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Xhosa (/ ˈ k ɔː s ə / KAW-sə or / ˈ k oʊ s ə / KOH-sə, [5] [6] [7] Xhosa: [ᵏǁʰôːsa] ⓘ), 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]
This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Nguni on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Nguni in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them.
kwedini - a popular word meaning a boy in Xhosa and Zulu; laduma! – a popular cheer at soccer matches, "he scores!" (literally: "it thunders", in Nguni) nca – meaning something is nice or tasty (the nc is a nasalised dental click) Vati – water, kasi word for water,also the name of a water purification company from standerton Sakhile
Due to vowel elision, however, there are cases where clicks are pronounced in cross-linguistically common types of consonant clusters, such as Xhosa [sᵑǃɔɓilɛ] Snqobile, from Sinqobile (a name), and [isǁʰɔsa] isXhosa, from isiXhosa (the Xhosa language).
The Xhosa people, or Xhosa-speaking people (/ ˈ k ɔː s ə / KAW-sə, / ˈ k oʊ s ə / KOH-sə; [2] [3] [4] Xhosa pronunciation: [kǁʰɔ́ːsa] ⓘ) are a Bantu ethnic group native to South Africa. They are the second largest ethnic group in South Africa and are native speakers of the isiXhosa language.
The Xhosa title literally means "knock-knock beetle", which is a popular name for various species of darkling beetles that make a distinctive knocking sound by tapping their abdomens on the ground. These beetles are believed by the Xhosa to bring good luck and rain.
Xhosa is an Nguni Bantu language, most commonly found in South Africa, spoken by around 200,000 Zimbabweans, a little over 1% of the population. [25] Xhosa is one of Zimbabwe's official languages. [3] [4] [5] "Ishe Komborera Africa", the former Zimbabwean national anthem, was based on a Xhosa hymn. A small population of Xhosa is found in ...
Within a subset of Southern Bantu, the label "Nguni" is used both genetically (in the linguistic sense) and typologically (quite apart from any historical significance).. The Nguni languages are closely related, and in many instances different languages are mutually intelligible; in this way, Nguni languages might better be construed as a dialect continuum than as a cluster of separate languages.