Xhosa language

Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele, called the Zunda languages.{{cite web |url=http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Xhosa-english/ |title=Xhosa-English Dictionary |first=Philip M. |last=Parker |date=2003 |website=Webster's Online Dictionary |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040413042205/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Xhosa-english/ |archive-date=13 April 2004 }} Zunda languages effectively form a dialect continuum of variously mutually intelligible varieties.

Xhosa is, to a large extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Nguni languages are, in turn, classified under the much larger abstraction of Bantu languages.{{Cite web |url=http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=21&menu=004 |title=Xhosa |website=UCLA Language Materials Project |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214071133/http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=21&menu=004 |archive-date=14 December 2007 |access-date=13 December 2006}}

[[File:South Africa Xhosa speakers density map.svg|thumb|Geographical distribution of the Xhosa in South Africa: density of Xhosa home-language speakers.

{{div col|colwidth=10em|content=

{{legend|#ffffcc|< 1 /km²}}

{{legend|#ffeda0|1–3 /km²}}

{{legend|#fed976|3–10 /km²}}

{{legend|#feb24c|10–30 /km²}}

{{legend|#fd8d3c|30–100 /km²}}

{{legend|#fc4e2a|100–300 /km²}}

{{legend|#e31a1c|300–1000 /km²}}

{{legend|#bc0026|1000–3000 /km²}}

{{legend|#800026|> 3000 /km²}}

}}]]

File:Stellenbosch Magistrate's Office (entrance).JPG, English and Xhosa]]

File:Amazink entrance.JPG welcoming visitors in Xhosa]]

Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most commonly spoken South African language is Zulu. Xhosa is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa. {{As of|2003}} approximately 5.3 million Xhosa-speakers, the majority, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 1 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225).{{Cite web |url=http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/demographics/census-main.htm |title=South Africa Population grows to 44.8 Million |date=9 July 2003 |website=SouthAfrica.info |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050522081642/http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/demographics/census-main.htm |archive-date=22 May 2005}} There is a small but significant Xhosa community of about 200,000 in Zimbabwe.{{cite thesis |first=Hlenze Welsh |last=Kunju |date=2017 |url=http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:21250?site_name=GlobalView |title=Isixhosa Ulwimi Lwabantu Abangesosininzi eZimbabwe: Ukuphila Nokulondolozwa Kwaso |trans-title=IsiXhosa Indigenous Languages in Zimbabwe: Survival and Preservation |language=xh |type=PhD |publisher=Rhodes University}} Also, a small community of Xhosa speakers (18,000) live in Quthing District, Lesotho.{{Cite web |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xho |title=Xhosa |website=Ethnologue |access-date=22 October 2019 |url-access=subscription |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728062843/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xho |archive-date=28 July 2019 }}

The Xhosa language employs 26 letters from the Latin alphabet; some of the letters have different pronunciations from English. Phonemes not represented by one of the 26 letters are written as multiple letters. Tone, stress, and vowel length are parts of the language but are generally not indicated in writing.{{cite journal |last1=Thambalwam |first1=lwam |title=IsiXhosa |journal=Second Largest Language |year=2020 |volume=367 |issue=6477 |pages=569–573 |doi=10.1126/science.aay8833 |pmid=32001654 |pmc=9558321 |issn=1095-9203}}

File:IbalilikaNomathemba.ogg

Xhosa has an inventory of ten vowels: {{IPA|[a]}}, {{IPA|[ɛ~e]}}, {{IPA|[i]}}, {{IPA|[ɔ~o]}} and {{IPA|[u]}} written a, e, i, o and u in order, all occurring in both long and short.

Xhosa is a tonal language with two inherent phonemic tones: low and high. Tones are rarely marked in the written language, but they can be indicated {{vr|a}} {{IPA|[à]}}, {{vr|á}} {{IPA|[á]}}, {{vr|â}} {{IPA|[áà]}}, {{vr|ä}} {{IPA|[àá]}}. Long vowels are phonemic but are usually not written except for {{vr|â}} and {{vr|ä}}, which are each sequence of two vowels with different tones that are realized as long vowels with contour tones ({{vr|â}} high–low = falling, {{vr|ä}} low–high = rising).

