The fate of Zulu in South Africa, where English has become the dominant language, could be compared with that of Gaelic in Ireland.
This was said by Donal McCracken, senior professor at UKZN’s Centre for Communication, Media and Society and “an Irishman in Africa”, at the official opening of the Zulu Literary Museum last week. The museum, which will be housed in the Centre for African Literary Studies (CALS) on the local campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, was opened at the beginning of the 2012 Midlands Literary Festival.
However, though Zulu speakers and readers could learn from what had happened to Gaelic, McCracken said they could take heart from the fact that “Zulu is still widely spoken. It is spoken in the streets, shebeens and supermarkets … unlike Gaelic it’s not yet an intellectual experiment.”
