Naming in Nguni Languages: The Case of Ngoni in Northern Malawi

Abstract

Shakespeare once asked, ‘What is in a name?' The answer to this age-old question depends on the particular culture from which the term name is framed. In Nguni and other Southern African languages, for example, a name tells a lot about the individual that it identifies the linguistic matrix from which it is drawn, and the society that ascribes to it. A name may indicate the morphological structures and phonological processes found in the language, the position of the name's bearer in society, and the collective history and life experiences of the people surrounding the individual. In this paper we will explore the morphology, semantic import, and function of first names among the Ngoni of northern Malawi, an offshoot of the Nguni that left South Africa during the Shaka wars in the 1820s. We will do this by addressing some of the questions, .e.g. How do Ngoni people name their children, how are names deployed, and how important are names in the discourse and interlocution among members of that society? What does a name tell us about social change and people's beliefs? How does the naming system among the Ngoni compare with those of the Nguni they left behind in South Africa, such as the Zulu? These are some of the questions that we will be discussing in this paper by analyzing data collected from northern Malawi and Zululand.LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 5 2008: pp. 103-122