When conservationist Menzi Nxumalo spoke to people in rural KwaZulu-Natal, he struggled to communicate with them, even though they were speaking the same language.
“If I speak to a Zulu person, I speak to them in isiZulu,” says Bheka Nxele, a programme manager for restoration ecology, environmental planning and climate protection in the eThekwini municipality. However, when speaking about plants, he has to lapse into English.When it comes to local names for plants and animals, the team found there was a great deal of confusion.
“Because these species have been here for decades and decades, people tend to give them names, but [the naming] is not structured. They give them names of plants that are similar,” says Nxele. “If it looks similar to an indigenous species, they’ll give it that name, so they might end up propagating the invasive species instead of a native species. If they want to use the local plant for medicine, they might use an invasive by accident.”“We decided to bring together a group from northern and southern KwaZulu-Natal, the south coast and inland. They each came with their own Zulu comprehension, and we came up with the terms for some invasive species in isiZulu,” he says.
The next step was to see if isiZulu speakers in the province would accept the names that had been devised. After compiling a list of more than 110 species names, the team visited communities to trial the names and to see if there were any additions. At a workshop in the Engonyameni area in uMlazi, Nxele realised the importance of traditional knowledge held by older members of the community. As far as the team was aware, there was no local name for water lettuce (
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