Atlantic-Congo · ISO 639-3 zul · zu
Zulu Language isiZulu
Zulu is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken by about 14 million people in 5 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Zulu is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Zulu
Language family
- Atlantic-Congo
- Volta-Congo
- Benue-Congo
- Bantoid
- Southern Bantoid
- Narrow Bantu
- East Bantu
- Southern Bantu
- Nuclear Southern Bantu
- Dimsuffix Southern Bantu
- Nguni-Tsonga-Copi
- Nguni (S.40)
- Nuclear Nguni
- Southern Ndebele-Lowland
- Zulu
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Zulu language
Zulu (isiZulu) is spoken by about 14 million people, which makes it the 92nd most spoken language in the world — just behind Tajik (14 million) and ahead of Sylheti (14 million). It belongs to the Atlantic-Congo language family and, more precisely, to the Southern Ndebele-Lowland group within the Benue-Congo branch.
Where is Zulu spoken?
Zulu is used in 5 countries. The largest communities live in South Africa (15 million), Lesotho (311,857), Eswatini (77,390), Malawi (71,818) and Mozambique (1,800).
Share of the population that speaks Zulu: South Africa 24% (15 million), Lesotho 14% (311,857), Eswatini 6.8% (77,390), Malawi 0.3% (71,818) and Mozambique <0.1% (1,800).
Zulu is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in South Africa.
Writing system and status
Zulu is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Xhosa, Swati, North Ndebele, Tsonga, Tswa, Ronga and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 zu, ISO 639-3 zul.
Frequently asked questions about Zulu
How many people speak Zulu?
Where is Zulu spoken?
What language family does Zulu belong to?
What is Zulu called in Zulu?
Is Zulu an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.