Nguni languages

The Nguni languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni peoples. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele (sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"), Swati, Hlubi, Phuthi, Bhaca, Lala, Nhlangwini, Southern Transvaal Ndebele, and Sumayela Ndebele. The appellation "Nguni" derives from the Nguni cattle type. "Ngoni" (see below) is an older, or a shifted, variant.
It is sometimes argued that use of "Nguni" as a generic label suggests a historical monolithic unity of the peoples 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.
Classification.
Within a subset of Southern Bantu, 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 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 and Tekela (thus the native form of the name "Swati" and 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.
Tekela languages.
Maho (2009) also lists S401 Old Mfengu†
Characteristics.
The following aspects of Nguni languages are typical:
Comparative data.
Compare the following sentences:
Note: Xhosa = Phuthi = IPA ; Phuthi = ; Zulu = IPA , but in the environment cited here is "nasally permuted" to . Phuthi = breathy voiced = Xhosa, Zulu (in the environment here following the nasal ). Zulu, Swazi, Hlubi = .
Note: Phuthi = IPA .