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The Northern Ndebele language, or isiNdebele, or Sindebele, is an African language belonging to the Nguni group of Bantu languages, and spoken by the Ndebele or Matabele people of Zimbabwe. It is commonly known as Sindebele. Sindebele is related to the Zulu language spoken in South Africa. This is because the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe descend from followers of the Zulu leader Mzilikazi, who left kwaZulu in the early nineteenth century during the Mfecane. The Northern and Southern Ndebele languages are not variants of the same language; though they both fall in the Nguni group of Bantu languages, Northern Ndebele is essentially a dialect of Zulu, and the older Southern Ndebele language appears to be the first Nguni language to reach the very Southern parts of Africa. The shared name may be due to contact between Mzilikazi's people and the original Ndebele, through whose territory they crossed during the Mfecane. Either way, the shared name is only indicative of the most tenuous links - though it is not coincidental, neither is it deeply significant (cf. Ladin and Ladino). |