Xhosa ( , ), formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its local name isiXhosa, is a Bantu language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8 million people and as a second language in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click.

Classification

Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele, called the Zunda languages. 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.

Geographical distribution

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

]]

thumb|Trilingual government building sign in [[Afrikaans, English and Xhosa]]

thumb|Sign outside the AmaZink township theatre restaurant in [[Kayamandi 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. 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

thumb|Spoken Xhosa

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.

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

|+ Xhosa vowel phonemes

!rowspan=2|

!colspan=2| Front

!colspan=2| Back

|- class=small

! short

! long

! short

! long

|-

! Close

|

|

|

|

|-

! Mid

|

|

|

|

|-

! Open

|colspan=2|

|

|

|}

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 , , , . Long vowels are phonemic but are usually not written except for and , which are each sequence of two vowels with different tones that are realized as long vowels with contour tones ( high–low = falling, 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:

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

|-

!colspan=2 rowspan=2|

!rowspan=2|Labial

!colspan=2|Dental/Alveolar

!rowspan=2|Post-<br>alveolar

! colspan="2" |Velar

!rowspan=2|Glottal

|- class=small

!median

!lateral

!median

!lateral

|-

!rowspan=6|Click

!<small>tenuis/ejective</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

!<small>aspirated</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

!<small>slack voice</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

!<small>nasal</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

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|-

!<small>slack-voice nasal</small>

|

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|

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|

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|-

!<small>prenasalized tenuis/ejective</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

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|-

!rowspan=4|Plosive

!<small>tenuis/ejective</small>

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 () are prenasalised, the silent letter is added () to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks , 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 () are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal ().

{| class="wikitable"

|+List of consonant changes with prenasalisation

! Phoneme

! Prenasalised

!Examples (roots with class 10 /iiN-/ prefix)

! Rule

|-

|, , , , /ǀʰ/, /ǁʰ/, /ǃʰ/

|

|

  • phumla "to rest" → iimpumlo "noses"
  • thetha "to speak" → iintetho "speeches"
  • tyhafa "to weaken" → iintyafo "weaknesses"
  • khathala "care about" → iinkathalo "cares"
  • chazela "explain" → inkcazelo "information"
  • xhasa "to support" → inkxaso "support"
  • qhuba "to drive" → inkqubo "process"

| Aspiration is lost on obstruents.

|-

|

|

|

  • tyeba "to be rich" → iindyebo "wealths"

| Voiceless palatal plosive becomes voiced.

|-

|, ,

|, ,

|

  • ucango "door" → iingcango "doors"
  • uxande "rectangle" → iingxande "rectangles"
  • uqeqesho "training" → iingqeqesho "trainings"

| Tenuis clicks become slack voiced nasal.

|-

|

|

|

  • imbali "story" → iimbali "histories"

| Implosive becomes slack voiced.

|-

|, , , , <br />, , ,

|, , , , <br />, , , ?<!-- no examples yet -->

|

  • fuya "to breed" → iimfuyo "breeds"
  • usana "child" → iintsana "children"
  • shumayela "to preach" → iintshumayelo "sermons"
  • isihloko "title" → iintloko "heads"
  • vuma "approve" → iimvume "approvals"
  • zama "try" → iinzame "attempts"
  • ukudleka "wear and tear" → iindleko "costs"

| Fricatives become affricates. Only phonemic, and thus reflected orthographically, for , , and .

|-

|, , ,

, ,

|, , ,

, ,

|

  • umeyile "Mr. Mule (as a storybook character) → iimeyile "mules"
  • inoveli "novel" → iinoveli "novels"
  • ngena "bring in" → ingeniso "profit"
  • unyawo "foot" → iinyawo "feet"
  • ncokola "to chat" → incoko "conversation"
  • unxweme "sea shore" → iinxweme "sea shores"
  • nqula "worship" → iinqula "adam's apple"

| No change when the following consonant is itself a nasal.

|}

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.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+ List of consonant changes with palatalisation

! Original<br/>consonant

! Palatalised<br/>consonant

! Examples

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku- + kopa + -wa → ukukotshwa [ukukot͡ʃʷa] (to be copied)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku- + phuph + -wa → ukuphutshwa [ukupʰut͡ʃʰʷa] (to be dreamt)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku- + gab + wa → ukugajwa [ukugaʷa] (to be thrown up)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • ubu- + -ala → utywala [ut̠ʲʷala] (alcohol)
  • sebenz + -is + -el +wa -> setyenziselwa [set̠ʲenziselwa] (used for)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku- + zam + -wa → zanywa [ukuzan̠ʲʷa] (to be tried on)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku- + krwemp + wa → ukukrwentshwa [ukukχʷ'ɛntʃʷa] (to be scratched)

|-

|

|

| style="text-align: left;" |

  • uku + bamb + wa → ukubanjwa [ukuɓaʷa] (to be caught)

|}

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. 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.), 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.

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

Additional stanzas were written later by Sontonga and other writers, and the original verse was translated into Sotho

See also

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

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Xhosa language profile (at UCLA Language Materials Project)
  • PanAfrican L10n page on Xhosa
  • Learn Xhosa
  • Xhosa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
  • Paradisec has a collections of Arthur Capell's materials (AC1), which include Xhosa language materials

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