1888 Convention of Constantinople , which made the Canal officially neutral territory. With competitive French, Belgian and Portuguese activity in
7614-414: The Mahdist Army in 1896 and rebuffed an attempted French invasion at Fashoda in 1898. Sudan was nominally made an Anglo-Egyptian condominium , but a British colony in reality. British gains in Southern and East Africa prompted Cecil Rhodes , pioneer of British expansion in Southern Africa , to urge a " Cape to Cairo " railway linking the strategically important Suez Canal to the mineral-rich south of
7776-447: The Maratha Confederacy . The First Anglo-Maratha War ended in 1782 with a restoration of the pre-war status quo . The Second and Third Anglo-Maratha wars resulted in British victories. After the surrender of Peshwa Bajirao II on 1818, the East India Company acquired control of a large majority of the Indian subcontinent. Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented
7938-542: The Middle East . Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies , some of which were formally reclassified as Dominions by the 1920s. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military, economic and colonial tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War , during which Britain relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although
8100-558: The Northern Ndebele language ( isiNdebele ) is closely related to Zulu. Xhosa , the predominant language in the Eastern Cape , is often considered mutually intelligible with Zulu, as is Northern Ndebele . Maho (2009) lists four dialects: central KwaZulu-Natal Zulu, northern Transvaal Zulu, eastern coastal Qwabe, and western coastal Cele. The Zulu, like Xhosa and other Nguni people , have lived in South Africa for hundreds of years. The Zulu language possesses several click sounds typical of Southern African languages, not found in
8262-409: The Orange Free State (1854–1902). In 1902 Britain occupied both republics, concluding a treaty with the two Boer Republics following the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In 1869 the Suez Canal opened under Napoleon III , linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean . Initially the Canal was opposed by the British; but once opened, its strategic value was quickly recognised and became
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#17327661084438424-411: The Royal African Company was granted a monopoly on the supply of slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean. The company would transport more slaves across the Atlantic than any other, and significantly grew England's share of the trade, from 33 per cent in 1673 to 74 per cent in 1683. The removal of this monopoly between 1688 and 1712 allowed independent British slave traders to thrive, leading to
8586-500: The Saint John and Saint Croix river valleys, then part of Nova Scotia , felt too far removed from the provincial government in Halifax , so London split off New Brunswick as a separate colony in 1784. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English speaking ) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking ) to defuse tensions between the French and British communities, and implemented governmental systems similar to those employed in Britain, with
8748-443: The Seychelles , and Tobago ; Spain ceded Trinidad ; the Netherlands ceded Guiana , Ceylon and the Cape Colony , while the Danish ceded Heligoland . Britain returned Guadeloupe , Martinique , French Guiana , and Réunion to France; Menorca to Spain; Danish West Indies to Denmark and Java and Suriname to the Netherlands. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution , goods produced by slavery became less important to
8910-441: The Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for the future of the British Empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power effectively ended with the recognition of British claims to Rupert's Land, and the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. Along with its victory over France in India,
9072-417: The Victorian gold rush , making its capital Melbourne for a time the richest city in the world. The British also expanded their mercantile interests in the North Pacific. Spain and Britain had become rivals in the area, culminating in the Nootka Crisis in 1789. Both sides mobilised for war, but when France refused to support Spain it was forced to back down, leading to the Nootka Convention . The outcome
9234-454: The War of 1812 , and invaded Canadian territory. In response, Britain invaded the US, but the pre-war boundaries were reaffirmed by the 1814 Treaty of Ghent , ensuring Canada's future would be separate from that of the United States. Since 1718, transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year. Forced to find an alternative location after
9396-399: The dominions , colonies , protectorates , mandates , and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was
9558-545: The metropole and the entirety of the empire while at the same time maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation". Germany was rapidly rising as a military and industrial power and was now seen as the most likely opponent in any future war. Recognising that it was overstretched in the Pacific and threatened at home by the Imperial German Navy , Britain formed an alliance with Japan in 1902 and with its old enemies France and Russia in 1904 and 1907, respectively. Britain's fears of war with Germany were realised in 1914 with
9720-413: The privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa with the aim of establishing an Atlantic slave trade . This effort was rebuffed and later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth I gave her blessing to further privateering raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that
9882-440: The protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. The war to the south influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and 100,000 defeated Loyalists had migrated from the new United States following independence. The 14,000 Loyalists who went to
