Zulu English is a variety of
English, spoken almost exclusively in
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 ...
among the
Zulu. The variety is heavily influenced by the phonology and lexicon of the
Zulu language
Zulu ( ), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language of the Nguni languages, Nguni branch spoken in, and indigenous to, Southern Africa. Nguni dialects are regional or social varieties of the Nguni language, ...
.
Phonology
*The met–mate merger is a phenomenon occurring for some speakers of Zulu English where and are both pronounced . As a result, the words "met" and "mate" are homophonous as .
*The cot–coat merger is a phenomenon occurring for some speakers of Zulu English where the phonemes and are not distinguished.
*Confusion between and also occurs: it is reported that is sometimes replaced by , so ''ship'' may be pronounced like ''chip''.
*Devoicing of certain obstruents, particularly .
References
Bibliography
*
Dialects of English
Languages of South Africa
{{SouthAfrica-stub