Where did the Zulu word muti – meaning traditional medicine – get its name?
According to Wikipedia, “the word muti is derived from the Zulu word for tree, of which the root is -thi.” It also says that “this noun is of the umu / imi class, consequently the singular (tree) is rendered Umuthi and plural (trees) is Imithi. Since the pronunciation of the initial vowel of this umu / imi class of Zulu noun, is unstressed, the singular Umuthi is sometimes heard as ‘Muthi’. The word is rendered as muti due to the historical effects of British Colonial spelling.
