The 'mzungu' term - get it right!

According to the Wikipedia 'muzungu' is a word meaning ‘white person’ in many Bantu languages of east, central and southern Africa.

That's the short version, as the word stems from a contraction of words meaning 'one who moves around' (possibly zunguluka, zungusha - meaning to go round and round) and was coined to describe European traders who traveled through East African countries in the 18th century. The word became synonymous with 'white person' because of the traders' complexion. Read more here.

However, there are a number of variations depending on the location, and if you write from a specific region and within a certain geographical and linguistic context - why not get it right!?

If you write from an east African context the spelling is ‘mzungu’. In pluralis it is called ‘wazungu’. Never ‘musungus’ - and also not ‘mzungus’, though it is actually frequently being used also by the locals because the ‘wazungu’ don’t know what the locals would be talking about if they called them ‘wazungu’. We also do not tend to hear the spelling correctly, and we tend to add an ‘u’, where there isn’t any. At least not in Kiswahili.

I’ve made that mistake, too.

We, the wazungu, usually think we can add on an ‘s’ as in English to the ‘mzungu’ and it’ll be pluralis. But in Kiswahili pluralis works way differently, which is a whole other complicated story.

The term ‘mzungu’ works differently in east, central and southern Africa in terms of spelling. Not to forget that there are a lot of internal tribal differences, like in Uganda where you are not just a 'mzungu', but a ‘mundu’ among the Madi in Adjumani and a ‘gilia’ in Koboko among the Kakwa (I’ve never seen the terms in writing, and I'm aware that they may differ) .