Xhosa is rich in uncommon consonants. Besides pulmonic eggressive sounds, which are found in all spoken languages, it has a series of ejective stops and one implosive stop. It has 18 click consonants (in comparison, Juǀʼhoan, spoken in Botswana and Namibia, has 48, and Taa, with roughly 4,000 speakers in Botswana, has 83).

The following table lists the consonant phonemes of the language, with the pronunciation in IPA on the left and the orthography on the right:

{{notelist}}

In addition to the ejective affricate {{IPA|[tʃʼ]}}, the spelling {{vr|tsh}} may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates {{IPA|[tsʰ]}} and {{IPA|[tʃʰ]}}.

The breathy voiced glottal fricative {{IPA|[ɦ]}} is sometimes spelled {{vr|h}}.

The ejectives tend to be ejective only in careful pronunciation or in salient positions and, even then, only for some speakers. Otherwise, they tend to be tenuis (plain) stops. Similarly, the tenuis (plain) clicks are often glottalised, with a long voice onset time, but that is uncommon.{{Inconsistent|date=June 2025|reason=how is it 'often' if it is 'uncommon'}}

The murmured clicks, plosives and affricates are only partially voiced, with the following vowel murmured for some speakers. That is, {{lang|xh|da}} may be pronounced {{IPA|[dʱa̤]}} (or, equivalently, {{IPA|[d̥a̤]}}). They are better described as slack voiced than as breathy voiced. They are truly voiced only after nasals, but the oral occlusion is then very short in stops, and it usually does not occur at all in clicks. Therefore, the absolute duration of voicing is the same as in tenuis stops. (They may also be voiced between vowels in some speaking styles.) The more notable characteristic is their depressor effect on the tone of the syllable.{{Cite journal |last1=Jessen |first1=Michael |first2=Justus C. |last2=Roux |year=2002 |title=Voice quality differences associated with stops and clicks in Xhosa |journal=Journal of Phonetics |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=1–52 |doi=10.1006/jpho.2001.0150}}

{{Main|Fortition}}

When consonants are prenasalised, their pronunciation and spelling may change. The murmur no longer shifts to the following vowel. Fricatives become affricated and, if voiceless, they become ejectives as well: mf is pronounced {{IPA|[ɱp̪fʼ]}}, ndl is pronounced {{IPA|[ndɮ]}}, n+hl becomes ntl {{IPA|[ntɬʼ]}}, n+z becomes ndz {{IPA|[ndz]}}, n+q becomes [n͡ŋǃʼ] etc. The orthographic b in mb is the voiced plosive {{IPA|[mb]}}. Prenasalisation occurs in several contexts, including on roots with the class 9 prefix /iN-/, for example on an adjective which is feature-matching its noun:

/iN- + ɬɛ/ → intle"beautiful" (of a class 9 word like inja "dog")

When aspirated clicks ({{vr|ch, xh, qh}}) are prenasalised, the silent letter {{vr|k}} is added ({{vr|nkc, nkx, nkq}}) to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks {{vr|nc, nx, nq}}, and are actually distinct sounds. The prenasalized versions have a very short voicing at the onset which then releases in an ejective, like the prenasalized affricates, while the phonemically nasal clicks have a very long voicing through the consonant. When plain voiceless clicks ({{vr|c, x, q}}) are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal ({{vr|ngc, ngx, ngq}}).

Palatalisation is a change that affects labial consonants whenever they are immediately followed by {{IPA|/j/}}. While palatalisation occurred historically, it is still productive, as is shown by palatalization before the passive suffix /-w/ and before diminutive suffix /-ana/. This process can skip rightwards to non-local syllables (i.e. uku-sebenz-is-el + wa -> ukusetyenziselwa "be used for"), but does not affect morpheme-initial consonants (i.e. uku-bhal+wa -> ukubhalwa "to be written", instead of illicit *ukujalwa). The palatalization process only applies once, as evidenced by ukuphuphumisa+wa -> ukuphuphunyiswa "to be made to overflow", instead of the illicit alternative, *ukuphutshunyiswa.

In keeping with many other Bantu languages, Xhosa is an agglutinative language, with an array of prefixes and suffixes that are attached to root words. As in other Bantu languages, nouns in Xhosa are classified into morphological classes, or genders (15 in Xhosa), with different prefixes for both singular and plural. Various parts of speech that qualify a noun must agree with the noun according to its gender. Agreements usually reflect part of the original class with which the word agrees. The word order is subject–verb–object, like in English.

