Ndebele

enUK

Nde·be·le

N0039550 (ən′də-bĕl′ā)n. pl. Ndebele or Nde·be·les 1. A member of a Zulu people of southwest Zimbabwe.2. The Nguni language of the Ndebele, closely related to Zulu spoken in South Africa. In both senses also called Matabele.

[Ndebele -Ndebele (as in amaNdebele, Ndebele people, and isiNdebele, Ndebele language); perhaps akin to Sotho Matebele, Zulu peoples entering Sotho territories in the 19th century; see Matabele.]

Ndebele

(ənˈdɛbɛle) npl Ndebele1. (Peoples) a member of a Negroid people of Zimbabwe. See also Matabele2. (Languages) the language of this people, belonging to the Bantu grouping of the Niger-Congo family

Thesaurus

Noun

Ndebele - a Bantu language sometimes considered a dialect of ZuluMatabeleNguni - a group of southern Bantu languages

Translations

νότια νδεμπέλε

Ndebele

enUK

Ndebele

(ĕndəbē`lē) or

Matabele

(mătəbē`lē), Bantu-speaking people inhabiting Matabeleland North and South, W Zimbabwe. The Ndebele, now numbering close to 2 million, originated as a tribal following in 1823, when Mzilikazi, a general under the Zulu king Shaka, fled with a number of warriors across the Drakensberg Range into present-day NE South Africa. Reinforced by other Zulu deserters, the Ndebele raided as far south as the Orange River, destroying or absorbing the surrounding tribes except for the Ngwato of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), who paid tribute. Driven north (1837) by the Boers and by the Zulus, Mzilikazi crossed the Limpopo River and established his people in Matabeleland, their present homeland. From his successor, Lobengula (1870–94), the British South Africa Company secured (1888) the mineral concession for all of Matabeleland. Restive under the restrictions placed on them by European settlers, the Ndebele attacked the settlers. Lobengula was soon defeated by the British and died in hiding. With the suppression of a revolt in 1896 the Ndebele abandoned war and became herders and farmers.

Bibliography

See D. Carnegie, Among the Matabele (1894, repr. 1970); J. M. Selby, Shaka's Heirs (1971).

Ndebele

a people living in Transvaal Province in the Republic of South Africa. Population, about 300,000 (1970, estimate). The Ndebele language, Isindebele, belongs to the southeastern group of the Bantu language family. Most of the Ndebele adhere to ancient traditional religious beliefs, such as the cults of the powers of nature and of ancestral leaders; some of them are Christians. Their main occupations are livestock raising and farming. Many Ndebele work on farms owned by Europeans, in mines, or in the cities of the Republic of South Africa.

REFERENCE

Potekhin, I. I. Formirovanie natsional’noi obshchnosti iuzhno-afrikanskikh bantu. Moscow, 1955.

Ndebele

Nde·be·le

Ndebele

Ndebele

Ndebele

Matabele

Bibliography

Ndebele

REFERENCE

Ndebele

Synonyms for Ndebele

noun a Bantu language sometimes considered a dialect of Zulu

Synonyms

Related Words