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Last modified: 2025-06-19 by antónio martins
Keywords: ifulegi | amafulegi | ifulagi |
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ifulegi
I have asked my Zulu-speaking colleagues as to what is the accepted
word for "flag" in Zulu and the reply is "ifulegi".
(It is definitely not "iduku" as that means handkerchief.)
This has been confirmed with a translator. Pronunciation of
"ifulegi" is as written "if-u-legi".
Bruce Berry, 17 Aug 2007
In Bantu langages (at least those spoken in Southern Africa)
syllables almost always end with a vowel (some words in the Sotho
languages are an exception to this), and a vowel is often a syllable
on its own. So you would pronounce this word as "i-fu-le-gi"
(with a hard G). The derivation is clearly from the English word
"flag", with two extra vowels
to make it conform to the Nguni manner of word construction.
Mike Oettle, 23 Aug 2007
Note also that the preffix "i-" is the
article which in the Nguni group is always included with the noun.
The plural is "ama-", thus "amafulegi"
for "flags").
Andries Burgers, 11 Sep 2007
That is mentioned also in the
English
Wikipedia article about the Zulu language.
António Martins, 15 Aug 2007
I have also seen the word "ifulagi" (instead of
"ifulegi") used in Zulu for "flag",
in a multi-lingual dictionary (Afrikaans, English, Pedi (North-Sotho),
Sesotho (South-Sotho), Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu — published by
Reader’s Digest). Could well be dialectical differences although I
cannot from my limited knowledge of Zulu, say for sure. The Nguni-group of
languages do have regional dialects, especially in the contact regions.
Andries Burgers, 24 Aug 2007 and 11 Sep 2007
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