An indaba (;
) is an important conference held by the
izinDuna (principal men) of the
Zulu and
Xhosa peoples of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
.
(Such meetings are also practised by the
Swazi, who refer to them using the close cognate '.) Indabas may include only the izinDuna of a particular community, or they may be held with representatives of other communities.
[
The term "Indaba" comes from the Zulu and Xhosa languages. It means "business" or "matter".]
Usage
The term is used by various organisations around the world for their meetups or conferences; for instance, the Wiki Indaba, South African Tourism's Africa’s Travel Indaba and Canonical's Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
Indaba.
References
{{reflist
Zulu culture
Xhosa culture
Culture of Eswatini
Languages of South Africa
Zulu words and phrases
South African English
Meetings