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#173276610844310044-399: The spice trade of the East Indies archipelago to the Netherlands and the textiles industry of India to England, but textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability. Peace between England and the Netherlands in 1688 meant the two countries entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left
10206-475: The "Sugar Revolution" transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century. Large sugarcane plantations were first established in the 1640s on Barbados, with assistance from Dutch merchants and Sephardic Jews fleeing Portuguese Brazil . At first, sugar was grown primarily using white indentured labour , but rising costs soon led English traders to embrace the use of imported African slaves. The enormous wealth generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados
10368-480: The "jugular vein of the Empire". In 1875, the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Isma'il Pasha 's 44 per cent shareholding in the Suez Canal for £4 million (equivalent to £480 million in 2023). Although this did not grant outright control of the strategic waterway, it did give Britain leverage. Joint Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British occupation in 1882. Although Britain controlled
10530-416: The "teacher" meaning. In principle, every syllable can be pronounced with either a high or a low tone. However, low tone does not behave the same as the other two, as high tones can "spread" into low-toned syllables while the reverse does not occur. A low tone is therefore better described as the absence of any toneme; it is a kind of default tone that is overridden by high or falling tones. The falling tone
10692-428: The 1730s. This trade, illegal since it was outlawed by China in 1729, helped reverse the trade imbalances resulting from the British imports of tea, which saw large outflows of silver from Britain to China. In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese authorities at Canton of 20,000 chests of opium led Britain to attack China in the First Opium War , and resulted in the seizure by Britain of Hong Kong Island , at that time
10854-531: The Americas the following year but did not return; it is unknown what happened to his ships. No further attempts to establish English colonies in the Americas were made until well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I , during the last decades of the 16th century. In the meantime, Henry VIII 's 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of England is an Empire". The Protestant Reformation turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 1562, Elizabeth I encouraged
11016-414: The Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown by Captain John Smith , and managed by the Virginia Company ; the Crown took direct control of the venture in 1624, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia . Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's flagship , while attempts to settle Newfoundland were largely unsuccessful. In 1620, Plymouth
11178-479: The British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 per cent in 1650 to around 80 per cent in 1780, and in the Thirteen Colonies from 10 per cent to 40 per cent over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies). The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities. Ships registered in Bristol , Liverpool and London were responsible for
11340-443: The British Empire as the new United States of America . The entry of French and Spanish forces into the war tipped the military balance in the Americans' favour and after a decisive defeat at Yorktown in 1781, Britain began negotiating peace terms. American independence was acknowledged at the Peace of Paris in 1783. The loss of such a large portion of British America , at the time Britain's most populous overseas possession,
11502-416: The British Empire became the global hegemon was later described as Pax Britannica (Latin for "British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade, and of its oceans, meant that it effectively controlled the economies of, and readily enforced its interests in, many regions , such as Asia and Latin America . It also came to dominate
11664-518: The British and the Boers, resulting in the British annexation of Natalia. Mpande shifted his allegiance to the British, and remained on good terms with them. In 1843, Mpande ordered a purge of perceived dissidents within his kingdom. This resulted in numerous deaths, and the fleeing of thousands of refugees into neighbouring areas (including the British-controlled Natal ). Many of these refugees fled with cattle. Mpande began raiding
11826-608: The British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British East India Company in control of Bengal and as a major military and political power in India. France was left control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states , ending French hopes of controlling India. In the following decades the British East India Company gradually increased
11988-438: The British suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 where the Zulu army killed more than 1,000 British soldiers in a single day. The Zulu deployment at Isandhlwana showed the well-organized tactical system that had made the Zulu kingdom successful for many decades. This constituted the worst defeat the British army had ever suffered at the hands of a native African fighting force. The defeat prompted
12150-607: The English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget to the costly land war in Europe. The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip V of Spain , a grandson of the King of France , raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for England and
12312-696: The French throne, and Spain lost its empire in Europe. The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain, Gibraltar and Menorca . Gibraltar became a critical naval base and allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean . Spain ceded the rights to the lucrative asiento (permission to sell African slaves in Spanish America ) to Britain. With
