Nicknames have been analysed, recorded and processed in
many diverse ways by different languages, scholars and
communities. In Zulu, many works of similar type have all
been the size of an article up until 1999. This research
on the subject is one of the first done in this depth.
Nicknames form part of a Zulu person's daily life. They
identify him/her more than the real or legal name. They
shape him/her more than any other mode of address. They
influence behaviour, personality, interaction based
activities and the general welfare of an individual. They
discipline, they praise, they mock too.
Surprisingly, they are regarded as play items. They are
even termed playnames (izidlaliso). But they are as
serious as any item that makes an individual to be a
significant figure in the community.
They are unique in the sense that they stick more
obstinately on the victim should he/she try to get rid of
them. They are capable of staying for life. They only
vanish to give others a chance to feature on the same
individual.
They are so poetic. A talented onomastician can tell a
full story about an individual without him grabbing what
is being said about him just because the story is spiced
with just a single figurative nickname.
They haunt the whole arena of the parts of speech in a
language, especially the Zulu language. They modify the
well known meaning of words into special references that
paint in bright colours the character of an individual.
Zulu nicknames processes visit all possible languages and
adapt items from into Zuluised special terms that a
capable of inheriting an onomastic status. They originate
even from the most sensitive sources like people's private
lives.
The only challenging area about nicknames is that bearers
do not want to expose them to peale who are not known to
them, even if they do not fall into a category of
nicknames for ridicule.
Finally, nicknames have been exposed here as linguistic
items that organise the community into makers and bearers,
and then users of nicknames. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/17488 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Molefe, Lawrence |
| Contributors | Ntuli, D. B. Z. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (x, 194 leaves) |
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