Thursday 30 August 2012

Mzungu!

From Dilman Dila, Ugandan filmmaker and friend: Explaining us the use of the word "mzungu", the way white people are called in Uganda and other African countries. 

Many foreigners who come to Uganda hate to be called Mzungu -- some where t-shirts with bold letters saying "I'M NOT MZUNGU!" -- they believe that mzungu is a racist word referring to a white person. True, over the years, the original meaning of the word has been lost, and today, anyone light skinned will be called a mzungu. My girlfriend is Filipino, and she gets called that all the time. My elder brother is very light skinned, and some used to call him mzungu. But the term actually means "someone who roams around aimlessly". It may have come from the Swahili words 'zungu', 'zunguzungu', 'zunguka', 'zungusha', 'mzungukaji', meaning to go round and round; or from the Luganda word okuzunga. Swahili is mixture of Bantu, Hindi and Arabic languages. In plural, it is wazungu (Swahili) or bazungu (Luganda, Bantu, Ugandan languages). English has come to be known as kizungu (Swahili) luzungu (Luganda, Ugandan), as it is the language most often used by whites in East Africa.

2 comments:

  1. "Great! Westerners seen by Africans as people who roam around aimlessly! What an inspiring and amusing vision! I love it."

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