12474-559: The Māori population. The UK government finally decided to act, dispatching Captain William Hobson with instructions to take formal possession after obtaining native consent. There was no central Māori authority able to represent all New Zealand so, on 6 February 1840, Hobson and many Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in the Bay of Islands; most other chiefs signing in stages over
12636-661: The Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system and the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century left it with a stronger position in Asia. Hostilities ceased after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Dutch William of Orange ascended the English throne, bringing peace between the Dutch Republic and England. A deal between the two nations left
12798-468: The Pacific between 1769 and 1777, James Cook visited New Zealand . He was followed by an assortment of Europeans and Americans which including whalers, sealers, escaped convicts from New South Wales, missionaries and adventurers. Initially, contact with the indigenous Māori people was limited to the trading of goods, although interaction increased during the early decades of the 19th century with many trading and missionary stations being set up, especially in
12960-675: The Pacific for the extension of the North American fur trade . Alexander Mackenzie of the North West Company led the first, starting out in 1792, and a year later he became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio Grande , reaching the ocean near present-day Bella Coola . This preceded the Lewis and Clark Expedition by twelve years. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion, John Finlay , founded
13122-566: The Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and the two continued to co-operate in arenas outside India: the eviction of the French from Egypt (1799), the capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811), the acquisition of Penang Island (1786), Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), and the defeat of Burma (1826). From its base in India, the company had been engaged in an increasingly profitable opium export trade to Qing China since
13284-573: The Seven Years' War therefore left Britain as the world's most powerful maritime power . During the 1760s and early 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's attempts to govern and tax American colonists without their consent. This was summarised at the time by the colonists' slogan " No taxation without representation ",
13446-762: The Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the Bahamas . In 1670, Charles II incorporated by royal charter the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as Rupert's Land , which would later form a large proportion of the Dominion of Canada . Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent New France . Two years later,
13608-579: The Tugera Rivers. An offshoot of the Zulu, the amaNdebele, better known to history as the Matabele , created an even larger empire under their king Mzilikazi , including large parts of the highveld and modern-day Zimbabwe . [1] Shaka was succeeded by Dingane , his half-brother, who conspired with Mhlangana, another half-brother, and Mbopa, an induna , to murder him in 1828. Following this assassination, Dingane murdered Mhlangana, and took over
13770-625: The Union of South Africa was formed, Louis Botha became its first prime minister, and he arranged for his old ally Dinuzulu to return to South Africa and live in exile on a farm in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913. Dinuzulu's son Solomon kaDinuzulu was never recognised by South African authorities as the Zulu king, only as a local chief, but he was increasingly regarded as king by chiefs, by political intellectuals such as John Langalibalele Dube and by ordinary Zulu people. In 1923, Solomon founded
13932-563: The Voortrekkers, went to war with Dingane. Dingane was assassinated near the modern Swaziland border. Mpande then took over rulership of the Zulu nation. Following the campaign against Dingane, in 1839 the Voortrekkers, under Pretorius, formed the Boer republic of Natalia , south of the Tugela, and west of the British settlement of Port Natal (now Durban ). Mpande and Pretorius maintained peaceful relations. However, in 1842, war broke out between
14094-499: The Zulu. After Dingiswayo 's death at the hands of Zwide , king of the Ndwandwe , around 1816, Shaka assumed leadership of the entire Mthethwa alliance. Shaka's clan at first numbered no more than a few thousands, but eventually grew in size to 45,000 after absorbing neighboring clans. His military reforms included new battle techniques, training, and tough discipline, as well as the replacement of long-throwing spears in exchange for
14256-645: The annexation of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, following the capture of New Amsterdam , which was renamed New York . Although less financially successful than colonies in the Caribbean, these territories had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far greater numbers of English emigrants, who preferred their temperate climates. The British West Indies initially provided England's most important and lucrative colonies. Settlements were successfully established in St. Kitts (1624), Barbados (1627) and Nevis (1628), but struggled until
14418-625: The apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838. The British government compensated slave-owners. Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, around 10 million sq mi (26 million km ) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. Victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in Central Asia . Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted
14580-592: The armies of the Dominions , as well as many thousands of volunteers from the Crown colonies. The contributions of Australian and New Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman Empire had a great impact on the national consciousness at home and marked a watershed in the transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own right. The countries continue to commemorate this occasion on Anzac Day . Canadians viewed
