izintombi

Updated: May 27, 2025

Grout says: "So strong is the influence of this inclination to concord produced by the repetition of initials, that it controls the distinction of number, and quite subordinates that of gender, and tends to mould the pronoun after the likeness of the initial element of the noun to which it refers; as, Izintombi zake zi ya hamba, 'The daughters of him they do walk." These characteristics appear in the formation of the Creole French, in connection with another childlike habit of the negro, who loves to put himself in the objective case, and to say me instead of I, as if he knew that he had to be a chattel.

Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863