A certain headdress will be a worn by a newly married girl, while a woman who has just given birth to her first child will wear a differently styled headdress. It is closely related to Zulu, Swati, and Ndebele. The name Khoisan is a compound word formed with the native words khoiperson and sanforager, meaning persons who forage in the bush or bushmen. . [15], John Bennie was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary and early Xhosa linguist. / Nyole, Zigula, The other Khoisan languages are unrecognized and marginalized, especially in South Africa. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive detailed travel guides, exclusive travel and language learning tips, priority access to giveaways and more! For instance, they can be aspirated, nasalised and glottalised. nangokweemfanelo. They are better described as slack voiced than as breathy voiced. Enchantment winds through the Xhosa language, dress and rituals. Fricatives become affricates. 2014 - 2023. 3. Swati and Ndebele, and mutually intelligible with them to some extent. The following table gives an overview of Xhosa noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs. You can unsubscribe at any time. Voiceless palatal plosive becomes voiced. "Khoisan." Phrases | For example. The Xhosa number approximately 7.1-million, the majority of whom live in Eastern Cape, and ancient traditions remain strong in this proud people. This is usually a misnomer for ejective consonants, which are found across much of the world, or is a reference to paralinguistic use of clicks such as English tsk! Terms of Use There is a series of six dental clicks, represented by the letter c, similar to the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk"; a series of six alveolar lateral clicks, represented by the letter x, similar to the sound used to call horses; and a series of alveolar clicks, represented by the letter q, that sound somewhat like a cork pulled from a bottle. Subscribe using the form below to have all of my posts delivered directly to your email. 1. Gogo, Xhosa has the following clicks consonants which can be modified in a variety of ways, such as aspirated, breathy-voiced or nasalized. Lambya, [22], Proportion of the South African population that speaks Xhosa at home, These are analogous to the slack-voice nasals mh, nh, etc. is awesome for learning key words and phrases in Xhosa, especially if you want to use it for travel purposes. Xhosa (/ks, kos/,[5][6][7] Xhosa pronunciation:[ksa]), formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its local name isiXhosa, is a Nguni language and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. 1998. [15], The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Other languages have little more than 1,000 speakers while several are known to have become extinct. The origin of Khoisan click consonants and their peculiarly African provenance therefore remains a mystery. http://www.gononda.com/xhosa/, Xhosa phrases Umbundu, They are descended from the Nguni, who began migrating south from central and northern Africa more than a thousand years ago. Although vowel length distinguishes word meaning, the length is not represented in writing, except for and . Xhosa has a complex system of consonants, including some uncommon ones. Vowels can be either short or long. South Africa is the native land of Xhosa, which is spoken chiefly in the Eastern Cape Province. When consonants are prenasalised, their pronunciation and spelling may change. The language is an important part of Khois. Other Southeastern Bantu languages are Zulu, Swati (Swazi), Sotho, Tswana, Venda, and Ndebele. The Khoisan languages were once spoken across all of southern Africa from southern Angola in the west to Swaziland in the east and the Cape of Good Hope in the south (see the map). Xhosa, derived from the Khoisan language, refers to "angry men." The majority of the South African languages that use tongue-clicking have roots in the indigenous Khoisan . Baucom, Kenneth L. 1974. [1] [2] Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. Nama is used in education and in the media. Xhosa nouns belong to 17 different classes, roughly based on semantic categories, e.g., there are classes for human beings, animals, plants, objects of various shapes, etc. In 1996[update], the literacy rate for first-language Xhosa speakers was estimated at 50%.[15]. "Comparison and Classification of Khoisan languages." tsk! Want my "9 Steps to Reach Fluency Faster" playbook? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language (Free PDF Download). The click consonant sounds are a typical and unique feature of the San and Khoikhoi languages. [4][5] It has been suggested that the similarities of the Tuu and Kxa families are due to a southern African Sprachbund rather than a genealogical relationship, whereas the Khoe (or perhaps KwadiKhoe) family is a more recent migrant to the area, and may be related to Sandawe in East Africa.