14742-589: The bulk of British slave trading. For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average mortality rate during the Middle Passage was one in seven. At the end of the 16th century, England and the Dutch Empire began to challenge the Portuguese Empire 's monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock companies to finance
14904-529: The business of establishing its own overseas colonies. The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of joint-stock companies , most notably the East India Company , to administer colonies and overseas trade. This period, until the loss of the Thirteen Colonies after
15066-599: The coasts of Africa and Brazil to China , and France had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River area, later to become New France . Although England tended to trail behind Portugal, Spain, and France in establishing overseas colonies, it carried out its first modern colonisation, referred to as the Munster Plantations , in 16th century Ireland by settling it with English and Welsh Protestant settlers. England had already colonised part of
15228-470: The colony was abandoned two years later. The Darien scheme was a financial disaster for Scotland: a quarter of Scottish capital was lost in the enterprise. The episode had major political consequences, helping to persuade the government of the Kingdom of Scotland of the merits of turning the personal union with England into a political and economic one under the Kingdom of Great Britain established by
15390-457: The continent. During the 1880s and 1890s, Rhodes, with his privately owned British South Africa Company , occupied and annexed territories named after him, Rhodesia . The path to independence for the white colonies of the British Empire began with the 1839 Durham Report , which proposed unification and self-government for Upper and Lower Canada, as a solution to political unrest which had erupted in armed rebellions in 1837. This began with
15552-572: The country following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. Several people who helped establish the Munster plantations later played a part in the early colonisation of North America, particularly a group known as the West Country Men . In 1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. That year, Gilbert sailed for the Caribbean with
15714-477: The decline of the empire. India , Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of a larger decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997 symbolised for many the end of the British Empire, though fourteen overseas territories that are remnants of
15876-657: The empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after the First World War, Britain was no longer the world's preeminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War , Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan . Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies , the damage to British prestige and the British economy helped accelerate
16038-537: The empire remain under British sovereignty . After independence, many former British colonies, along with most of the dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations , a free association of independent states. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain the same person as monarch , currently King Charles III . The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England , following
16200-576: The exception of international relations . Australia and New Zealand achieved similar levels of self-government after 1900, with the Australian colonies federating in 1901 . The term "dominion status" was officially introduced at the 1907 Imperial Conference . As the dominions gained greater autonomy, they would come to be recognized as distinct realms of the empire with unique customs and symbols of their own. Imperial identity, through imagery such as patriotic artworks and banners, began developing into
16362-422: The final syllable dissimilates and becomes low if it was not already. Tone displacement is blocked under the following conditions: Whenever tone displacement is blocked, this results in a depressor syllable with a high tone, which will have the low-tone onset as described above. When the following syllable already has a high or falling tone, the tone disappears from the syllable as if it had been shifted away, but
16524-451: The first full-length feature film in Zulu, Yesterday , was nominated for an Oscar . The mutual intelligibility of many Nguni languages has increased the likelihood of Zulu becoming the lingua franca of the eastern half of the country. In the 1994 film The Lion King , in the " Circle of Life " song, the phrases Ingonyama nengw' enamabala (English: A lion and a leopard spots ), Nans' ingonyama bakithi Baba (English: Here comes
16686-684: The first permanent European settlement in British Columbia , Fort St. John . The North West Company sought further exploration and backed expeditions by David Thompson , starting in 1797, and later by Simon Fraser . These pushed into the wilderness territories of the Rocky Mountains and Interior Plateau to the Strait of Georgia on the Pacific Coast, expanding British North America westward. The East India Company fought
16848-780: The following consonant, although the difference between homorganic nonsyllabic /mC/ and syllabic /m̩C/ is distinctive, e.g. umpetshisi /um̩pétʃiːsi/ "peach tree" (5 syllables) versus impoko /ímpoːɠo/ "grass flower" (3 syllables). Moreover, sequences of syllabic m and homorganic m can occur, e.g. ummbila /úm̩mbíːla/ "maize" (4 syllables). Recent loanwords from languages such as English may violate these constraints, by including additional consonant clusters that are not native to Zulu, such as in igremu /iːgreːmu/ " gram ". There may be some variation between speakers as to whether clusters are broken up by an epenthetic vowel or not, e.g. ikhompiyutha /iːkʰompijuːtʰa/ or ikhompyutha /iːkʰompjuːtʰa/ "computer". Stress in Zulu words
17010-578: The following months. William Hobson declared British sovereignty over all New Zealand on 21 May 1840, over the North Island by cession and over the South Islnd by discovery (the island was sparsely populated and deemed terra nullius ). Hobson became Lieutenant-Governor, subject to Governor Sir George Gipps in Sydney, with British possession of New Zealand initially administered from Australia as
17172-441: The following syllable's tone is not modified. Some examples: Palatalization is a change that affects labial and alveolar consonants whenever they are immediately followed by /j/ . While palatalization occurred historically, it is still productive and occurs as a result of the addition of suffixes beginning with /j/ . A frequent example is the diminutive suffix -yana . Moreover, Zulu does not generally tolerate sequences of
17334-585: The following year, abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834, finally bringing the empire into line with the law in the UK (with the exception of the territories administered by the East India Company and Ceylon, where slavery was ended in 1844). Under the Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of four to six years of "apprenticeship". Facing further opposition from abolitionists,
17496-465: The foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional , legal , linguistic , and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it
17658-679: The government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement , and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788. Unusually, Australia was claimed through proclamation. Indigenous Australians were considered too uncivilised to require treaties, and colonisation brought disease and violence that together with the deliberate dispossession of land and culture were devastating to these peoples. Britain continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, to Tasmania until 1853 and to Western Australia until 1868. The Australian colonies became profitable exporters of wool and gold, mainly because of
17820-500: The increasingly healthy profits of colonial trade remained in English hands, Parliament decreed in 1651 that only English ships would be able to ply their trade in English colonies. This led to hostilities with the United Dutch Provinces —a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars —which would eventually strengthen England's position in the Americas at the expense of the Dutch. In 1655, England annexed the island of Jamaica from
17982-522: The independent Republic of Vryheid. This alarmed the British who wanted to prevent the Boers access to a harbour. The British then annexed Zululand in 1887. Dinuzulu became involved in later conflicts with rivals. In 1906 Dinuzulu was accused of being behind the Bambatha Rebellion . He was arrested and put on trial by the British for "high treason and public violence". In 1909, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on St Helena island. When
18144-399: The intent of instigating a war with the Zulu, Sir Henry Bartle Frere , on his own initiative and without the approval of the British government, presented an ultimatum to the Zulu king Cetshwayo in terms with which he could not possibly comply: that the Zulu army be disbanded and the Zulus accept a British resident. British forces crossed the Tugela river at the end of December 1878. Initially,
18306-558: The intention of asserting imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that was perceived to have led to the American Revolution. Tensions between Britain and the United States escalated again during the Napoleonic Wars , as Britain tried to cut off American trade with France and boarded American ships to impress men into the Royal Navy . The United States Congress declared war,
18468-482: The intention of engaging in piracy and establishing a colony in North America, but the expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic. In 1583, he embarked on a second attempt. On this occasion, he formally claimed the harbour of the island of Newfoundland, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not survive the return journey to England and was succeeded by his half-brother, Walter Raleigh , who
18630-578: The larger trade, by 1720, in terms of sales, the British company had overtaken the Dutch. During the middle decades of the 18th century, there were several outbreaks of military conflict on the Indian subcontinent , as the English East India Company and its French counterpart , struggled alongside local rulers to fill the vacuum that had been left by the decline of the Mughal Empire . The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which
18792-452: The latter is the class 9 noun prefix in- , which ends in a homorganic nasal. Prenasalisation triggers several changes in the following consonant, some of which are phonemic and others allophonic. The changes can be summed as follows: Zulu has tonic assimilation : high tones tend to spread allophonically to following low-tone syllables, raising their pitch to a level just below that of adjacent high-tone syllables. A toneless syllable between
18954-415: The latter without the h . Nouns are written with their prefixes as one orthographical word. If the prefix ends with a vowel (as most do) and the noun stem also begins with a vowel, a hyphen is inserted in between, e.g. i-Afrika . This occurs only with loanwords. Here are some of the main features of Zulu: The root can be combined with several prefixes and thus create other words. For example, here
19116-510: The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British government looked for an alternative, eventually turning to Australia . On his first of three voyages commissioned by the government, James Cook reached New Zealand in October 1769. He was the first European to circumnavigate and map the country. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries , traders and adventurers but no attempt
19278-632: The lower Congo River region undermining orderly colonisation of tropical Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 was held to regulate the competition between the European powers in what was called the " Scramble for Africa " by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of territorial claims. The scramble continued into the 1890s, and caused Britain to reconsider its decision in 1885 to withdraw from Sudan . A joint force of British and Egyptian troops defeated
