The spelling of...

Guest

Hi all

The spelling of the battle's name has caused a lot of difficulty over the years...

In the early days it appeared as Isandula ,Isandusana , or Wolseley's preference Isandlana ,but soon settled down as Isandhlwana ,the "dhl" representing a sound like the Welsh "II"...

Then in more recent times Zulu orthography was revised and "dhl" became "dl" .

So now in South Africa and among the experts over here the name is written Isandlwana...

But for you forum members ,the spelling of the battle's name is ....?

Cheers

Pascal

Posts : 587 Join date : 2013-05-07 Location : Brecon

Pascal

There are many places where the British Army fought where the names used in despatches at the time are no longer the accepted modern day spelling - Often the army only had rudimentary maps - same was true of Natal and Zululand. Many of these old names are now official battle honours carried on the Regimental Colours particularly in the Indian sub-continent. Of course in 1879, there were no roadside sign boards. Isandlwana is spelling shown on maps to today. When trying to understand the AZW, you have think back to 19th century - no electronic communications or modern accepted tools to help in day-to-day life.

Posts : 2558 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 61 Location : UK

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Guest

Bonjour pascal Salute

for me
it is always..Isandhlwana.but
only when i write it down, the
locals inc the late David Ratray.
pronounce it as sandlewaan.( my
spelling ) i guess i'm just old
fashioned. xhosa

Subject: Re: The spelling of... Mon Nov 04, 2013 10:56 am

From Peter Quantrill

"Dear Peter,
Am taking the liberty of adding to the subject, which is a contemporary understanding on the spelling.

The manuscript of Henry Lugg, titled ‘A Natal Family Looks Back’ was published in Durban in 1970. Lugg served in the Natal Mounted Police and joined the Justice Department of the Natal Civil Service in 1899. He became President of the Native Appeal Court of Natal and Transvaal, and also Chief Native Commissioner of Natal. He was a fluent Zulu speaker and this is what he wrote on the spelling of ‘Isandlwana.’

“eSandlwana. Diminutive form of isandlu the second stomach of a cow. Tradition has it that the hill was given its name by Chief Sihayo Ngobese or one of his predecessors because its shape reminded him of this organ. Sandlwana is the diminutive form of isandlu, a small hut used for the storage of grain etc. Such a structure in that part of the country is known as an isandlwana, and as the second stomach of a cow was used for storage purposes, it was given this name. It has nothing to do with a ‘small hand’ which would be ‘isandlana.’ “

Best wishes
Peter Q.

Posts : 1093 Join date : 2009-01-14 Location : East London

Very informative. Thank you Mr PQ

Guest

thanks pete/peter, but how does one say it!
Is an dhl wana. syllables.. or sandwaan..
xhosa

Subject: Re: The spelling of... Mon Nov 04, 2013 1:47 pm

Xhosa
I...sand.... L....wana
or as
I as in imitate
Sand exactly the way its spelt
L as in the French Le
wana as in the last part of ba nana

Probably would help with a strong Mancurian accent Very Happy

Cheers Mate

Subject: iSandlwana Mon Nov 04, 2013 3:09 pm

Hi all.

I think this has been on the forum before some while back, you may find it if you use the search box.

If I remember correctly the spelling is; iSandlwana (the 'h' being lost in the spelling some time ago), and is pronounced with almost a silent 'i' and 'l' but the emphasis on the 'S', which when pronounced sounds like "Sandwaana".

I did find some stuff about it a long while back on the net, it appears that there has been quite a few ways to spell and pronounce it, but it seems the most popular way (used by many authors), is the one above, ie; 'iSandlwana'.

