As a balance to consonant complexity, strict rules restrict clicks and most of the non-clicks to the beginning of a word being followed always by a vowel. [13] There is a small but significant Xhosa community of about 200,000 in Zimbabwe. 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. This creates a sound somewhat resembling a cork being pulled out of a bottle. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. are about 8.2 million native speakers of Xhosa, and another 11 million Swati, The murmur no longer shifts to the following vowel. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages. Makhuwa, Xhosa is an unusual and attractive sounding language, though difficult to master. The sound system of Xhosa contains three types of click sounds borrowed from the neighbouring Khoisan languages. . The release of the forward closure results in a pop-like sound. 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"). However, tones are usually not indicated in writing. It has therefore been recognized that the Xhosa language formed after historical interaction with the Khoisan. The Bantu languages adopted the use of clicks from neighboring, displaced, or absorbed Khoisan populations (or from other Bantu languages), often through intermarriage, while the Dahalo are thought to have retained clicks from an earlier language when they shifted to speaking a Cushitic language; if so, the pre-Dahalo language may have been something like Hadza or Sandawe. These are typically written with characters such as and . Clicks are quite versatile as consonants, as they involve two articulations of the tongue which can operate partially independently. Let us know where you'll be watching this weekend. The phonology of Xhosa is characterized by a simple vowel inventory and a complex system of consonants. It forms part of the ornamentation that reflects the different stages of a woman, s life. Learn how your comment data is processed. When visiting the Eastern Cape be sure to ask an amaXhosa to teach you a few phrases, they are certain to be willing to share their unique language with you. [15], The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Some corrections to this page by Michael Peter Fstumum, Information about Xhosa | work in Xhosa was published in 1823. ), palatal (), and lateral (). tsk! Elsewhere many bilingual Khoisan speakers have tended to shift rapidly to the dominant language, thus ceasing transmission of the mother tongue to children and leaving it to contract and die, sometimes quite abruptly. "Comparison and Classification of Khoisan languages." It forms part of the ornamentation that reflects the different stages of a womans life. 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. Their language is often called the click, language because of its three dominant clicks, which. [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]. No idea what a clicking language is? http://www.gononda.com/xhosa/, Xhosa phrases Beadwork similar to the Ndebele is an integral aspect of Xhosa tradition. in parts of Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The Khoisan languages share some similarities in their extremely complex sound systems. The Xhosa language has been grouped into a number of dialects. When plain voiceless clicks (c, x, q) are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal (ngc, ngx, ngq). It is spoken by the Xhosa people in South Africa, and has around 8 million speakers. Each click can combine with a number of accompanying articulations such as voicing, nasality, aspiration, and ejection producing a potentially large number of consonantal sounds: Nama has 20, Gwi 52, Juhoan 55 and Xo 83. There are several places of articulation at which click consonants occur, as shown in the table below. The Khoisan. ), Khoisan Linguistic Studies . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language Isewell [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons. 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. Punu, Because Xhosa and Zulu are both classed as Bantu languages, they are quite similar. Xhosa, along with Zulu and other indigenous languages of South Africa, has been a source of many words that were borrowed by South African English and that do not occur in other varieties of English in other parts of the world. 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. Voiceless palatal plosive becomes voiced. 1. I don't know, but I think you can compare them to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Mende, Consequently, the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. Includes English and Italian translations with pronuncation guide. Nyakyusa, Therefore, the absolute duration of voicing is the same as in tenuis stops. One puzzling feature of the Khoisan languages is that, despite some uniformity in their use of clicks, they differ considerably among themselves in aspects such as word formation, sentence structure, and vocabulary. magazines and newspapers in Xhosa, as well as TV and radio programmes, In, Sands, Bonny. The palatalization process only applies once, as evidenced by ukuphuphumisa+wa -> ukuphuphunyiswa "to be made to overflow", instead of the illicit alternative, *ukuphutshunyiswa. Hadza (Hatsa), one of the East African Khoisan languages, is a remarkable exception to this, having retained its vitality through a pattern of stable bilingualism with Swahili, the dominant Bantu language in the area. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. They are better described as slack voiced than as breathy voiced. Its great for beginners getting started in a language and invaluable for intermediates looking to fill in gaps in their vocabulary and pronunciation. 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. Most of the languages in South Africa that involve tongue-clicking originate from the indigenous Khoisan people, who included plenty of different clicks in their speech and language. The Tanzanian languages, Sandawe and Hadza, use only three basic clicks: |, , and !. The normal word order in Xhosa is Verb-Object (the subject is part of the verb compound). See also Khoisan languages, which contains several audio clips. Don't let the learning stop here. The click consonant sounds are a typical and unique feature of the San and Khoikhoi languages. See Khoe languages for speculations on the linguistic history of the region. Subscribe using the form below to have all of my posts delivered directly to your email. Snyman, Jan Winston. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site. Their language is often called the click language because of its three dominant clicks, which entered the isiXhosa language when the Nguni arrivals mixed with the Khoisan. Tumbuka, Fricatives become affricates. http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/xhosa.php Today, the few scholars working on these languages treat the three [southern groups] as independent language families that cannot or can no longer be shown to be genetically related" (p.841). Xhosa language, Xhosa formerly spelled Xosa, a Bantu language spoken by seven million people in South Africa, especially in Eastern province. All click and most non-click consonants appear at the beginning of words and are followed by a vowel. Most have no written record. Northern Sotho, Xhosa, It is closely related to Zulu, Swati, and Ndebele. The spirits of those who have passed on are honoured in rituals and ceremonies. The first printed 1998. uku-bhal+wa -> ukubhalwa "to be written", instead of illicit *ukujalwa). Most others are neighboring Bantu languages in southern Africa: the Nguni languages (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Phuthi, and Northern Ndebele); Sotho; Yeyi in Botswana; and Mbukushu, Kwangali, and Gciriku in the Caprivi Strip. The X and H languages are even more complex. 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. While palatalisation occurred historically, it is still productive, as is shown by palatalization before the passive suffix /-w/ and before diminutive suffix /-ana/. A preliminary classification of the !X and u'hasi dialects. The word order is subjectverbobject, like in English. 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 . Northern Ndebele (South Africa), Xhosa, which is also known as Xosa or Koosa, is a clicking language. Some scholars speculate that they might represent an earlier stage in the evolution of human language. The original stanza was: Additional stanzas were written later by Sontonga and other writers, with the original verse translated into Sotho and Afrikaans, as well as English. Literary works, including prose and poetry, are available in Xhosa, as are newspapers and magazines. isandla/izandla (hand/hands). Breathy-voiced consonants Xhosa beliefs recognise the presence of ancestral spirits and a supreme authority. The murmured clicks, plosives and affricates are only partially voiced, with the following vowel murmured for some speakers. The verb root occupies the 0 position. Marking of the plural number depends on the noun class. The ceremonial slaughtering of animals is one of the many ways by which ancestors are invoked. 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. Eton, Luchazi, 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. 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. Ronga, Janina Brutt-Griffler claims, "given that such colonial borders were generally arbitrarily drawn, they grouped large numbers of ethnic groups that spoke many languages." Kamba, Corrections? But, as with any language, Xhosa had a rich history of oral traditions from which the society taught, informed, and entertained one another. "History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation", "The Kxa Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy", . Copyright The Intrepid Guide Ltd 2022. There are books, magazines and newspapers in Xhosa, as well as TV and radio programmes, films, plays and songs. "Phonetic Correspondences among Khoisan Affricates." Zulu, Languages written with the Latin alphabet, if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[320,50],'omniglot_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_2',147,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-omniglot_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0');if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[320,50],'omniglot_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_3',147,'0','1'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-omniglot_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0_1'); .large-mobile-banner-1-multi-147{border:none !important;display:block !important;float:none !important;line-height:0px;margin-bottom:7px !important;margin-left:auto !important;margin-right:auto !important;margin-top:7px !important;max-width:100% !important;min-height:50px;padding:0;text-align:center !important;}. Xhosa has three basic clicks . In South Africa, 19.1 million speak the language, with 8.1 million speaking it as their first language.

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