Bulu, The language is also rich in idioms. The Xhosa language is properly referred to as isiXhosa. Ganda/Luganda, The Khoisan, or Click, linguistic family is made up of three branches: the Khoisan languages of the San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoi, spoken in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa; Sandawe, a language found in E Africa; and Hatsa (Hadzane or Hadzapi), also spoken in E Africa. The Khoisan languages share some similarities in their extremely complex sound systems. 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. 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. Although all the Khoisan languages use click sounds, Sandawe and Hatsa are . 2 is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. The more notable characteristic is their depressor effect on the tone of the syllable.[19]. The Khoisan. "History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation", "The Kxa Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy", . Sources We look forward to https://t.co/QcOGOzgax0, In collaboration with Advertising Week and Hartbeat, the Nelson Mandela foundation presents the Healing Power of La https://t.co/ati9CUOaa0, upon for guidance, support and to turn the tide of favour, , the majority of whom live in Eastern Cape, , and ancient traditions remain strong in this proud people, A certain amount of intermarriage with the Khoisan people they found here, Enchantment winds through the Xhosa language, dress and rituals. Amongs https://t.co/Un48auA2t0, South African Tourism's initiatives and projects within the "growing green economy" are highlighted through partner https://t.co/BlBqEBi0pj, Were proud and excited to be associated with @CapeTownEprix in hosting the first ABB FIA Formula E World champions https://t.co/0prwWK7DrC, It is great to hear you are feeling our vibe Mpho! Author of, Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. . Chichewa, Gogo, Therefore, Xhosa and Zulu people frequently understand one another, even if they are each speaking their mother tongue. The spirits of those who have passed on are honoured in rituals and ceremonies. The fact that many of the surviving languages are endangered and some are even on the point of extinction bears testimony to inexorable social, economic, linguistic, and demographic forces that continue to marginalize and consume indigenous linguistic and cultural minorities. The Xhosa language is a member of the Bantu family and is closely related to Zulu. 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- + / [int] "beautiful" (of a class 9 word like inja "dog"). Interestingly, the word Xhosa is from the Khoisan language and means The angry men. If a woman has children, whom she has raised to be adults, then it is usual to find her seated among her peers smoking a long-handled pipe. Kisi, (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Some corrections to this page by Michael Peter Fstumum, Information about Xhosa | [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. Although mutually intelligible, they are considered to be separate languages for political and cultural reasons. "Types of sound correspondence patterns in Khoisan languages." Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In this view Khoisan hunters might have developed clicks to camouflage their presence as they stalked their prey in an environment of insect and other noises or might have responded to various situations with onomatopoetic vocalizations containing clicks. Xhosa language, Xhosa formerly spelled Xosa, a Bantu language spoken by seven million people in South Africa, especially in Eastern province. For the Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, see, Map showing the distribution of the Khoisan languages (yellow), Grammatically, the southern Khoisan languages are generally, Greenberg, Joseph H. 1955. Nama, the largest Khoisan language, is officially recognized in Namibia and is taught at universities. The Xhosas started facing serious trouble during the 18th and 19th Centuries when they engaged in frequent conflicts with the European settlers attempting to annex their native lands. That is, da may be pronounced [da] (or, equivalently, [da]). Tumbuka, #CapeTownEPrix are about 8.2 million native speakers of Xhosa, and another 11 million A member of a Bantu people inhabiting the eastern part of Cape Province, South Africa. Yao, work in Xhosa was published in 1823. There are some exceptions, for instance, the Sandawe language in Tanzania whose speakers have maintained a relatively stable linguistic community. Xhosa language - Wikipedia Palatalisation is a change that affects labial consonants whenever they are immediately followed by /j/. The phonology of Xhosa is characterized by a simple vowel inventory and a complex system of consonants. 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. Only phonemic, and thus reflected orthographically, for. Planning a trip? the Ndebele is an integral aspect of Xhosa tradition. 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. Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most widely spoken African language is Zulu. 