Learning Zulu: A Secret History of Language in South Africa

hrough one person’s efforts to learn the Zulu language, Learning Zulu explores how a language’s history and politics influence all individuals in a multilingual society.

“Why are you learning Zulu?” When Mark Sanders began studying the language, he was often asked this question. In Learning Zulu, Sanders places his own endeavours within a wider context to uncover how, in the past 150 years of South African history, Zulu became a battleground for issues of property, possession, and deprivation. Sanders combines elements of analysis and memoir to explore a complex cultural history.
In exploring how Zulu has come to represent what is most properly and powerfully African, Sanders examines differences in English- and Zulu-language press coverage of an important trial, as well as the role of linguistic purism in xenophobic violence in South Africa. Through one person’s efforts to learn the Zulu language, Learning Zulu explores how a language’s history and politics influence all individuals in a multilingual society.