Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and
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Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most widely spoken African language is Zulu. It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. As of 2003 appro… See more

The Xhosa language employs 26 letters from the Latin alphabet; some of the letters have different pronunciations from English. Phonemes not represented by one of the 26 letters are written as multiple letters. Tone, stres… See more

Xhosa has an inventory of ten vowels: [a], [ɛ~e], [i], [ɔ~o] and [u] written a, e, i, o and u in order, all occurring in both long and short. The /i/ vowel is long in the penultimate syllable and short in the last syllable.
Xhosa is a … See more

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. As in other Bantu languages, nouns in Xhosa are classifi… See more

Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. They refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and their language as isiXhosa. Ancestors of the Xhosa migr… See more

The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Their use in education has been governed by legislation, beginning with the Bantu Education Act, 1953.
At present, … See more