is one of the official languages of
South Africa . It is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, about 18% of the South African population.
Click Consonant s feature prominently in the sounds of this language. Even the name, "Xhosa", begins with a click. In
IPA , the name of the language is pronounced .
The name ''Xhosa'' refers to one of their legendary chieftains. The members of the ethnic group that speaks Xhosa refer to themselves as the and call their language '''isiXhosa'''. Almost all languages with clicks are
Khoisan Languages and the presence of clicks in Xhosa demonstrates the strong historical interaction with its Khoisan neighbors. The name ''Xhosa'' is Khoisan meaning "The angry men".
The language represents the most southwestern branch of the
Nguni subfamily of the
Bantu Languages . As mentioned, Xhosa is natively spoken in South Africa, mostly in the
Eastern Cape Province . The
Zulu name for the Eastern Cape Province is in fact ''KwaXhosa'', meaning 'place of the Xhosa' (
KwaZulu of course has the same meaning - 'place of the Zulu'). Xhosa is also spoken in the
Western Cape - including
Cape Town - and in
Johannesburg . Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole.
In addition to being mostly mutually intelligible with
Zulu and closely related Bantu languages, Xhosa has several dialects. There is debate among scholars as to what exactly the divisions between the dialects are. One such grouping is: (original) Xhosa, Ngqika (which is considered "standard"), Bhaca, Mpondo, Gcaleka, Mfengu, Thembu, Bomvana, and Mpondomise.
Xhosa has a simple set of
Vowel s, but it is rich in uncommon
Consonant s. Besides normal
Pulmonic Egressive sounds, as in
English , it has twelve
Clicks , plus
Ejective s and an
Implosive . The four
Dental Click s are made with the tongue on the back of the teeth, and are similar to the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk" to reprimand someone. The second four are
Lateral , made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and are similar to the sound used to call horses. The remaining four are
Alveolar , made with the tip of the tongue at the roof of the mouth, and sound something like a cork pulled from a bottle. Xhosa is also a
Tone Language with two inherent
Tone s, low and high, and has both long and short vowels. Vowels are
Murmured after some consonants.
The
Phonemic distinctions of Xhosa are listed along with its orthography below.
The grammar of Xhosa is of a type called
Agglutinative : suffixes and prefixes are attached to root words and stems to convey grammatical information. Xhosa also has the characteristic noun class, or "gender" system, which is common to all Bantu languages. There are many more classes than the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders of familiar Indo-European languages. The nouns in each class are roughly related in meaning. For example, there are classes for people, relatives, animals, plants, objects, abstract concepts, etc.
Xhosa is written using the
Latin Alphabet . Clicks are written using ''c'' for the
Dental Click s, ''x'' for the
Lateral Clicks , and ''q'' for the
Alveolar Clicks .
Tones are usually not written, but when they are, they are ''a''
''á'' [á , ''â'' [áà]. Long vowels are
Phonemic , but are usually not written, except for ''â''.
Many Xhosa consonants are
Murmured ,
Aspirated , and
Ejective . There is also an
Implosive ''b'', .
With breathy voiced clicks, plosives, and
Affricate s, indicated with a in the IPA transcription above, the following vowel is murmured. That is, ''da'' is pronounced .
When consonants are
Prenasalized , their pronunciation and spelling may change. Murmur no longer shifts to the following vowel. A
is used to separate prenasalization from voiceless clicks: ''nkc, nkq, nkx'', contrasting with the nasal clicks ''nc, nq, nx''. Fricatives become affricates, and if voiceless become ejectives as well, at least with some speakers: ''mf'' is pronounced ; ''n+hl'' becomes ''ntl'' ; ''n+z'' becomes ''ndz'' , ''etc.'' The orthographic ''b'' in ''mb'' is a plosive, .
An example of the written language is a section of the national anthem of South Africa :
: ''Nkosi, sikelel' iAfrika;''
: ''Malupakam'upondo lwayo;''
: ''Yiva imithandazo yethu''
: ''Usisikelele.''
:''
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Another example is Qongqothwane, a song traditionally sung when a young girl is married and well known as performed by Miriam Makeba . It is known in English as "The Click Song":
: ''Igqira lendlela nguqongqothwane''
: ''Igqira lendlela kuthwa nguqongqothwane''
: ''Sebeqabele gqithapha bathi nguqongqothwane''
: ''Sebeqabele gqithapha bathi nguqongqothwane.''
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Warning: the Omniglot page on Xhosa is badly inaccurate.