The verb is modified by affixes to mark subject, object, tense, aspect and mood. The various parts of the sentence must agree in both class and number.

The Xhosa noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages. Which they call 'amahlelo'

The following table gives an overview of Xhosa noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs.

¹ Before monosyllabic stems, e.g. {{lang|xh|iliso}} (eye), {{lang|xh|uluhlu}} (list).

² is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. {{lang|xh|isandla}}/{{lang|xh|izandla}} (hand/hands).

³ The placeholder N in the prefixes iN- and iiN- is a nasal consonant which assimilates in place to the following consonant (producing an im- before vowels), but is typically absent in loanwords.

⁴ Before monosyllabic stems in some words.

Verbs use the following prefixes for the subject and object:

: ukudlala – to play

: ukubona – to see

: umntwana – a child

: abantwana – children

: umntwana uyadlala – the child is playing

: abantwana bayadlala – the children are playing

: indoda – a man

: amadoda – men

: indoda iyambona umntwana – the man sees the child

: amadoda ayababona abantwana – the men see the children

The following is a list of phrases that can be used when one visits a region whose primary language is Xhosa:

{{main|Xhosa people}}

{{expand section|date=August 2019}}

Image:Henry Hare Dugmore (ca. 1890).jpg helped translate the Bible into Xhosa in 1859]]

Image:Nelson Mandela.jpg was a Xhosa and was a member of the royal family of the Thembu tribe]]

Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. They refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and their language as isiXhosa. Ancestors of the Xhosa migrated to the east coast of Africa and came across Khoisan-speaking people; "as a result of this contact, the Xhosa people borrowed some Khoisan words along with their pronunciation, for instance, the click sounds of the Khoisan languages".{{Cite web |url=http://aboutworldlanguages.com/xhosa |title=Xhosa |website=About World Languages |language=en-US |access-date=2017-12-11}} The Bantu ancestor of Xhosa did not have clicks, which attests to a strong historical contact with a Khoisan language that did. An estimated 15% of Xhosa vocabulary is of Khoisan origin.

John Bennie was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary and early Xhosa linguist. Bennie, along with John Ross (another missionary), set up a printing press in the Tyhume Valley and the first printed works in Xhosa came out in 1823 from the Lovedale Press in the Alice region of the Eastern Cape. But, as with any language, Xhosa had a rich history of oral traditions from which the society taught, informed, and entertained one another. The first Bible translation was in 1859, produced in part by Henry Hare Dugmore.

{{see also|Xhosa literature}}

The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Their use in education has been governed by legislation, beginning with the Bantu Education Act, 1953.

At present, Xhosa is used as the main language of instruction in many primary schools and some secondary schools, but is largely replaced by English after the early primary grades, even in schools mainly serving Xhosa-speaking communities. The language is also studied as a subject in such schools.

The language of instruction at universities in South Africa is English (or Afrikaans, to a diminishing extent{{cite magazine |url=https://www.languagemagazine.com/2019/04/18/afrikaans-phased-out |title=Afrikaans Phased Out |date=April 18, 2019 |magazine=Language Magazine}}), and Xhosa is taught as a subject, both for native and for non-native speakers.

Literary works, including prose and poetry, are available in Xhosa, as are newspapers and magazines. The South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts in Xhosa on both radio (on Umhlobo Wenene FM) and television, and films, plays and music are also produced in the language. The best-known performer of Xhosa songs outside South Africa was Miriam Makeba, whose Click Song #1 (Xhosa Qongqothwane) and "Click Song #2" (Baxabene Ooxam) are known for their large number of click sounds.

{{As of|1996|alt=In 1996}}, the literacy rate for first-language Xhosa speakers was estimated at 50%.

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is part of the national anthem of South Africa, national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia, and the former anthem of Zimbabwe and Namibia. It is a hymn written in Xhosa by Enoch Sontonga in 1897. The single original stanza was:

: Nkosi, sikelel' iAfrika;

: Maluphakanyis' uphondo lwayo;

: Yizwa imithandazo yethu

: Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

: Lord, bless Africa;

: May her horn rise high up;

: Hear Thou our prayers

: Lord, bless us, its family (, the family of Africa).