19440-424: The more effective short-stabbing spears. Conscripted men were segregated from the rest of Zulu society to be trained as an organized standing army called the amabutho . The alliance under his leadership survived Zwide's first assault at the Battle of Gqokli Hill (1818). Within two years, Shaka had defeated Zwide at the Battle of Mhlatuze River (1820) and broken up the Ndwandwe alliance, some of whom in turn began
19602-493: The most successful colony in the Americas, and one of the most densely populated places in the world. This boom led to the spread of sugar cultivation across the Caribbean, financed the development of non-plantation colonies in North America, and accelerated the growth of the Atlantic slave trade , particularly the triangular trade of slaves, sugar and provisions between Africa, the West Indies and Europe. To ensure that
19764-423: The nearby hill kwaMatiwane, and executed. Some allege that they were killed for withholding some of the cattle they recovered, but it is likely that the deal was a plot to overpower the Voortrekkers. Dingane's army then attacked and massacred a group of 250 Voortrekker men, women and children camped nearby. The site of this massacre is today called Weenen , ( Dutch for "to weep"). The remaining Voortrekkers elected
19926-418: The new province of KwaZulu-Natal . The name KwaZulu translates roughly as Place of Zulus , or more formally Zululand . The Zulu Kingdom is currently part of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal (of which the King of the Zulu Nation is the monarch), one of the country's nine provinces, under the leadership of King MisuZulu ka Zwelithini . A large portion of the territory is made up of wildlife reserves and
20088-487: The north. The first of several Church of England missionaries arrived in 1814 and as well as their missionary role, they soon become the only form of European authority in a land that was not subject to British jurisdiction: the closest authority being the New South Wales governor in Sydney. The sale of weapons to Māori resulted from 1818 on in the intertribal warfare of the Musket Wars , with devastating consequences for
20250-623: The organisation Inkatha YaKwaZulu to promote his royal claims, which became moribund and then was revived in the 1970s by Mangosuthu Buthelezi , chief minister of the KwaZulu bantustan. In December 1951, Solomon's son Cyprian Bhekuzulu kaSolomon was officially recognised as the Paramount Chief of the Zulu people, but real power over ordinary Zulu people lay with South African government officials working through local chiefs who could be removed from office for failure to cooperate. KwaZulu
20412-735: The other powers of Europe. In 1701, England, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession , which lasted for thirteen years. In 1695, the Parliament of Scotland granted a charter to the Company of Scotland , which established a settlement in 1698 on the Isthmus of Panama . Besieged by neighbouring Spanish colonists of New Granada , and affected by malaria ,
20574-799: The outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, Spanish privateers attacked British merchant shipping along the Triangle Trade routes. In 1746, the Spanish and British began peace talks, with the King of Spain agreeing to stop all attacks on British shipping; however, in the 1750 Treaty of Madrid Britain lost its slave-trading rights in Latin America . In the East Indies, British and Dutch merchants continued to compete in spices and textiles. With textiles becoming
20736-474: The outbreak of the First World War. Britain quickly invaded and occupied most of Germany's overseas colonies in Africa. In the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand occupied German New Guinea and German Samoa respectively. Plans for a post-war division of the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the war on Germany's side, were secretly drawn up by Britain and France under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement . This agreement
20898-691: The passing of the Act of Union in 1840, which created the Province of Canada . Responsible government was first granted to Nova Scotia in 1848, and was soon extended to the other British North American colonies. With the passage of the British North America Act, 1867 by the British Parliament , the Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were formed into Canada, a confederation enjoying full self-government with
21060-530: The pattern of tones acts more like a template to assign tones to individual syllables, rather than a direct representation of the pronounced tones themselves. Consequently, the relationship between underlying tone patterns and the tones that are pronounced can be quite complex. Underlying high tones tend to surface rightward from the syllables where they are underlyingly present, especially in longer words. The breathy consonant phonemes in Zulu are depressor consonants or depressors for short. Depressor consonants have
21222-505: 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 . In South African English , the language is often referred to in its native form, isiZulu . Zulu migrant populations have taken it to adjacent regions, especially Zimbabwe , where
21384-448: The power vacuums that had been left by the declining Ottoman Empire , Qajar dynasty and Qing dynasty . This rivalry in Central Asia came to be known as the "Great Game". As far as Britain was concerned, defeats inflicted by Russia on Persia and Turkey demonstrated its imperial ambitions and capabilities and stoked fears in Britain of an overland invasion of India. In 1839, Britain moved to pre-empt this by invading Afghanistan , but
21546-471: The preceding syllable, resulting in a falling tone contour. For example, the English word spoon was borrowed into Zulu as isipunu , phonemically /ísipúnu/ . The second syllable si assimilates to the surrounding high tones, raising its pitch, so that it is pronounced [ísípʼúːnù] sentence-finally. If tone pitch is indicated with numbers, with 1 highest and 9 lowest pitch, then the pitches of each syllable can be denoted as 2-4-3-9. The second syllable