[3]. isandla/izandla (hand/hands). Copyright The Intrepid Guide Ltd 2022. [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. Southern Ndebele, http://xhosaculture.co.za/about-us/learn-xhosa/ "History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation", "The Kxa Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy", . They are currently restricted to the Kalahari Desert, primarily in Namibia and Botswana, and to the Rift Valley in central Tanzania.[2]. Xhosa verbs are highly inflected. [14] Also, a small community of Xhosa speakers (18,000) live in Quthing District, Lesotho.[15]. The /i/ vowel is long in the penultimate syllable and short in the last syllable.[16]. Fang, They are typologically very similar to the Kxa languages (below), but have not been demonstrated to be related to them genealogically (the similarities may be an areal feature). Swati, The pocket of air produced by the resulting enclosure is rarefied by the sucking action of the tongue. 15% of its vocabulary is estimated to be of Khoekhoe (Khoisan) origin. The Khoisan (Khoesan) language family is the smallest of the language families of Africa. Photography and infographics cannot be used without permission.Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Terms and Conditions, Language Learning for Travellers & Heritage Learners, Italian Travel Phrases Cheat-Sheet! Emeritus Professor of African Studies; former Director, Institute for African Studies, University of Cologne. Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Xhosa. Lozi, It forms part of the ornamentation that reflects the different stages of a woman, s life. Choose your English to Xhosa translation service. In South Africa a variation of this process allowed the Khoisan languages to exert a powerful linguistic influence on the dominant languages before they disappeared, leaving Afrikaans and some Bantu languages with a number of distinctive Khoisan features. The status of Xhosa, like all other African languages in the Republic of South Africa, is complex. In, Sands, Bonny. Luchazi, 1971. Xhosa is a Bantu language spoken in South Africa, mainly in the This ritual vocabulary of the Lardil of Australia contains some words with clicks together with other peculiar sounds, but the use of clicks is limited, and they have a symbolic value in addition to their linguistic function. In A. Traill (ed. They are thought to have migrated to this region along the east coast of Africa and through central Africa. Verbs use the following prefixes for the subject and object: The following is a list of phrases that can be used when one visits a region whose primary language is Xhosa: Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. There are books, magazines and newspapers in Xhosa, as well as TV and radio programmes, films, plays and songs. When plain voiceless clicks (c, x, q) are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal (ngc, ngx, ngq). Long vowels are phonemic but are usually not written except for and , which are each sequences of two vowels with different tones that are realized as long vowels with contour tones ( highlow = falling, lowhigh = rising). Although Xhosa and Zulu are similar enough to be considered dialects of one language, Xhosa and Zulu speakers consider them to be separate languages. Chokwe, In, Khler, O. Clicks are ingressive consonantal stops produced by an intake of air followed by a sudden withdrawal of the tongue from the soft palate, front teeth, or back teeth and hard palate. See Khoe languages for speculations on the linguistic history of the region. Its great for beginners getting started in a language and invaluable for intermediates looking to fill in gaps in their vocabulary and pronunciation. Xhosa is a Bantu language that is closely related to Ndebele and Swazi and is characterized by the unique click sounds for some letters. 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 [t], the spelling tsh may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates [ts] and [t]. The number of Khoisan speakers has declined drastically in the last three centuries due to European colonisation, demographic pressures and changing lifestyles. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 1998. Read More; development. Not all languages using clicks as phonemes are considered Khoisan. Ever since Xhosa and Zulu were reduced to a written form in the early 19th century, Xhosa and Zulu writers have produced various works of fiction, ranging from poetry to novels. Densely populated with uncommon consonants, Xhosa consists of the usual pulmonic egressive sounds (used in English), ejectives, 15 clicks and an implosive. Tuu: A New Name for the Southern Khoisan Family, in Tom Gldemann (ed.). Its speakers and people belonging to the group are called isiXhosa. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Xhosa-language. Xhosa is an official language in South Africa and Zimbabe, and is used as a language of instruction in primary schools, and in some secondary schools. Songe, Please check your inbox to confirm your email. Xhosa is a tonal language with two inherent phonemic tones: low and high. Xhosa beliefs dictate that people turn to a diviner or healer, usually attired in a headdress and shawl of fur, when needing advice on how to deal with the spirits, help with illnesses, or, ward off evil from unnatural forces such as the, a potentially malevolent goblin who attacks at night. Indeed, the use of the term 'Khoikhoi' meaning . Gwere, Xhosa: [noun] a member of a Bantu-speaking people of Eastern Cape province. Only phonemic, and thus reflected orthographically, for. Mpondo (Pondo), Xesibe, Bomwana, Gaika, Gcaleka, Thembu, Mpondomise, Ndlambe (Ethnologue). [6] Dimmendaal (2008) summarized the general view with, "it has to be concluded that Greenberg's intuitions on the genetic unity of Khoisan could not be confirmed by subsequent research. Xhosa has an inventory of ten vowels: [a], [~e], [i], [~o] and [u] written a, e, i, o and u in order, all occurring in both long and short. Two languages of east Africa, those of the Sandawe and Hadza, originally were also classified as Khoisan, although their speakers are ethnically neither Khoikhoi nor San. Khoisan languages are best known for their use of click consonants as phonemes. Xhosa is also heard in Johannesburg and the Western Cape. http://ilanguages.org/xhosa.php Rafiki, the sagely mandrill chants Xhosa on The Lion King and its reboot. There are two groups of languages in southern Africa that have clicks: the Khoisan languages and certain languages of the Niger-Congo family, most notably Zulu and Xhosa. The sustainability village focused on boo https://t.co/BDeRnlGHot, Experience the most exciting electric street racing here in Cape Town as the world's best street racers battle. https://t.co/ZihxkpWwe7, Undoubtedly the best spots to experience unbridled views of the Mother City. Consequently, the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. The Xhosa language is a member of the Bantu family and is closely related to Zulu. The Khoisan people have a unique language that is characterized by clicking sounds made with the tongue and mouth. Omissions? All rights reserved. Xhosa - a Bantu language closely related to Zulu. Look up Xhosa or xhosa in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 1998. But, as with any language, Xhosa had a rich history of oral traditions from which the society taught, informed, and entertained one another. I promise not to spam you. "Toward reconstructing Proto-South Khoisan." Xhosa has several dialects, including Mpondo (Pondo), Xesibe, Bomwana, Gaika, Gcaleka, Thembu, Mpondomise, Ndlambe (Ethnologue). Though these are still under debate, one frequently accepted dialect grouping is as follows: Xhosa (original), Bhaca, Gcaleka, Thembu, Mpondomise, Ngqika, Mpondo, Mfengu and Bomvana. The only widespread Khoisan language is Khoekhoe (also known as Khoekhoegowab, Nm or Damara) of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, with a quarter of a million speakers; Sandawe in Tanzania is second in number with some 4080,000, some monolingual; and the Kung language of the northern Kalahari spoken by some 16,000 or so people. Nama, in particular, has a long tradition of literacy. 0 characters. Haya, Tribal Wars and European Persecution . Khoisan languages Bushman languages, also called San languages, loose grouping of languages that confusingly have been considered to be a separate group within the Khoisan languages. They are called upon for guidance, support. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xho, Online Xhosa lessons Thus, a more correct spelling isKhoesaan. There are books, Numbers | Traill demonstrated this linguistic diversity in the data presented in the below table. Ikizu, Besides pulmonic egressive 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, Ju'hoan, spoken in Botswana and Namibia, has 48, and Taa, with roughly 4,000 speakers in Botswana, has 83). It's a wrap! http://www.youtube.com/user/XhosaKhaya English. This creates a sound somewhat resembling a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The verb root occupies the 0 position. Download your free PDF guide with 125 Italian travel phrases. Xhosa is considered to be a Category II language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Loma, The Khoe family is both the most numerous and diverse family of Khoisan languages, with seven living languages and over a quarter million speakers. Tentative distribution of the Khoisan languages, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoisan-languages, Fu Jen Catholic University - Graduate School of Linguistics - The Khoisan Language Family. Forms of "Nga" ##.