is xhosa a khoisan language

The debate about these relationships remains a prominent feature in the linguistic study of Khoisan languages, and the disagreements that sustain it have never been satisfactorily resolved. The name Khoisan derives from the name of the Khoikhoi (people people or real people) group of South Africa and the San (Bushmen) group of Namibia. It is spoken by the Xhosa people in South Africa, and has around 8 million speakers. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. There are five places of articulation at which click consonants occur. Tower of Babel | and is made by putting the tongue just behind the front teeth. Starostin (2013) accepts a relationship between Sandawe and Khoi is plausible, as is one between Tuu and Kxa, but sees no indication of a relationship between Sandawe and Khoi on the one hand and Tuu and Kxa on the other, or between any of them and Hadza. "Comparison and Classification of Khoisan languages." [8] Despite their shared clicks, the Khoisan languages diverge significantly from each other. All Khoisan languages but two are indigenous to southern Africa and belong to three language families. According to this hypothesis, clicks might have originally served as onomatopoetic imitations of naturally occurring sounds. Fricatives become affricates. Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal is known for his early rejection of the Khoisan language family (Starostin 2003). [3] Ethnically, their speakers are the Khoikhoi and the San (Bushmen). Tones are rarely marked in the written language, but they can be indicated a [], [], [], []. in parts of Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Xhosa. The murmured clicks, plosives and affricates are only partially voiced, with the following vowel murmured for some speakers. The murmur no longer shifts to the following vowel. isandla/izandla (hand/hands). Both Xhosa and Zulu are an official languages in South Africa and Lesotho. Ejective consonants However, there is no scientific proof to support this hypothesis since all languages use sound symbolism to a lesser or greater extent. Updates? The linguistic use of clicks, whether original or borrowed, is restricted to these few African languages, with one exception: Damin. [citation needed], Khoisan was proposed as one of the four families of African languages in Joseph Greenberg's classification (19491954, revised in 1963). Kirundi, ), palatal (), and lateral (). 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. However, linguists who study Khoisan languages reject their unity, and the name "Khoisan" is used by them as a term of convenience without any implication of linguistic validity, much as "Papuan" and "Australian" are. #VisitSouthAfrica https://t.co/ncCaKrq4Fa, The Summit includes a Sustainability Village that aims to boost the local economy and power positive economic activ https://t.co/OEOnUXyWdU, Clareb accessories is your one stop shop for all things, unique earrings, necklaces, bracelets. The last is a lateral click with the tongue at the side of the mouth. 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. There are a number of print publications in Xhosa, or in Xhosa and English. Kuria, Their language is often called the 'click ' language because of its three dominant clicks, which entered the isi Xhosa language when the Nguni arrivals mixed with the Khoisan. Those who speak this language typically form part of the ethnic group called the amaXhosa and refer to their language as isiXhosa. Traill demonstrated this linguistic diversity in the data presented in the below table. Xhosa is rich in uncommon consonants. Eton, Home South African Culture and Tradition Explored Languages of South Africa Xhosa Language of the Eastern Cape. Of these languages, Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Yeyi have intricate systems of click consonants; the others, despite the click in the name Gciriku, more rudimentary ones. The Xhosa language has been grouped into a number of dialects. (Reprints, with minor corrections, a series of eight articles published in the ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' from 1949 to 1954. Rafiki, the sagely mandrill chants Xhosa on The Lion King and its reboot. Adjectives, possessive pronouns and demonstratives come after the noun they modify. 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). 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. "Khoisan." The South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts in Xhosa on both radio (on Umhlobo Wenene FM) and television, and films, plays and music are also produced in the language. They The Origins of the Xhosa Language The Xhosa Language has its roots in South Africa from an ethnic group known as the amaXhosa. [1] [2] Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. No change when the following consonant is itself a nasal. Duala, 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. By Mark Dingemanse [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons. Fang, #CapeTownEPrix A dental click sounds like tsk, tsk! The first Bible translation was in 1859, produced in part by Henry Hare Dugmore. [20] The Bantu ancestor of Xhosa did not have clicks, which attests to a strong historical contact with a Khoisan language that did. 2. Total number of users in all countries is 19.2 million (. Khoisan / k s n /, or Khoe-Sn (pronounced [kxoesan]), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the Sn or Skhoen (Saake in the Nng language).. [12], Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most widely spoken African language is Zulu. Tribal Wars and European Persecution . In southern Africa, they came into contact with Khoisan-speaking people. Anthony Traill noted the Khoisan languages' extreme variation. Therefore, Xhosa and Zulu people frequently understand one another, even if they are each speaking their mother tongue. [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. uku-sebenz-is-el + wa -> ukusetyenziselwa "be used for"), but does not affect morpheme-initial consonants (i.e. It is a Methodist hymn written in Xhosa by Enoch Sontonga in 1897. In, This page was last edited on 10 January 2023, at 12:02. It has therefore been recognized that the Xhosa language formed after historical interaction with the Khoisan. Languages such as Zulu and Xhosa make use of three of the five kinds of clicks. Nguni languages of southern Africa, which include Zulu and Xhosa, are believed to have borrowed their clicks from Khoisan languages. . Gwere, sas 1. (Free PDF Download). Swati, Breathy-voiced consonants are produced when the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a volume of air escapes between them. 1971. Masaaba, Agreements usually reflect part of the original class with which the word agrees. As in other Bantu languages, nouns in Xhosa are classified into morphological classes, or genders (15 in Xhosa), with different prefixes for both singular and plural. Implosive consonants are produced by inhaling rather than exhaling the air. This process can skip rightwards to non-local syllables (i.e. Zulu: 22.7%, Xhosa: 16%, Afrikaans . The Xhosa comprise a number of clans such as Gcaleka, Ngika, Ndlambe, Dushane and the Qayi. 