21708-405: The region in 1878 and on all outstanding matters in 1907 with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente . The destruction of the Imperial Russian Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 limited its threat to the British. The Dutch East India Company had founded the Dutch Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa in 1652 as
21870-439: The regular pattern. Like almost all other Bantu and other African languages , Zulu is tonal . There are three main tonemes : low, high and falling. Zulu is conventionally written without any indication of tone, but tone can be distinctive in Zulu. For example, the words "priest" and "teacher" are both spelt umfundisi , but they are pronounced with different tones: /úm̩fúndisi/ for the "priest" meaning, and /úm̩fundísi/ for
22032-448: The rest of Africa. The Nguni people have coexisted with other Southern tribes like the San and Khoi. Zulu, like most indigenous Southern African languages, was not a written language until the arrival of missionaries from Europe, who documented the language using the Latin script . The first grammar book of the Zulu language was published in Norway in 1850 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder . The first written document in Zulu
22194-450: The role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica , and a foreign policy of " splendid isolation ". Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam , which has been described by some historians as an " Informal Empire ". British imperial strength
22356-423: The size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local rulers under the threat of force from the Presidency Armies , the vast majority of which was composed of Indian sepoys , led by British officers. The British and French struggles in India became but one theatre of the global Seven Years' War (1756–1763) involving France, Britain, and the other major European powers. The signing of
22518-408: The south to the Pongola River in the north. A bitter civil war in the mid-19th century erupted which culminated in the 1856 Battle of Ndondakusuka between the brothers Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi. In 1879, a British force invaded Zululand, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War . After an initial Zulu victory at the Battle of Isandlwana in January, the British regrouped and defeated the Zulus in July during
22680-450: The sovereignty of the Crown over the territories that it had acquired. The company's eventual end was precipitated by the Indian Rebellion in 1857, a conflict that had begun with the mutiny of sepoys, Indian troops under British officers and discipline. The rebellion took six months to suppress, with heavy loss of life on both sides. The following year the British government dissolved the company and assumed direct control over India through
22842-419: The subcontinent in which it is estimated that over 15 million people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule. Later, under direct British rule, commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect. On each of his three voyages to
23004-418: The successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead an expedition to discover a northwest passage to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus , and made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland . He believed he had reached Asia, and there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to
23166-495: The surrounding areas, culminating in the invasion of Swaziland in 1852. However, the British pressured him into withdrawing, which he did shortly. At this time, a battle for the succession broke out between two of Mpande's sons, Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi. This culminated in 1856 with the Battle of Ndondakusuka , which left Mbuyazi dead. Cetshwayo then set about usurping his father's authority. When Mpande died of old age in 1872, Cetshwayo took over as ruler. On 11 December 1878, with
23328-491: The throne. The academic Roberto Breschi notes that Zululand had a flag from 1884 to 1897 but this is pure conjecture as A.P. Burgers notes in his book. It consisted of three horizontal bands in equal width of gold, green and red. Dinuzulu made a pact with the Boers of his own, promising them land in return for their aid. The Boers were led by Louis Botha . Dinuzulu and the Boers defeated Zibhebhu in 1884. They were granted about half of Zululand individually as farms, and formed
23490-424: The throne. One of his first royal acts was to execute all of his royal kin. In the years that followed, he also executed many past supporters of Shaka in order to secure his position. One exception to these purges was Mpande , another half-brother, who was considered too weak to be a threat at the time. In the Cape Colony , increasing tensions between some Dutch Settlers and the British colonial authorities led to
23652-440: The voyages—the English, later British, East India Company and the Dutch East India Company , chartered in 1600 and 1602 respectively. The primary aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative spice trade , an effort focused mainly on two regions: the East Indies archipelago , and an important hub in the trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and with each other. Although England eclipsed
23814-412: Was a bantustan in South Africa , intended by the apartheid government as a semi-independent homeland for the Zulu people. The capital was moved from Nongoma to Ulundi in 1980. It was led until its abolition in 1994 by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Zulu royal family and head of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). It was merged with the surrounding South African province of Natal to form
