Xhosa language

Xhosa, or isiXhosa, 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. In IPA, the name of the language is pronounced approximately [||^hosa].

History

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. Even the name Xhosa may be of Khoisan origin.

Geographic distribution

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, but increasingly also in the Western Cape, including Cape Town.

Dialects

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, Gcaleka, Mfengu, Thembu, Bomvana, and Mpondomise.

Sounds

Xhosa has a relatively simple set of vowels, but it is rich in uncommon consonants. Besides normal pulmonic egressive sounds, it has three basic clicks in addition to ejectives and implosives. The first is the dental click, which is made with the tongue on the back of the teeth, and is the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk" used to reprimand someone. The second is the lateral alveolar click, which is made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and is similar to the sound used to call horses. The third is the postalveolar click, which is made with the body of the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Each click occurs in six varieties. Xhosa is also a tone language with two inherent tones, low and high.

Grammar

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.

Writing system

Xhosa is written using the Latin alphabet. Clicks are written using 'c' for the dental click, 'x' for the lateral click, and 'q' for the postalveolar click. The q, c and x letters were chosen to convey the hint that non-native speakers can replace the click with the 'k' sound with little loss in meaning. 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.

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.

External links

• UCLA Language Materials Xhosa Language Profile
• Ethnologue report for Xhosa
• Xhosa – English Dictionary