Lala language (South Africa)

Lala
Native toSouth Africa
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologlala1263
S.406[1]

Lala is a Bantu language of South Africa, claimed to be extinct in some sources.[1] As of 1999, however, there were still a number of communities of speakers in the coastal regions of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.[citation needed] Although it is a Tekela Nguni language, for sociological reasons it is often considered a dialect of Zulu (a Zunda Nguni language), whereas it differs quite markedly in phonology and to a degree in morphology, and with a large portion of its lexicon derived from Xhosa (because of Xhosa-medium schooling in the old Natal South Coast) and the IsiZansi Tekela variety of the lower South Coast.[2]

Lala Standard Zulu Gloss
nilo umlilo fire
tiyomo izinkomo cattle
madi amanzi water
  1. ^ a b Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  2. ^ "A comparative phonological and morphological analysis of the North and South Lala dialects of Tekela Nguni" (PDF). University of South Africa (UNISA). 1999-12-01. Retrieved 2015-09-17.