Xhosa ( , ), formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its endonym 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.See
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
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. 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.
+ Xhosa vowel phonemes Front Back short long short long Close Mid Open
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:
LabialDental/AlveolarPost-alveolarVelarGlottalmedianlateralmedianlateralClicktenuis/ejectiveThese are variably tenuis pulmonic to ejective; the ejection tends to be weak even when present. With clicks, only the rear articulation is ejective. aspirated slack voice nasal slack-voice nasalThese are analogous to the slack-voice nasals etc. They are not prenasalized, as can be seen in words such as (overtone singing) and in which they are preceded by a nasal. prenasalized tenuis/ejectiveIncorrectly described as glottal clicks by The isiXhosa clicks are not glottalized nasal clicks like those of Nama; they are prenasalized and tenuis/ejective, as maintained by Xhosa linguists like Saul. Plosivetenuis/ejective aspirated slack voice implosive Affricateejective aspirated slack voice Fricativevoiceless slack voice Nasalfully voiced slack voice Liquidfully voiced breathy voiced Semivowelfully voiced slack voice
In addition to the ejective affricate , the spelling may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates and .
The breathy voiced glottal fricative is sometimes spelled .
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, 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 () 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 ().
+List of consonant changes with prenasalisation Phoneme PrenasalisedExamples (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., , , , , , , , , , , , , , ? 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.
+ List of consonant changes with palatalisation Originalconsonant Palatalisedconsonant Examples uku- + kopa + -wa → ukukotshwa [ukukot͡ʃʷa] (to be copied) uku- + phuph + -wa → ukuphutshwa [ukupʰut͡ʃʰʷa] (to be dreamt) uku- + gab + wa → ukugajwa [ukugaʷa] (to be thrown up) ubu- + -ala → utywala [ut̠ʲʷala] (alcohol) sebenz + -is + -el +wa -> setyenziselwa [set̠ʲenziselwa] (used for) uku- + zam + -wa → zanywa [ukuzan̠ʲʷa] (to be tried on) uku- + krwemp + wa → ukukrwentshwa [ukukχʷ'ɛntʃʷa] (to be scratched) 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.
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.
ClassSingularPlural Example 1/2um-aba-, abe-umntu , abantu1a/2au-oo-utitshala , ootitshala3/4um-imi-umthi , imithi5/6i-, ili-1ama-, ame-ilitye , amatye 7/8is(i)-2iz(i)-2isitya , izitya9/10iN-3iiN-3, iziN-4inja , izinja11/10u-, ulu-1, ulw-, ul-iiN-3, iziN-4 uluthi 14ubu-, ub-, uty-ubuthi15uku-ukutya
1 Before monosyllabic stems, e.g. (eye), (list).
2 is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. / (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:
Person/Class Subject Object 1st sing. ndi- -ndi- 2nd sing. u- -ku- 1st plur. si- -si- 2nd plur. ni- -ni- 1 u- -m- 2 ba- -ba- 3 u- -wu- 4 i- -yi- 5 li- -li- 6 a- -wa- 7 si- -si- 8 zi- -zi- 9 i- -yi- 10 zi- -zi- 11 lu- -lu- 14 bu- -bu- 15 ku- -ku- reflexive — -zi-
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: