Xhosa language

Geographical distribution

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). There is a small but significant Xhosa community of about 200,000 in Zimbabwe. Also, a small community of Xhosa speakers (18,000) live in Quthing District, Lesotho.

Orthography

Latin script

The Xhosa language uses the 26 basic letters of the Latin alphabet, with digraphs, trigraphs, and even tetragraphs being used to represent some sounds. Tone, stress, and vowel length are generally not indicated in writing. For further details, see the phonology section below.

Phonology

Vowels

Xhosa has an inventory of ten vowels: , , , and written a, e, i, o and u in order, all occurring in both long and short.

Tones

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 ⟨a⟩ , ⟨á⟩ , ⟨â⟩ , ⟨ä⟩ . Long vowels are phonemic but are usually not written except for ⟨â⟩ and ⟨ä⟩, which are each sequence of two vowels with different tones that are realized as long vowels with contour tones (⟨â⟩ high–low = falling, ⟨ä⟩ low–high = rising).

Consonants

Xhosa is rich in uncommon consonants. Besides pulmonic egressive sounds, which are found in all spoken languages, it has a series of ejective stops and one implosive stop. It has 15 click consonants (18 if one counts the prenasalized clicks; 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:

In addition to the ejective affricate , the spelling ⟨tsh⟩ may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates and .

The breathy voiced glottal fricative is sometimes spelled ⟨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.

The murmured clicks, plosives and affricates are only partially voiced, with the following vowel murmured for some speakers. That is, da may be pronounced (or, equivalently, ). 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.

Consonant changes with prenasalisation

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 , ndl is pronounced , n+hl becomes ntl , n+z becomes ndz , n+q becomes [n͡ŋǃʼ] etc. The orthographic b in mb is the voiced plosive . 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 (⟨ch, xh, qh⟩) are prenasalised, the silent letter ⟨k⟩ is added (⟨nkc, nkx, nkq⟩) to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks ⟨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 (⟨c, x, q⟩) are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal (⟨ngc, ngx, ngq⟩).

Consonant changes with palatalisation

Palatalisation is a change that affects labial consonants whenever they are immediately followed by . 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.

Morphology

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.

Nouns

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. iliso (eye), uluhlu (list).

² is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. isandla/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

Verbs use the following prefixes for the subject and object:

Examples

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

Sample phrases and text

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

Months of the year in Xhosa

Days of the week

Counting in Xhosa

Counting from 1 to 10

The digital numerical counting etiquette on the fingers begins with the little finger of the left hand to the left thumb and then continues with the right-hand thumb towards the right little finger. Starting with a closed left hand, each finger is extended with each subsequent number from one to five. Once the left hand is open, then counting continues on the right hand with each finger opening in turn.

History

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". 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. Unlike many Khoisan languages, which have four places of click articulation, Xhosa has only three, missing the palatal clicks. However, and unusually for an Nguni language, Xhosa also has a full set of palatal pulmonic consonants. This inventory is similar to many of the Kalahari Khoe languages, especially in the east, which have a full set of palatal pulmonic consonants, and several of which have lost their palatal clicks as well.

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.

Role in modern society

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), while 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.

In 1996, the literacy rate for first-language Xhosa speakers was estimated at 50%.

Anthem

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.

Translation:

God bless Africa
Raise high her glory
Hear our prayers
God bless us, we her children

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 popular culture

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

Nelson Mandela's Xhosa initiation ceremony is featured in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

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.