Additional stanzas were written later by Sontonga and other writers, and the original verse was translated into Sotho and Afrikaans, as well as English.

In The Lion King and its reboot, Rafiki, the sagely mandrill chants in Xhosa.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the language spoken in the fictional African nation of Wakanda is Xhosa. This came about because South African actor John Kani, a native of the Eastern Cape province who plays Wakandan King T'Chaka, speaks Xhosa and suggested that the directors of the fictional Civil War incorporate a dialogue in the language. For Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler "wanted to make it a priority to use Xhosa as much as possible" in the script, and provided dialect coaches for the film's actors.{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/wakanda-black-panther.html |title=Wakanda Is a Fake Country, but the African Language in 'Black Panther' is Real|last=Eligon|first=John |date=2018-02-16 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2018-05-07|issn=0362-4331}}

{{Portal|South Africa|Languages}}

• I'solezwe lesiXhosa, the first Xhosa-language newspaper
• U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, a 2005 Xhosa film adaptation of Bizet's Carmen
• Xhosa calendar

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=William B. |title=A Grammar of the Kafir Language |date=1834 |publisher=Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society |location=Graham's Town}}
• {{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=William J. |title=A Grammar of the Kaffir Language |date=1872 |publisher=Printed for the Wesleyan missionary Society |location=London}}
• {{cite book |last1=Crawshaw |first1=C. J. |title=A First Kafir Course |date=1888 |publisher=Missionary Press |location=Lovedale}}
• {{cite book |last1=McLaren |first1=J. |editor1-last=Welsh |editor1-first=G. H. |title=A Xhosa Grammar: Revised and rewritten in the New Orthography |date=1955 |publisher=Longmans, Green and Co. |location=Cape Town |edition=4th}}
• {{cite book |last1=Mncube |first1=F. S. M. |title=Xhosa Manual |date=1957 |publisher=Juta & Company |location=Johannesburg}}
• {{cite book |last1=Fischer |first1=Arnold |title=English-Xhosa Dictionary |date=1985 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Cape Town |isbn=0195702905}}
• {{cite book |last1=Einhorn |first1=E. |last2=Siyengo |first2=L. |title=Xhosa: a concise manual |date=1990 |publisher=Faircape Books ; Thorold's Africana Books [distributor] |location=Cape Town : Johannesburg |isbn=9780798507509}}
• {{cite book |last1=Kaschula |first1=Russell |title=Xhosa |date=1997 |publisher=Rosen Publishing Group |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8239-2013-6 |edition=1st}}
• {{cite book |last1=Kirsch |first1=Beverley |last2=Skorge |first2=Silvia |title=Complete Xhosa |date=2010 |publisher=Teach Yourself |location=London |isbn=9780071759625}}
• {{cite book |last1=Motinyane-Masoko |first1=Mantoa |last2=Mawadza |first2=Aquilina |title=Xhosa-English/English-Xhosa dictionary & phrasebook |date=2017 |publisher=Hippocrene Books, Inc |location=New York |isbn=9780781813631 |url=https://archive.org/details/xhosadictionaryp0000moti}}

{{interWiki|code=xh}}

{{wiktionary|Xhosa}}

{{wikivoyage|Xhosa phrasebook|Xhosa|a phrasebook}}

{{commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071214071133/http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=21&menu=004 Xhosa language profile ][https://web.archive.org/web/20060720065425/http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/odpor/index.html (at UCLA Language Materials Project)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070311094133/http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Xhosa PanAfrican L10n page on Xhosa]
• [http://learn101.org/xhosa.php Learn Xhosa]
• [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=new100&morpho=0&basename=new100\bco\bns&first=0 Xhosa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database]
• Paradisec has a collections of Arthur Capell's materials ([http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/AC1 AC1]), which include Xhosa language materials

{{Languages of Lesotho}}

{{Languages of South Africa}}

{{Languages of Zimbabwe}}

{{Narrow Bantu languages (Zones N–S)}}

{{Authority control}}

Language

Category:Nguni languages

Category:Subject–verb–object languages

Category:Languages of South Africa

Category:Click languages