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. Ronga, For instance, they can be aspirated, nasalised and glottalised. Kirundi, Translate files. They are known as the Saa by the Nama, and this is the source of the word San. It is one of the eleven official languages of the Republic of South Africa. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Nguni languages of southern Africa, which include Zulu and Xhosa, are believed to have borrowed their clicks from Khoisan languages. Xhosa - A Bantu Language Spoken In Southern Africa Tsonga, Don't let the learning stop here. 4 Before monosyllabic stems in some words. In Voeltz, Erhard Friedrich Karl (ed.). According to this hypothesis, clicks might have originally served as onomatopoetic imitations of naturally occurring sounds. The Xhosa themselves are somewhat ambivalent about the use of their language in education. 2. Its speakers and people belonging to the group are called isiXhosa. Ethnologue lists 27 Khoisan languages which are spoken by half a million people or less. Khoisan Identity | South African History Online . Corrections? She hypothesizes that this took place within efforts to prevent the spread of English during European colonization and prevent the entrance of the majority into the middle class.[7]. http://www.southafricalogue.com/travel-tips/south-african-phrases-xhosa.html, Basaa, Introduction to African Languages | The African Language Program at Harvard Khoisan - Wikipedia Because Xhosa and Zulu are both classed as Bantu languages, they are quite similar. Haya, 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! Thus, the word for people is abantu in all these languages. The Xhosa people, or Xhosa-speaking people (/ k s , k o s /; Xhosa pronunciation: [ksa] ()) are a Nguni ethnic group whose traditional homeland is primarily the Cape Provinces of South Africa.They are the second largest ethnic group in Southern Africa and are native speakers of the IsiXhosa language. Corrections? Implosive consonants 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. There is also the South Cushitic language Dahalo in Kenya, which has dental clicks in a few score words, and an extinct and presumably artificial Australian ritual language called Damin, which had only nasal clicks. Is Xhosa a Khoisan language? Voiceless palatal plosive becomes voiced. Although Xhosa and Zulu are similar enough to be considered dialects of one language, Xhosa and Zulu speakers consider them to be separate languages. Their most distinctive linguistic characteristic is the original and extensive use of click consonants, a feature which has spread through cultural and linguistic contact into a number of Bantu (Niger-Congo) languagessuch as Xhosa, Zulu, and Sotho in South Africa and Gciriku (Diriku), Yei (Yeye), and Mbukushu in Botswana and Namibiaand into Dahalo, a Cushitic (Afro-Asiatic) language of Kenya. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates. The first Bible translation was in 1859, produced in part by Henry Hare Dugmore. In Xhosa culture, women are easily recognised by their heavy dress, matching turban and coloured dots decorating their faces. Bushman languages | Britannica languages as a result of long and extensive interaction between the aquatic human-like beings who accept into their family those who drown. Copyright The Intrepid Guide Ltd 2022. Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and Northern Cape. http://xhosaculture.co.za/about-us/learn-xhosa/ But those simple 5 clicks can add a lot to a sentence. In all of the Southern African Khoisan languages, a simple rule applies to using the sound. Mushungulu, Dental clicks are represented by the letter c, alveolar clicks are indicated by q, and lateral clicks are written with the letter x. Vowel length is not always represented in writing. nangokweemfanelo. Xhosa is categorized as a Bantu language and is representative of the south-western Nguni subfamily group. [12] However, this classification is not widely accepted. The first is dental clicks with the tongue pressing against the back of the teeth. I'm the 'guide' behind The Intrepid Guide, an Award-Winning site for travellers and language learners with thousands of readers, 1,000+ students, and a popular newsletter. 4. Proto-Central-Khoisan. Both Xhosa and Zulu are an official languages in South Africa and Lesotho. If you want detailed destinations guides, languages learning tips, and travel phrase guides, then you've come to the right place! Total number of users in all countries is 19.2 million (Ethnologue). They are thought to have migrated to this region along the east coast of Africa and through central Africa. Traill demonstrated this linguistic diversity in the data presented in the below table. Ngqika is considered to be the standard variety. Pair them with vowels, tones, and other constants and you've got a wide variety of sounds and meanings. By creating an account, I agree to theTerms of service and Privacy policy. Xhosa is also heard in Johannesburg and the Western Cape. ", Commission for Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Community Rights, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khoisan_languages&oldid=1132757639, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Ehret, Christopher. See Khoe languages for speculations on the linguistic history of the region. "Names of Khoisan languages and Their Variants." 