Xhosa

Where Xhosa clicks came from

The amaXhosa have lived in the coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. The Bantu ancestor of their language had no clicks. On the east coast its speakers met Khoisan-speaking people and borrowed words together with their pronunciation. Xhosa clicks are made at three places in the mouth, where many Khoisan languages use four; the palatal clicks are missing. Unusually for a Nguni language, Xhosa has a full set of palatal pulmonic consonants instead, a pattern shared with several Kalahari Khoe languages that have also lost their palatal clicks.

The language has 15 click consonants, 18 counting the prenasalised ones, beside ejective stops and an implosive.

Why nkq carries a silent k

Xhosa uses the 26 basic Latin letters and builds its other sounds from digraphs, trigraphs and even tetragraphs. Tone, stress and vowel length usually go unwritten, although the language has a high and a low tone. The clicks are written c, x and q, the aspirated clicks ch, xh and qh. When an aspirated click follows a nasal, a silent k is added, nkc, nkx and nkq, so that it is not confused with the nasal clicks nc, nx and nq, which are different sounds.

Where Xhosa speakers were counted

Estimates for 2003 put about 5.3 million speakers in the Eastern Cape, about 1 million in the Western Cape, 671,045 in Gauteng, 246,192 in the Free State and 219,826 in KwaZulu-Natal. Outside South Africa there are Xhosa communities in Zimbabwe and in Lesotho's Quthing District. Botswana has small groups at Bikwe and in Mahalapye, without official status.