Divided by the Word: Colonial Encounters and the Remaking of Zulu and Xhosa Identities by Jochen S. Arndt

In Divided by the Word, Arndt sets out “to demonstrate when, how, and why language-based notions of Zuluness and Xhosaness first emerged and then entrenched themselves in the consciousness of the region’s population” (8). In addition to providing a rich history of the development of the two most common African languages in South Africa (isiZulu and isiXhosa), Arndt also provides a critical account of the flattening of South African language cultures as colonial interlocutors attempted to make sense of the kaleidoscope of sociolinguistic cultures in what we now know as the Republic of South Africa. Citing the devastating violence of transition-era South Africa, Arndt aims to find explanations for the crystallization of these once amorphous identities through historical interrogation into the divides between the Xhosa and Zulu that came to a head in the violence of the 1980s and 1990s: “To historicize the language-based Zulu–Xhosa divide properly, however, I...