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. For example. I will never give away, trade or sell your email address. We use the verb "have" to denote possession, ownership, and other related meanings. The various parts of the sentence must agree in both class and number.[12]. [8] Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 10 million people and as a second language by another 11 million, mostly in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho. #VisitSouthAfrica https://t.co/EHxIRKzU37, RT @FIAFormulaE: The Rainbow Nation The Khoisan people, who at various points have been referred to using the derogatory terms 'Bushmen' and 'Hottentots', as well as Kung, Kxoe, Khoi Khoi, Ovahimba, San, Vatua and !Xu, are an ethno-linguistic group that has traditionally been marginalised throughout South African history. 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. Before the Bantu expansion, Khoisan languages, or languages like them, were likely spread throughout southern and eastern Africa. Kimbundu, 9 reasons youre not fluentYET & how to fix it! #CapeTownEPrix Of all the Khoisan languages, only Nama enjoys official recognition. It is closely related to Zulu, Swati, and Ndebele. But those simple 5 clicks can add a lot to a sentence. For instance, they can be aspirated, nasalised and glottalised. Luvale, The inventory is taken from Wikipedia. [14] Also, a small community of Xhosa speakers (18,000) live in Quthing District, Lesotho.[15]. Otherwise, they tend to be tenuis (plain) stops. Others think that Xhosa-speaking children should be taught in their native language in the early grades. Implosive consonants South Khoisan includes a couple of endangered and several extinct languages of the Kalahari Desert. The Xhosa noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'omniglot_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_1',141,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-omniglot_com-medrectangle-4-0'); Download an alphabet chart for Xhosa (Excel). 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). Chichewa, All education at the university level is in English or Afrikaans. Snyman, Jan Winston. Consequently, the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. https://t.co/qATXK8AEqg, A room filled with great minds, sharing a valuable outlook on living the legacy of the @NelsonMandela Foundation. The spirits of those who have passed on are honoured in rituals and ceremonies. Kamba, Xhosa is closely related to Zulu, Xhosa may refer to: Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa. [15], The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Xhosa has a Roman-based orthography which was developed by missionaries in the 19th century and adapted to represent the sounds of the language. / Mandekan, secondary schools. Emeritus Professor of African Studies; former Director, Institute for African Studies, University of Cologne. Xhosa is an official language in South Africa and Zimbabe, and is The origin of Khoisan click consonants and their peculiarly African provenance therefore remains a mystery. This offer. 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. Nyamwezi, In this case, Xhosa means 'angry men'. http://www.southafricalogue.com/travel-tips/south-african-phrases-xhosa.html, Basaa, Thus, the word for people is abantu in all these languages. North Khoisan is spoken by hunter-gatherers mainly in Namibia. 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. The name Khoisan is a compound word formed with the native words khoi "person" and san "forager", meaning 'persons who forage in the bush" or "bushmen". languages as a result of long and extensive interaction between the Bukusu, By distribution over land, Xhosa is the most widely spoken African language (while Zulu is most widely spoken in terms of population). Italian for Confident Conversations (A2-B2). Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages. Xhosa uses a system of tones to distinguish words that would otherwise sound the same. Their language is often called the click, language because of its three dominant clicks, which. It is a Bantu language closely related to Zulu, Swazi, and Ndebele. Tone, stress and vowel length are not indicated. Mwani, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and Northern Cape. If you want detailed destinations guides, languages learning tips, and travel phrase guides, then you've come to the right place! Janina Brutt-Griffler claims, "given that such colonial borders were generally arbitrarily drawn, they grouped large numbers of ethnic groups that spoke many languages." / Nama, in particular, has a long tradition of literacy. 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". #VisitSouthAfrica https://t.co/A4fSLf2jvP, Hello Cape Town ), Khoisan Linguistic Studies . Thus, a more correct spelling is Khoesaan. The origin of clicks remains a mystery. 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). 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 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. Voiceless palatal plosive becomes voiced. The next are the alveolar clicks with the tongue tip and palate. 2000. However, the Dutch used the word stotteraarto more specifically describe the clicking sounds used in the Khoisan languages. [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. Fricatives become affricated and, if voiceless, they become ejectives as well: mf is pronounced [pf], ndl is pronounced [nd], n+hl becomes ntl [nt], n+z becomes ndz [ndz], n+q becomes [n] etc. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Let us know where you'll be watching this weekend. There are five vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that distinguish word meaning. [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]. "Die Khoe-sprachigen Buschmnner der Kalahari." 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. Sena, 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 to ward off evil from unnatural forces such as thetokoloshe a potentially malevolent goblin who attacks at night. When aspirated clicks (ch, xh, qh) are prenasalised, the silent letter k is added (nkc, nkx, nkq) to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks nc, nx, nq, and are actually distinct sounds. Isewell [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons. Luchazi, Click here to claim your exclusive 30% discount. 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). 15000 characters left today. A system for writing Xhosa using the Latin alphabet was devised by Xhosa and Khoisan peoples. This term, now considered derogatory, means stutterer in Dutch. Gusii, Swahili, ), Gldemann, Tom and Edward D. Elderkin (forthcoming) '. Zinza, (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Some corrections to this page by Michael Peter Fstumum, Information about Xhosa | Release of the forward closure results in a pop-like sound. Swati and Ndebele, and mutually intelligible with them to some extent. We have loved having you in our country ! Tonga, The breathy voiced glottal fricative [] is sometimes spelled h. The ejectives tend to be ejective only in careful pronunciation or in salient positions and, even then, only for some speakers. 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. The Xhosa number approximately 7.1-million, the majority of whom live in Eastern Cape, and ancient traditions remain strong in this proud people. Learn more about the Khoisan language family on Ethnologue. Other Southeastern Bantu languages are Zulu, Swati (Swazi), Sotho, Tswana, Venda, and Ndebele. The pocket of air produced by the resulting enclosure is rarefied by the sucking action of the tongue. English. However, some of the letters have a different pronunciation from English. . Because Xhosa and Zulu are both classed as Bantu languages, they are quite similar. Besides clicks, Khoisan languages have non-click consonants, giving rise to very complex consonantal systems which are amongst the largest in the world. 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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language Terms of Use There are no definite or indefinite articles. Bonke abantu banesiphiwo sesazela nesizathu Featuring handcraft https://t.co/GiM3yZdgvg, Situated in Cape Town Hope street studios, lies the excellent & craftmanship of David Dindi Leather collection, a s https://t.co/zlW7cX54f8, Self-taught designer Nondwe Nyathi of Indwe Designs, draws inspiration from the elegant Blue crane, its stately pre https://t.co/Srk6KNK2lM, Cool Tabs A sustainable & profitable business owned by Aretha Doyle, re-purposes soda can tabs and transforms them https://t.co/qCZyAieYy7, SA Tourisms sustainability village at AGES showcases proudly S.A eco and environmentally friendly products. [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. 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. http://www.salanguages.com/isixhosa/xhowrd.htm While palatalisation occurred historically, it is still productive, as is shown by palatalization before the passive suffix /-w/ and before diminutive suffix /-ana/. The majority of languages which contain clicks originate with the Khoisan languages. . the Ndebele is an integral aspect of Xhosa tradition. Ejective consonants are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis, raising air pressure in the mouth, so when the sound is released, there is a noticeable burst of air accompanying the release. The more notable characteristic is their depressor effect on the tone of the syllable.[19]. 1998. Similarly, the tenuis (plain) clicks are often glottalised, with a long voice onset time, but that is uncommon. Lambya, Gogo, Thus their language is variously said to be extinct or to have 18,000 speakers, to be Ju or to be Khoe. In South Africa, 19.1 million speak the language, with 8.1 million speaking it as their first language. 1997. 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 Khoisan languages differ in the number of such modifications from a low of 20 in Nama to a high of 83 in Kxoe. Tradues em contexto de "Khoisan" en portugus-ingls da Reverso Context : Palavras-chave: Khoisan; reconciliation; identity; narrative; communication. There are several places of articulation at which click consonants occur, as shown in the table below. These are divided into North, Central and South Khoisan groups belonging to southern Africa, plus two Tanzanian isolates, Sandawe and Hadza (Hatsa), which possess a few words, affixes, and particles that justify the assumption of a distant relationship with Khoisan. #VisitSouthAfrica https://t.co/xwXs0dxd2l, We've got you covered! There are books, magazines and newspapers in Xhosa, as well as TV and radio programmes, films, plays and songs. Yao, 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. Group of African language families with click consonants, "San language" redirects here. The Zulu refer to the Eastern Cape as KwaXhosa which is translated to place of the Xhosa. is that you can jump around their extensive library of topics and choose what you want to learn, when you want, and at your own pace. for $0.07/word. A century ago the Haiom people spoke a Ju dialect, probably close to Kung, but they now speak a divergent dialect of Nama. Khoisan Last but not least is the Khoisan family with between 40 - 70 members. Vowels can be either short or long. The following table gives an overview of Xhosa noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs. Loma, "Types of sound correspondence patterns in Khoisan languages." Proto-Central-Khoisan. Nama is used in education and in the media. . 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.

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