Newsday - July 6, 2000
Laurie Garrett, Staff Correspondent

Because African languages sometimes lack scientific words or terms, diseases are given names that best reflect what people fear or feel, in effect making language a road map to the soul. African languages generally have no words for "immunodeficiency" or "virus." So the new disease has been given names that closely reflect what the local speakers think of AIDS.

In the dialect of Swahili that is spoken in Tanzania, AIDS is called ukosefu wa kinga mwilii, which translates to, "lack of guard in the body." Slang terms more commonly applied in Swahili are umeme, meaning "electricity" and mdudu, "worm."

In northern Tanzania in the local Luhaya language, AIDS has been given several names, including lumara bantu, or "the exterminator of all human beings," lwaka abazaile, meaning "the disease that deprives children of their parents," and endwala ya bil'ebi, the "modern-day disease."

In nearby Uganda, having AIDS in the Luganda language is described as y hwa mubatemu or "falling into the clutches of thugs." HIV is called mukenenya, or "a thing that sucks life out." And there is now an understanding that one can have HIV without appearing to be ill, or be obulwadde, "somebody who is sick, but is not showing signs."

In Zimbabwe, the dominant African language, Shona, has no word for HIV. AIDS, however, is called mukondobera, or "a sickness that everyone suffers from"-even though few Zimbabweans readily admit to having AIDS or knowing anybody who has died of it. A Shona slang name for AIDS is shuramatongo, meaning "a disaster never witnessed before, even in several generations."

Because many Shonas see AIDS as a disease brought to Zimbabwe by outsiders, it may be called, chakauya or, "that which came." Joshua Chigodora, senior analyst for the Environmental Resource Center for Southern Africa, based in Harare, says Zimbabweans will politely say of the deceased, akafa nechakauya, or roughly "he died from something brought from the outside."

In the Kamba language of Kenya muthelo means "a disease that finishes," or AIDS. There is no term for HIV. Among Kenya's Luo people HIV is called kute magayaki, or "the worm that causes AIDS," and ayaki, meaning "grabbing." In the Kenyan dialect of Swahili AIDS is referred to as the "new fever disease," or homa ya kisasa.

Nigerian Tiv language-speakers call HIV simply ku, or "death," and AIDS is wan ikyaden or "something that dries one up."

Clinical worker Mannesseh Phiri of Lusaka, Zambia says that in the local ChiChewa dialect AIDS is called matenda a-kaliondeonde or "the disease of losing weight." Similarly, in much of East Africa AIDS is simply referred to in English as "slim disease."

In South African SeSotho language, HIV is kwatsi ya bosolla tihapi, or the "disease of loose fishes." And in Ghana's Akans language it's "bad germs," mbwoawa bjne.

The epidemic is still fairly new in South Africa, though surveys indicate upwards of 19 percent of the population is already infected. In that country's Zulu language HIV is called isandulela ngculazi unashya 'bhuge, or "something that kills all people."

Finally, several languages use terms for AIDS that translate as "women's disease." On the face of it this appears to blame women for the epidemic, and indeed most sexually transmitted ailments are similarly linguistically described as being of female origin. Victor Masbayi, of the United Nations AIDS Programme's Nairobi office, argues that it's not really about blaming women.

"They mean sexually transmitted," Masbayi says, "and the word 'woman' is used to imply sexual relationship since saying 'sexual' in my mother tongue is considered a crude word. By the way, the women in my [Luhya] community refer to it as "men's disease."

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