isiXhosa name for leopard

Abstract

The confusion among some speakers of isiXhosa concerning the meaning of ingwe can probably be traced to John Ayliff’s dictionary of the language published in 1846. There he gives ‘tiger’ as ingwe and ‘leopard’ as ihlozi. He clearly treats the two as distinct  species. This is contrary to South African usage in English and Afrikaans in which  tiger/tier is an alternative name for leopard/luiperd. The confusion does not appear in twelve other languages in which ingwe (or a cognate) means leopard in southern Africa, and not another species.

Key words: leopard, tiger, ingwe, Eastern Cape.