I did also find whilst searching at the time, that the 'ROLL OF HONOUR' 'Memoriam to the heroes the 24th (2nd WARWICKSHIRE) REGIMENT', used the old way of spelling of ISANDHLWANA on both the memorail roll heading and also on the scroll battle honours of both ISANDHLWANA and RORKE'S DRIFT that were added to the 24th (2nd WARWICKSHIRE) REGIMENTS many other distinguished battle honours. This was before the regiment was 'forced by government reforms' to lose its long held and treasured line number, and also losing its 100 year old highly honoured name in 1881, this was two years AFTER the AZW, thus making it 'virtually' a 'new' regiment and with a different name. However, no matter which way you spell it, at least the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment won both the battle honours of 'iSandlwana' and 'Rorke's Drift' before the proud old regiment was forced to change its name.

Guest

hiya springbok,martin, yes that
helps..born and bred in
manchester.the queens english!
does not apply in my case. Very Happy

cheers xhosa

Subject: iSandlwana Mon Nov 04, 2013 5:29 pm

Hi Les.

Ther's nowt 'rong wi bein a Lancastrian owd lad, wer gradely folk. Very Happy

Guest

yes martin thats bang on agree

xhosa

Posts : 2558 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 61 Location : UK

I found one Isandlhana!

Guest

I bet there are many other variants Very Happy

Posts : 2558 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 61 Location : UK

By Ian Knight.

"One of the minor but enduring controversies surrounding the events at iSandlwana concerns the meaning - and even the spelling - of the name itself. The word iSandlwana has historically presented problems of pronunciation for those not used to the isiZulu language, particularly the fluid sound represented by the middle ‘dl’. As a result, the word was initially rendered phonetically in British reports in various ways from the garbled Isandlalana to the simplified Isandula, which remained popular with the British press throughout the war.

Lord Chelmsford himself wrote of his intention on 16 January 1879 to advance ‘to the Isanblana hill’, but on the 21st he dated his despatches with marginally more accuracy from ‘Insalwana Hill’. His reports of the 23rd, breaking the terrible news of the battle’s outcome, referred to ‘Isandlana Hill’, and by May he had added a ‘w’, rendering the name ‘Insandhlwana’; he retained this version, with occasional lapses, as late as his memorandum of May 1880 defending his conduct during the campaign.

Most reports, official or unofficial, from British sources reflect a similar lack of consistency although the Colonial press, with rather more awareness of local language, generally preferred the form Isandhlwana. This became the most popular version used in histories of the battle until the 1970s, although in fact linguistic studies of isiZulu as early as the 1940s declared that the combination dhl was unsound. The early revisionist studies of the battle, about the time of the centenary, therefore adopted the version Isandlwana. More recently, in respect to the technicalities of isiZulu (the first ‘I’ is in fact a locative prefix), it has become common to render the name iSandlwana.

The meaning of the word has also been the subject of some confusion. When the novelist Rider Haggard visited the site in 1914 he grumbled that that two of the great colonial experts on Zulu history could not agree on the meaning of the name - ‘Mr Gibson (1) declares that this name means ‘Like a little house’; Stuart (2) on the contrary says that the true interpretation thereof is ‘the second stomach of an ox’. When such learned doctors disagree, as they did with vigour, I may be pardoned if I cling to the old rendering of ‘the place of the little hand.’’(3)

Ironically, while both Gibson and Stuart may be said to be right, Haggard was not. It is true that the word isandla means hand, but the diminutive form (‘little hand‘) is more correctly given as Isandlana not iSandlwana. In fact, iSandlwana literally means ‘like a little hut’ (indlu, hut) but in this form it has a very specific reference. It refers to a ‘little hut’, raised upon stilts to keep it clear of damp and away from rats, used as a grain store in an ordinary family homestead, but the comparison is not to the hut itself but rather reflects the Zulu habit of identifying features in relation to their cattle. The ‘little grain hut’ is in fact a term used as an analogy to the second honeycombed stomach of a cow. The hill iSandlwana is therefore believed to resemble ‘the second stomach of a cow’.