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). 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. Forms of "Nga" ##. The Xhosa number approximately 7.1-million, the majority of whom live in Eastern Cape, and ancient traditions remain strong in this proud people. (Their numbers have been included under Nama above.) Michele creates language learning guides and courses for travel. Author of. [citation needed]Presently, approximately nine million Xhosa . While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. F https://t.co/s7IkqA9Utl, It feels good to have @KevinHart4real also known as Mpho here in Johannesburg, South Africa. 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. "Die Khoisan-Familie." Nyamwezi, MustGo.com. Literary works, including prose and poetry, are available in Xhosa, as are newspapers and magazines. "Khoisan." All rights reserved. But this line of thinking has proved fruitless. Kongo, 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 Khoisan | South African History Online Anthony Traill at first accepted Khoisan (Traill 1986), but by 1998 concluded that it could not be demonstrated with current data and methods, rejecting it as based on a single typological criterion: the presence of clicks. One of the main reasons for the decline is that bilingual Khoisan speakers shift to the dominant language of the area and stop teaching the language to their children. . The town itself receives an abundant supply of water from an underground source, which is referred to as All trademarks and web sites that appear throughout this site are the property of their respective owners. This creates a sound somewhat resembling a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The Khoe family appears to have migrated to southern Africa not long before the Bantu expansion. Today, the Khoisan languages are spoken only in southwestern Africa, in the region around the Kalahari Desert extending from Angola to South Africa, and in one small area of Tanzania. In 1996[update], the literacy rate for first-language Xhosa speakers was estimated at 50%.[15]. 1. The number of Khoisan speakers has declined drastically in the last three centuries due to European colonisation, demographic pressures and changing lifestyles. Anthony Traill noted the Khoisan languages' extreme variation. Tswa, "Die Khoe-sprachigen Buschmnner der Kalahari." All education at the university level is in English or Afrikaans. However, some of the letters have a different pronunciation from English. Only a few consonants, such as /b/, /m/, /n/, /r/, and /l/ can appear between vowels, and even fewer can appear at the end of words. The linguistic use of clicks, whether original or borrowed, is restricted to these few African languages, with one exception: Damin. Christian missionaries during the early 19th century. OshiWambo, Punu, Tower of Babel | 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. Want my "9 Steps to Reach Fluency Faster" playbook? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The palatalization process only applies once, as evidenced by ukuphuphumisa+wa -> ukuphuphunyiswa "to be made to overflow", instead of the illicit alternative, *ukuphutshunyiswa. Some languages have become extinct and others are endangered. The Khoe family is both the most numerous and diverse family of Khoisan languages, with seven living languages and over a quarter million speakers. Kuria, Herero, Xhosa has the following clicks consonants which can be modified in a variety of ways, such as aspirated, breathy-voiced or nasalized. In Xhosa culture, women are easily recognised by their heavy dress, matching turban and coloured dots . Most of the languages are unwritten, but Nama and Naro have Latin-based orthographies. 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. The San were formerly called Bushmen, (from . In, Khler, O. The 15 clicks (which learners tend to battle with the most) are divided into three categories. Start learning here! What separates her from other instructors is her ability to explain complex grammar in a no-nonsense, straightforward manner using her unique 80/20 method. Xhosa - a Bantu language closely related to Zulu. XXhosa tradition is an extremely powerful social force binding together these people of Eastern Cape province, most evident in Xhosa beliefs revering their ancestors. (Reprints, with minor corrections, a series of eight articles published in the ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' from 1949 to 1954. The Nguni languages are unique among Bantu languages in that they have imploded "clicking" phonemes. The orthographic b in mb is the voiced plosive [mb]. Central Khoisan, the largest group, includes Nama (Khoekhoe, Khoekhoegowab) and Haiom (Saan) spoken in Namibia, and smaller languages spoken in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. The verb root occupies the 0 position. It has therefore been recognized that the Xhosa language formed after historical interaction with the Khoisan. They are called upon for guidance, support. They refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and their language as isiXhosa. Swati and Ndebele, and mutually intelligible with them to some extent. Bonke abantu bazalwa bekhululekile belingana ngesidima
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