Fanagalo
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Fanagalo | |
---|---|
Pidgin Zulu | |
Region | Southern Africa-KwaZulu-Natal |
Speakers | L1: none (2022) L2 speakers: 5,000[1] |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | fng |
Glottolog | fana1235 |
S40A [2] | |
Linguasphere | 99-AUT-fh |
Fanagalo, or Fanakalo, is a vernacular or pidgin based primarily on
Etymology
The name "Fanagalo" comes from strung-together Nguni forms fana-ga-lo meaning "like + of + that" and has the meaning "do it like this", reflecting its use as a language of instruction. Other spellings of the name include Fanagalo and Fanekolo. It is also known as Isikula, Lololo or Isilololo, Piki or Isipiki, and Silunguboi.
Like Turkish, Fanagalo is characterized by a certain amount of vowel harmony, wherein a vowel in a prefix is changed according to the subsequent vowel. In the Nguni tongues, the
Chi-lapa-lapa thus is the "language" derived from lapa = "there", with reduplication for emphasis.
History and usage
Fanagalo is one of a number of
The most common theory is that Fanagalo was created as a result of men speaking different languages (coming from different cultural backgrounds throughout South Africa and its neighboring states) that went to work in the mines during the late 19th century. Eventually, these languages combined and a new dialect was formed to break the language barrier among
Another theory (suggested by Adendorff and other researchers) is that Fanagalo came from the
Adendorff describes two variants of the language, Mine Fanagalo and Garden Fanagalo. The latter name refers to its use with servants in households. It was previously known as Kitchen Kaffir. Both Fanagalo and Kitchen Kaffir contributed to linguistic colonization as Kitchen Kaffir was created to segregate the colonizers from the local communities and was used as a means to exercise control.[4] The term kaffir was used as a derogatory term for Black people in South Africa and is now considered extremely offensive. It is derived from the Arab word kafir, meaning unbeliever.[5]
Two factors kept Fanagalo from achieving status as a primary language: the segregation of Fanagalo to work-related domains of use and an absence of leisure uses. Secondly, women and children were not permitted to speak Fanagalo, meaning that family communication did not exist and there were little ways to expand the uses of the pidgin.[3] In the mid-20th century in South Africa there were government-led efforts to promote and standardise Fanagalo as a universal second language, under the name of "Basic Bantu".[citation needed]
In contrast,
Aside from mining, Adendorff also suggests that Fanagalo has unfavourable and negative connotations for many South Africans. However, he raises the point that Fanagalo is sometimes used between white South Africans, particularly expatriates, as a signal of South African origin and a way of conveying solidarity in an informal manner. That role has of late largely been taken over by Afrikaans; even among English speaking South African expatriates.[6] In the latter half of the 20th century, holiday makers from the Rhodesias frequently went on holiday to Lourenço Marques in Mozambique (now Maputo), where many people speak Portuguese – but most also spoke a form of Fanagalo.[citation needed]
There have been some small books, grammars, and dictionaries published about Fanagalo.[7][8] Presumably, these were used more by white supervisors than by Bantu-speaking workers as most Black workers learned the language naturally at work and many were illiterate.
Phonology
Consonants
According to the Dictionary and Phrase-Book of Fanagalo (Kitchen Kafir) by J.D. Bold,/.
Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | lateral | central | |||||
Click | tenuis/ejective | ᵏǀʼ ⟨c⟩ | ᵏǁʼ ⟨x⟩ | ᵏǃʼ ⟨q⟩ | |||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t
|
k | |||
voiced
|
b | d
|
ɡ | ||||
ejective | kʼ ⟨kh⟩ | ||||||
Affricate | voiceless | ts | tʃ ⟨tsh⟩ | ||||
voiced | dʒ ⟨j⟩ | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless
|
f | s | ɬ ⟨hl⟩
|
ʃ ⟨sh⟩ | x ⟨gh⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ |
voiced | v | z | |||||
Nasal | voiced | m | n
|
ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | |||
Liquid | voiced | r
|
l
|
||||
Semivowel | voiced | j ⟨y⟩ | w |
Vowels and syllabic consonants
Bold remarks that Fanagalo had five monophthongs, five diphthongs, and two syllabic consonants with no tone or length contrast: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ai/, /ei/, /au/, /oi/, /ou/, /m̩/, and /n̩/. The syllabic consonants occurred only at the beginning of words such as mlungu and nkosi which are derived from the Zulu words umlungu and inkosi.[8]
Grammar
Like English, Afrikaans, and the Nguni languages, Fanagalo uses a subject-verb-object word order. The language possesses a highly regular and analytical inflectional morphology with only a few inflectional affixes and a few grammatical exceptions.[8]
Verbs
Most present tense (which double as infinitive) verbs in Fanagalo end in -a; other tenses are formed by removing -a and adding other affixes or words. The following table shows the inflection of the regular verb hamba, meaning "to go."[8]
Grammatical Tense | English | Fanagalo |
---|---|---|
Present | I arrive. | Mina fika. |
Past | I arrived. | Mina fikile. |
Future | I will arrive. | Mina zo fika. |
Present Progressive | I am arriving. | Mina fikwa. |
Present Perfect | I have arrived. | Mina fikiwe. |
Causative | I make others arrive. | Mina fikisa. |
Future Perfect | I will have arrived. | Mina zo fikile. |
Present Modal | I can arrive. | Mina yazi fika. |
Past Modal | I could have arrived. | Mina yazi fikile. |
Present Permissive | I may arrive. | Mina wena fika. |
Possibility | I might arrive. | Mhlaumbe mina zo fika. |
Desire | I want to arrive. | Mina funa fika. |
Wish | I like to arrive. | Mina tanda fika. |
Desire (Formal) | I would like to arrive. | Mina zo tanda fika. |
Expectation | I should arrive. | Muhle mina fika. |
Irrealis | I am about to arrive. | Mina zo fika konamanje. |
Several irregular verbs, some of which end in -a and some of which do not, also exist in the language and do not follow these basic rules for conjugation. For example, the following verbs hamba (to go) and azi (to know) are conjugated in the following way. The remote past tense prefix nga- and the recent past tense prefix be- can be used only with verbs that do not end in -a along with some other verbs such as dula (to stay), cula (to sing), and lala (to sleep).[9]
Grammatical Tense | English | Fanagalo |
---|---|---|
Present | I go. | Mina hamba. |
Past | I went. | Mina hambile. |
Remote Past | I went a long time ago. | Mina ngahamba. |
Recent Past | I just went. | Mina behamba. |
Future | I will go. | Mina zo hamba. |
Present Progressive | I am going. | Mina hambwa. |
Present Perfect | I have gone. | Mina hambiwe. |
Causative | I drive away (cause to go). | Mina hambisa. |
Future Perfect | I will have gone. | Mina zo hambile. |
Present Modal | I can go. | Mina yazi hamba. |
Past Modal | I could have gone. | Mina yazi hambile. |
Present Permissive | I may go. | Mina wena hamba. |
Possibility | I might go. | Mhlaumbe mina zo hamba. |
Desire | I want to go. | Mina funa hamba. |
Wish | I like to go. | Mina tanda hamba. |
Desire (Formal) | I would like to go. | Mina zo tanda hamba. |
Expectation | I should go. | Muhle mina hamba. |
Irrealis | I am about to go. | Mina zo hamba konamanje. |
Grammatical Tense | English | Fanagalo |
---|---|---|
Present | I know. | Mina azi. |
Past | I knew. | Mina aziile. |
Remote Past | I knew a long time ago. | Mina ngaazi. |
Recent Past | I just knew. | Mina beazi. |
Future | I will know. | Mina zo azi. |
Present Progressive | I am knowing. | Mina aziwa. |
Present Perfect | I have known. | Mina aziiwe. |
Causative | I teach (cause to know). | Mina aziisa. |
Future Perfect | I will have known. | Mina zo aziile. |
Present Modal | I can know. | Mina yazi azi. |
Past Modal | I could have known. | Mina yazi aziile. |
Present Permissive | I may know. | Mina wena azi. |
Possibility | I might know. | Mhlaumbe mina zo azi. |
Desire | I want to know. | Mina funa azi. |
Wish | I like to know. | Mina tanda azi. |
Desire (Formal) | I would like to know. | Mina zo tanda azi. |
Expectation | I should know. | Muhle mina azi. |
Irrealis | I am about to know. | Mina zo azi konamanje. |
Noun Pluralization
Most inanimate nouns in Fanagalo are pluralized by adding ma- to the base form of the word, but words starting with i are pluralized by adding z- and words beginning with n are pluralized with zi-. For example, the plural of foshol (shovel) is mafoshol (shovels); the plural form of inyoni (bird) is zinyoni (birds) and the plural form of nkomo (cow) is zinkomo (cattle). Regular proper nouns referring to people and categories of people are pluralized by adding ba- to the base form of the word. For example, the plural form of the proper name Judah (spelled Juda) in Fanagalo would be BaJuda (Judahs).[8]
Bold documents several irregular plurals in his guidebook to the language: Abelungu (white people) as the plural of Mlungu (white person), mehlo (eyes) as the plural form of iliso (eye), and befazi (women) as the plural form of mfazi (woman).