A number of expert isiZulu linguists, both contemporary and modern, concur with this translation. Henry Francis Fynn Jnr - son of the 1824 pioneer and friend of King Shaka, Henry Francis Fynn - who was magistrate at Msinga at the time of the war and was present with Lord Chelmsford’s troops at Mangeni on 22 January, attempted to further explain the analogy;

Sandhlwana is the honey-combed smaller paunch. Sandhlwana is an abrupt conical hill, precipitous rock on the eastern, southern and western sides, and much honeycombed. On the northern side its continuous ridge extends northwards and forms a spur or thumb, as it were, of the Nqutu range, Zululand, thus representing the Sandlwana store to its relative hut.(4)

The traveller, Bartram Mitford, noted rather testily in 1883 that the word meant ‘neither ‘little hand’ nor ‘little house’, nor any other of the hundred and one interpretations which were devised at the time of the disaster, but refers to a portion of bovine intestinal anatomy.’(5)

Col. H.C. Lugg - whose father Harry Lugg had fought at Rorke’s Drift with the Natal Mounted Police, and who was himself a Zulu linguist and a Native Commissioner - added further linguistic details;

Sandhlwana is the Native form for the second or honeycomb stomach of a cow, and the hill was named, some say by Sihayo, because of its resemblance to this organ. The word itself is the diminutive form of isandhlu, the upper portion of a corn crib, or even a native watch-hut (ixiba), and as the second stomach of a beast serves as a storehouse, and is similar in appearance to a corn crib, or isandhlwana. A small corn crib is often referred to as an isandhlwana. (6)

He added, rather optimistically, that ‘this explanation should dispose of the controversy which has arisen over this word’.

Finally, here are indeed a number of traditions that the hill was named by inkosi Sihayo kaXongo whose amaQungebeni people lived locally. While this may be apocryphal - a case of a significant name attaching itself to the memory of an important man who was involved in the events concerned - it is not inconceivable. Sihayo’s family had originally lived close to the White Mfolozi River but were appointed guardians of the Mzinyathi border region by King Mpande in the 1850s; as newcomers it is possible they therefore applied names to geographical features which caught their attention.

References.

1. James Young Gibson (1857-1935) was a magistrate in Zululand and author of The Story of the Zulus (1903). Gibson,

2. James Stuart (1868-1942) was a Natal civil servant and an avid collector of Zulu oral tradition (some of his voluminous notes have been published by the University of Natal under the title The James Stuart Archive) and author the semi-official History of The Natal Rebellion.

3. Diary of an African Journey (1914) by H. Rider Haggard, edited by Stephen Coan, London, 2001. 4. My Recollections of a Famous Campaign and a Great Disaster by Henry F. Fynn, Natal Witness 22 January 1913.

5. Bertram Mitford, Through the Zulu Country; Its Battlefields and Its People, London 1883.

6. Historic Natal and Zululand by H.C. Lugg, Pietermaritzburg 1949. The late ‘SB’ Bourquin, a fluent Zulu linguist and former head of the Bantu Affairs Department in Durban in the 1970s, was also of this opinion (conversations with the author).

This article is expanded from an entry in Ian Knight‘s A Companion to the Anglo-Zulu War, published by Pen And Sword Books."

Guest

Bravo and félicitations:D

Posts : 249 Join date : 2013-06-01

Mr M. Cooper wrote:: Hi all.

I think this has been on the forum before some while back, you may find it if you use the search box.

If I remember correctly the spelling is; iSandlwana (the 'h' being lost in the spelling some time ago), and is pronounced with almost a silent 'i' and 'l' but the emphasis on the 'S', which when pronounced sounds like "Sandwaana".

Quite correct Mr Cooper, just found this thread on this forum:

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Looks like I've been spelling it "wrong" ie Isandhlwana all these years - from now on I will spell it the authentic way .... iSandlwana

I have learned something new today, thanks all!

Guest

i go with the flow usually,unless
pushed, this is a bit of a non
question for me, i will write
Isandhlwana... and no other.
deeply ingrained i guess. xhosa

Guest

From after that I read when I started my topic Isandhlwana is the word in English and Isandlwana for the experts ...

» What is the correct Spelling for Isandlwana
» Cetshwayo / Isandlwana Correct spelling