Xhosa language

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Xhosa (IPA: [ˈkǁʰoːsa]) 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 consonants feature prominently in the sounds of this language. Even the name, "Xhosa", begins with a click.

The name Xhosa refers to one of their legendary chieftains. The members of the ethnic group that speaks Xhosa refer to themselves as the amaXhosa 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 is rich in uncommon consonants. Besides normal pulmonic egressive sounds, as in English, it has fifteen clicks, plus ejectives and an implosive. The five dental clicks 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 five are lateral, made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and are similar to the sound used to call horses. The remaining five 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 written using the Latin alphabet. Clicks are written using c for the dental clicks, x for the lateral clicks, and q for the alveolar clicks.

This table lists the consonant phonemes of the language, giving the pronunciation in IPA on the left, and the orthography on the right:

Two additional consonants, [r] and [r̤], are found in borrowings. Both are spelled as r.

In addition to the ejective affricate [ʧ’], the spelling tsh may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates [ʦʰ] and [ʧʰ].

The breathy voiced glottal fricative [ɦ̤] is sometimes spelled h.

The "breathy voiced" clicks, plosives, and affricates are actually plain voiced, but the following vowel is murmured. That is, da is pronounced [da̤].

When consonants are prenasalized, their pronunciation and spelling may change. Murmur no longer shifts to the following vowel. Fricatives become affricates, and if voiceless, become ejectives as well, at least with some speakers: mf is pronounced [ɱp̪f’]; ndl is pronounced [ndɮ];n+hl becomes ntl [ntɬ’]; n+z becomes ndz [ndz], etc. The orthographic b in mb is a voiced plosive, [mb].

When voiceless clicks c, x, q are prenasalized, a silent k is added - nkc, nkx, nkq - so as to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks nc, nx, nq.

Xhosa has a simple inventory of five vowels: [a], [ɛ], [i], [ɔ] and [u], spelled a, e, i, o and u.

Xhosa is also a tone language with two inherent tones, low and high. Tones are usually not written, but when they are, they are a [à], á [á], â [áà]. Long vowels are phonemic, but are usually not written, except for â.

An example of the written language is the first section of the national anthem of South Africa:

Nkosi, sikelel' iAfrika;

Malupakam'upondo lwayo;

Yiva imithandazo yethu

Usisikelele.

translation

Lord, bless Africa;

May her horn rise high up;

Hear Thou our prayers And bless us.

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.

translation

The diviner of the roadways is the knock-knock beetle

The diviner of the roadways is said to be the knock-knock beetle

It has passed up the steep hill, the knock-knock beetle

It has passed up the steep hill, the knock-knock beetle

An alternative translation of the first line of Qongqothwane may read: "The doctor of the road is the dung beetle". This translation can be explained by the habit of the dung beetle to roll elephant dung balls. This can be thought of as cleansing or healing the road.

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.

• Henry Hare Dugmore, the first translator of the Scriptures into Xhosa
• U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, a 2005 Xhosa film adaptation of Bizet's Carmen

Xhosa edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Xhosa language profile (UCLA language materials)
• Ethnologue report for Xhosa
• A very short Xhosa -> English dictionary
• Project translating Free Software into Xhosa
• Encouraging awareness of Xhosa culture and language