8 million (2013)[1] 11 million L2 speakers (2002)[2]
Language family
Niger–Congo?
Atlantic–Congo
Volta-Congo
Benue–Congo
Bantoid
Southern Bantoid
Bantu
Southern Bantu
Nguni-Tsonga
Nguni
Zunda
Xhosa
Writing system
Latin (Xhosa alphabet) Xhosa Braille Ditema tsa Dinoko
Signed forms
Signed Xhosa[3]
Official status
Official language in
South Africa Zimbabwe
Recognised minority language in
Botswana
Language codes
ISO 639-1
xh
ISO 639-2
xho
ISO 639-3
xho
Glottolog
xhos1239
Guthrie code
S.41[4]
Linguasphere
99-AUT-fa incl. varieties 99-AUT-faa to 99-AUT-faj + 99-AUT-fb (isiHlubi)
Proportion of the South African population that speaks Xhosa at home
0–20%
20–40%
40–60%
60–80%
80–100%
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Xhosa (/ˈkɔːsə/KAW-sə, /ˈkoʊsə/KOH-sə;[5][6][7]Xhosa pronunciation:[kǁʰóːsa]), formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its local name isiXhosa, is a Nguni language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.[8] Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 10 million people and as a second language by another 10 million, mostly in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho.[9] 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.[10]
^Xhosa at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
^Webb, Vic (2002). Language in South Africa: the role of language in national transformation, reconstruction and development. Impact: Studies in language and society. p. 78. ISBN 978-9-02721-849-0.
^Aarons, Debra & Reynolds, Louise (2003). "South African Sign Language: Changing Policies and Practice". In Leila, Monaghan (ed.). Many Ways to be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. pp. 194–210. ISBN 978-1-56368-234-6.
^Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
^"Xhosa – Definition and pronunciation". Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
^"Xhosa – pronunciation of Xhosa". Macmillan Dictionary. Macmillan Publishers Limited. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
^Bauer, Laurie (2007). The Linguistics Student's Handbook. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-74862-759-2.
^"Constitution of Zimbabwe (final draft)" (PDF). Kubatana.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 October 2013. The following languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language,Venda,Tonga are the officially recognised languages of Zimbabwe.
^"Xhosa alphabet, pronunciation and language". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
^See Sands, Bonny & Gunnink, Hilde (2019). "Clicks on the fringes of the Kalahari Basin Area". In Clem, Emily; Jenks, Peter & Sande, Hannah (eds.). Theory and Description in African Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Berlin: Language Science Press. pp. 703–724. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3365789. ISBN 978-3-96110-205-1.
Nguni 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...
in South Africa and are native speakers of the IsiXhosalanguage. Presently, over nine million Xhosa-speaking people are distributed across the country...
Africa Xhosalanguage, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people All pages with titles containing Xhosa Khosa...
article focuses on the history of 19th century Xhosalanguage newspapers in South Africa. The first Nguni language newspapers in South Africa were founded in...
following is a list of timekeeping terminology in the isiXhosalanguage. The traditional isiXhosa names for months of the year poetically come from names...
Xhosa literature is the spoken and written literature of the Xhosa people of Southern Africa. The Xhosalanguage is spoken in South Africa and Zimbabwe...
An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code that is used to identify human languages on the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by...
the surrounding Sesotho and Xhosalanguages, but retains a distinct core of lexicon and grammar not found in either Xhosa or Sesotho, and found only partly...
or IsiBhaca (Baca) is a Bantu language of South Africa. Traditionally considered a dialect of Swati, it is closer to Xhosa, Phuthi and Zulu. It is spoken...
personal computers, servers, supercomputers, IoT Available in More than 55 languages by LoCos Update method Software Updater, Ubuntu Software, apt Package...
Zimbabwe, where the Northern Ndebele language (isiNdebele) is closely related to Zulu. Xhosa, the predominant language in the Eastern Cape, is often considered...
This is a list of notable Xhosa people. King Maxhoba Sandile, Aa! Zanesizwe! - King of the Rharhabe sub-group of the Xhosa nation in Mngqesha Great Palace...
April 1905) was a South African composer, who is best known for writing the Xhosa hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (English: "God Bless Africa"), which, in abbreviated...
Lamawele ("The Lawsuit of the Twins") is the first extant novel in the Xhosalanguage. It was written by Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (1875–1945) and published...
Mozambique, they were adopted from a Tuu language (or languages) by the languages of the Nguni cluster (especially Zulu, Xhosa and Phuthi, but also to a lesser...
colonialists and the Bantu language speakers in Southern Africa. Firstly, as the Boers moved north inland from the Cape they encountered Xhosa, Basotho, and Tswana...
According to the 2011 census, the two most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%) and Xhosa (16.0%). The next two are of European origin: Afrikaans (13...
The amaMfengu (in the Xhosalanguage Mfengu, plural amafengu) were a group of Xhosa clans whose ancestors were refugees that fled from the Mfecane in...
The Thembu (Xhosa: AbaThembu) are Xhosa people who were living in the Thembu Kingdom. According to Xhosa oral tradition, the Thembu migrated along the...
ideophone but is not idiomatic to English. Dictionaries of languages like Japanese, Korean, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu list thousands of ideophones. Sometimes...
employ the five most widely spoken of South Africa's eleven official languages – Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines)...
College Mexico (International Telecommunication Union callsign prefix XH) Xhosalanguage (ISO 639 alpha-2 code "xh") This disambiguation page lists articles...
Amasi (in Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa), emasi (in Swazi), maas (in Afrikaans), or mafi (in Sesotho), is a thick curdled sour fermented milk product that is...
Global Information
South Africa
Zimbabwe
Botswana
