Enter one or more (space separated) words into the search field and click "Search" to look them up.

What you can type in

• Most important: Only Zulu or English. I know this may sound funny given the name of the website but that's how it is.

• Single words like namuhla or today.

• Compound Zulu words like asimbonanga.

• Pronoun/adjective/noun phrases like lezi zindlu ezincane or these small houses. The pronoun is optional. Hint: Type numbers as words.

• English pronoun/verb/object phrases like I can see him. The object is optional. The range of recognized tenses and moods currently comprises the infinitive, imperative negative, present tense and future tense.

• English dates like May 17 or on the 5th of September etc.

• Integer decimal numbers like 14736. The range is currently limited to 10¹²-1 in Zulu and 10¹⁵-1 in English. Please note that the English phrases use the short scale naming convention.

What you should not type in

Actually this should be obvious, but sometimes it seems it's not: If you want the Zulu word for music, don't type The Zulu word for music. You'll get lots of unnecessary noise. Just type music. I mean, you would not talk to a printed dictionary, would you? No, this is not Wolfram Alpha.

Lookup aids

While typing, you are shown a list of suggestions that best match your input (needs Javascript). Click on one of the suggestions to look it up. If the word you are looking for is not in the list this does not necessarily mean it is not in the dictionary.

You can select text in the search field with the mouse while holding down the Ctrl key and, by releasing the mouse button, look up only the selected text while preserving the original contents of the search field (needs Javascript).

If you do not want any phonetic transcriptions to be displayed, check the "hide phonetic spelling" box.

To clear the search form click the "Clear" button.

The result set contains one paragraph per dictionary entry matching your query. If an entry can take different parts of speech, each part of speech is listed separately.

Each paragraph begins with the keyword followed by its part of speech. Zulu entries then show the noun classes, the stem (in parantheses) and the (optional) phonetic spelling.

Stems are denoted by a leading dash (-). Nouns appear as "singular/plural" if both forms exist, otherwise only one form is given. The English plural is only shown if it is irregular. For Zulu verbs the verb stem is given.

English adjectives may translate to Zulu adjectives (very few), relatives or verbs each of which have their own sets of concords. Adjectives are marked "[adj.]" after the translation, relatives are marked "[rel.]" and verbs are marked "[v.]".

Direct Matches

These are words that exist in the dictionary as you typed them.

Potential Decompositions

Compound Zulu words like "asimbonanga" are decomposed, if possible, into prefixes, stem and suffixes and translated into English. Note that these are literal translations that might be unsensical. It is up to you to choose a suitable translation.

Compound Expressions

If you look up a simple phrase like "big dog" or "inja enkulu", the dictionary engine tries to translate it as a whole. Again, these are literal translations.

The tilde (~)

The tilde character (~) is used to save space. It stands for the current keyword. E.g., under "modern" it says "~ music: umculo wanamuhla" which means that "modern music" is "umculo wanamuhla" in Zulu.

Spelling suggestions

If you look up a single word that is not in the dictionary you get a list of English and Zulu spelling suggestions (if available), i.e. entries similar to the word you typed in. You can click on a suggestion to look it up. The English list is based on GNU Aspell while the Zulu list is created with homegrown magic.

Tip: If one or more words of a multi-word lookup didn't produce results, try looking them up separately (e.g. by Ctrl+Double Click, see "Lookup aids") to check if there are spelling suggestions.

~

the current keyword

+

followed by

1p, 2p, 3p

1st, 2nd, 3rd person

æ

a-allergic verb
(preceding 'a' becomes 'e')

abbr.

abbreviation

a.c.

adjective concord

adj.

adjective

adv.

adverb

AP

aspect prefix

b.n.p.

basic noun prefix

cl.

noun class

comp.

comparative

conc.

concord

dem.

demonstrative

enum.

enumerative

hl.

hlonipha term

ind.

indicative mood

inf.

infinitive

interj.

interjection

interr.

interrogative

irr.

irregular

loc.

locative

n.

noun

o.c., OC

object concord

o.s.

oneself

p.c.

possessive concord

part.

participial mood

perf.

perfect (= recent past)

pl.

plural

poss.

possessive

pr.c.

pronomial concord

pron.

pronoun

prp.

preposition

q.c.

quantitative concord

quant.

quantitative

rec. past

recent past tense

rec. past cont., r.p.c.

recent past continuous

rel.

relative (Zulu adjective type)

r.c.

relative concord

s.c., SC

subject concord

sg.

singular

sjnc.

subjunctive mood

sup.

superlative

sb

somebody

sth

something

usu.

usually

v.

verb

v/aux.

auxiliary verb

v/i.

intransitive verb

v/pass.

passive verb

v/stat.

stative verb

v/t.

transitive verb

w/

with

w/o

without