Interrogatives
Language features and variants
Mine Fanagalo in South Africa and Zimbabwe is based mostly on Zulu vocabulary (about 70%), with English (about 25%) and some words from Afrikaans (5%). It does not have the range of Zulu inflections, and it tends to follow English word order.
Adendorff describes Mine Fanagalo and Garden Fanagalo as being basically the same pidgin. He suggests that Garden Fanagalo should be seen as lying towards the English end of a continuum, and Mine Fanagalo closer to the Zulu end.
The variety in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) is known as Chilapalapa and is influenced by Shona, while the variety in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia), called Cikabanga[10] (pronounced, and sometimes spelt, Chikabanga), is influenced by Bemba.
Several key features differentiate Fanagalo from the Nguni languages (such as Zulu and Xhosa). Lo functions as both an article and a demonstrative, while only a demonstrative in Zulu. Lapha is used to mean "here", also meaning "there" when the first syllable is stressed, and is also used as a general preposition for location. (It works for anything such as "on", or "near", etc.) Zulu, on the other hand, uses only lapha to mean "here". Additionally, Fanagalo uses only free pronouns: mina, thina, wena, ena, meaning "I, we, you, he/she/it/they". Zulu uses only pronouns for emphasis, relying instead on verb agreement markers, much like Spanish.[3]
Here are two examples (all letters are pronounced):-
Koki Lobin
Cock Robin
Zonke nyoni lapa moyo ena kala, ena kala
All birds of air, they cried, they cried
Ena izwile ena file lo nyoni Koki Lobin
They heard the death the bird Cock Robin
Ena izwile, ena file, ena izwile ena file Cocky Lobin.
Kubani ena bulalile Koki Lobin?
Who they killed Cock Robin
Mina kruma lo Sparrow
Me, said the sparrow
Na lo picannin bow and arrow kamina
With the little bow & arrow of mine
Mina bulalile Koki Lobin.
I killed Cock Robin
TANDAZO'
(The Lord's Prayer)
Baba ga tina, Wena kona pezulu,
Father of ours, You are above<
Tina bonga lo Gama ga wena;
We thank (for) the name of you
Tina vuma lo mteto ga wena Lapa mhlaba, fana na pezulu.
Niga tina namuhla lo zinkwa yena izwasisa;
Give us today etc., etc...
Futi, yekelela masono gatina,
Loskati tina yekelela masono ga lomunye.
Hayi letisa tina lapa lo cala; Kodwa, sindisa tina ku lo bubi,
Ndaba Wena kona lo-mteto, lo mandla, na lo dumela, Zonkeskat. Amen.
See also
- Pidgin
- Creole language
- Tsotsitaal
References
- ^ a b Fanagalo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ S2CID 144973893.
- ISSN 1569-1500.
- ^ Drissne, Gerald (11 February 2017). "What is a Kafir?". Arabic For Nerds. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
- ^ S2CID 150025140.
- ^ Cole, Desmond T. "Fanagalo and the Bantu languages in South Africa." African Studies 12, no. 1 (1953): 1–9.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bold, J. D. Fanagalo: Phrase-book Grammar Dictionary. JL van Schaik, 1990.
- ^ Suzman, S. In Step with Fanagalo: Fanakalo Made Easy. Astoria, South Africa: Quoin Institute.
- ^ "Image:Chikabanga p01.jpg". The Great North Road. Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
- Adendorff, Ralph (2002). "Fanakalo – a Pidgin in South Africa". Language in South Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79105-2.
- Lunga, Violet Bridget (2004). "Mapping African Postcoloniality: Linguistic and Cultural Spaces of Hybridity". Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. 3 (3): 291–326. ISSN1569-1500
- Mesthrie, Rajend (2019-08-27). "Fanakalo as a mining language in South Africa: A new overview". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2019 (258): 13–33. ISSN0165-2516.
Further reading
- Ellen Hurst (24 November 2017). "Fanakalo". The Social and Political History of Southern Africa's Languages. pp. 93–99. QID Q124302868.