The value of indigenous knowledge systems in the development of Zulu medical terminology
Language may be studied not only from a linguistic point of view, but also with regard to extra-linguistic factors such as indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). These systems, broadly speaking, concern the lives, thoughts and culture of the people who speak a particular language. Zulu language development, for instance, can be enhanced by reverting to indigenous knowledge which is imbedded in the language instead of relying solely on linguistic methods of term creation. In this manner the speaker's understanding of newly created terms will also be improved. In this article world view and taboo are two of the indigenous knowledge-related systems applied and exemplified with reference to the development of Zulu medical (technical) terminology. Generally, a person's mother tongue offers him/her a framework for his/her perception of the environment or world (world view). Taboo, on the other hand, is an umbrella term referring to terms that are unsuitable for use in a specific social context.
Growth of the Zulu language and its structural changes
This article does not look into hypothetical forms attributed to a parent or proto-language. It looks into changes of between two or three generations. Too often the assumption is that change in Zulu occurs only in the lexicon or semantic content of words. An attempt is made to show that changes occur in almost all the facets of language, namely, tone, phonology, syntax and the lexicon. Change is viewed as growth rather than as decay. What is regarded as non-standard today, may be regarded as standard form by future generations. The teachers of Zulu of the day ought to approach language change with an open mind because change is the very law of the existence of a language.
Subclasses of Zulu nouns
The evolution of isiZulu requires the coinage of new words or the borrowing of foreign words to express new concepts and ideas. Two noun classes have become prominent tools in the borrowing process. A number of nouns arc borrowed by means of what was traditionally known as Subclass la, but non-personal nouns arc inflected according to the syntactic pattern of Class 3 rather than that of Class 1. Such nouns should therefore be classified as Subclass 3a. A considerable number of nouns are also borrowed by simply prefixing them with the nasal-less noun prefix /i-/ and make their plural in /ama-/. The syntactic behaviour of their singular forms, however, follows in the main the pattern of Class 9 nouns. It is therefore necessary to classify them as Subclass 9a.