Language/Zulu/Vocabulary/Colors

Zulu Vocabulary - Colors

Hello everybody,

➡ In today's lesson you will learn how to write and pronounce the main colors in Zulu.

In the Zulu tradition, colors are a real language for transmitting a message, according to a particular code. For example, each color has its own meaning: white can designate the purity of love, yellow wealth and fertility, green serenity and happiness, blue fidelity, red passion...

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Happy learning! 😊

With the completion of this lesson, consider investigating these related pages: How to say Good Bye? & Days, Months, and Seasons.

Main Colors in Zulu

	English	isiZulu	Positive Meaning (beads)*	Negative Meaning (beads)*
	black	-mnyama	marriage, comfort	death, grief, despair, loneliness
	brown	-nsundu
	grey, gray	-mpunga
	yellow	-liphuzi	wealth, fertility	wickedness
	white	-mhlophe	love	none
	orange	orenji
	pink	phinki	emphasizes a promise	poverty, especially a lack of cattle to pay as lobola (the dowry paid to one's parents by the future husband)
	purple	phephuli
	red	-bomvu	strong emotion	anger, impatience
	green	-luhlaza okoTshani	contentment, happiness; grass, cattle, earth	illness, jealousy, lovesickness
	blue	-luhlaza	fidelity; the sky or the sea	hostility, bad feelings

Culture - Bead colors meanings

*Zulu bead colors can have a positive meaning, but also a negative meaning.

Other Lessons

• How to Say Hello and Greetings
• Count to 10
• Body
• Geography
• Food
• Feelings and Emotions
• Sports
• Tastes
• Months of the year
• Fruits