23976-669: Was a Bible translation that appeared in 1883. In 1901, John Dube (1871–1946), a Zulu from Natal, created the Ohlange Institute, the first native educational institution in South Africa. He was also the author of Insila kaShaka , the first novel written in Zulu (1930). Another pioneering Zulu writer was Reginald Dhlomo , author of several historical novels of the 19th-century leaders of the Zulu nation: U-Dingane (1936), U-Shaka (1937), U-Mpande (1938), U-Cetshwayo (1952) and U-Dinizulu (1968). Other notable contributors to Zulu literature include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi and, more recently, Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali . The written form of Zulu
24138-405: Was a humiliation for Spain, which practically renounced all sovereignty on the North Pacific coast. This opened the way to British expansion in the area, and a number of expeditions took place; firstly a naval expedition led by George Vancouver which explored the inlets around the Pacific North West, particularly around Vancouver Island . On land, expeditions sought to discover a river route to
24300-509: Was allowed to visit England. He had audiences with Queen Victoria and other famous personages before being allowed to return to Zululand to be reinstated as king. In 1883, Cetshwayo was put in place as king over a buffer reserve territory, much reduced from his original kingdom. Later that year, however, Cetshwayo was attacked at Ulundi by Zibhebhu , one of the 13 kinglets. Cetshwayo was wounded and fled. Cetshwayo died in February 1884, possibly poisoned. His son, Dinuzulu , then 15, inherited
24462-410: Was controlled by the Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal . This board has now been disbanded and superseded by the Pan South African Language Board which promotes the use of all eleven official languages of South Africa. English, Dutch and later Afrikaans had been the only official languages used by all South African governments before 1994. However, in the Kwazulu bantustan , the Zulu language
24624-472: Was described as " the empire on which the sun never sets ", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France , and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in
24786-481: Was founded as a haven by Puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims . Fleeing from religious persecution would become the motive for many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage : Maryland was established by English Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists . England's North American holdings were further expanded by
24948-472: Was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year, Raleigh founded the Roanoke Colony on the coast of present-day North Carolina , but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail. In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in 1604 negotiated the Treaty of London , ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations' colonial infrastructures to
25110-404: Was made to settle the country or establish possession. The coast of Australia had been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch in 1606 , but there was no attempt to colonise it. In 1770, after leaving New Zealand, James Cook charted the eastern coast, claimed the continent for Britain, and named it New South Wales . In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to
25272-429: Was not divulged to the Sharif of Mecca , who the British had been encouraging to launch an Arab revolt against their Ottoman rulers, giving the impression that Britain was supporting the creation of an independent Arab state. The British declaration of war on Germany and its allies committed the colonies and Dominions, which provided invaluable military, financial and material support. Over 2.5 million men served in
25434-440: Was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World . At the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who was the first to use the term "British Empire") were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own empire. By this time, Spain had become the dominant power in the Americas and was exploring the Pacific Ocean, Portugal had established trading posts and forts from
25596-427: Was supported by the British prime minister , William Gladstone , who hoped that Ireland might follow in Canada's footsteps as a Dominion within the empire, but his 1886 Home Rule bill was defeated in Parliament. Although the bill, if passed, would have granted Ireland less autonomy within the UK than the Canadian provinces had within their own federation, many MPs feared that a partially independent Ireland might pose
25758-481: Was the only global war fought between Britain and another imperial power during the Pax Britannica and was a resounding defeat for Russia. The situation remained unresolved in Central Asia for two more decades, with Britain annexing Baluchistan in 1876 and Russia annexing Kirghizia , Kazakhstan , and Turkmenistan . For a while, it appeared that another war would be inevitable, but the two countries reached an agreement on their respective spheres of influence in
25920-468: Was to indicate the implosive /ɓ/ using the special letter ɓ , while the digraph bh would then be simply written as b . Some references may also write h after letters to indicate that they are of the depressor variety, e.g. mh , nh , yh , a practice that is standard in Xhosa orthography. Very early texts, from the early 20th century or before, tend to omit the distinction between plain and aspirated voiceless consonants, writing
26082-401: Was underpinned by the steamship and the telegraph , new technologies invented in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to control and defend the empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a network of telegraph cables, called the All Red Line . The East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia. The company's army had first joined forces with
26244-484: Was widely used. All education in the country at the high school level was in English or Afrikaans. Since the fall of apartheid in 1994, Zulu has been enjoying a marked revival. Zulu-language television was introduced by the SABC in the early 1980s and it broadcasts news and many shows in Zulu. Zulu radio is very popular and newspapers such as isoLezwe , Ilanga and UmAfrika in the Zulu language are available in Kwazulu-Natal province and Johannesburg . In January 2005
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