Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by 7.6 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Xhosa is written using a Latin alphabet. Henry Hare Dugmore helped translate the entire Bible in Xhosa language. Xhosa has ten vowels.
| Xhosa | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| isiXhosa | ||||
| Native to | South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho | |||
| Region | Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape, Free State | |||
| Ethnicity | Xhosa people | |||
Native speakers | 8.2 million (2011 census)[1] 11 million L2 speakers (2002)[2] | |||
Niger–Congo
| ||||
| Latin (Xhosa alphabet) Xhosa Braille | ||||
| Signed Xhosa[3] | ||||
| Official status | ||||
Official language in |  South Africa Zimbabwe | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-1 | xh | |||
| ISO 639-2 | xho | |||
| ISO 639-3 | xho | |||
| Glottolog | xhos1239 | |||
Guthrie code | S.41[4] | |||
| Linguasphere | 99-AUT-fa incl. | |||
 Proportion of the South African population that speaks Xhosa at home
| ||||
Xhosa is well known for its set of three major clicks.
References
Xhosa edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Xhosa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Webb, Vic. 2002. "Language in South Africa: the role of language in national transformation, reconstruction and development." Impact: Studies in language and society, 14:78
- Aarons & Reynolds, 2003, "South African Sign Language", in Monaghan, ed., Many Ways to be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities
- Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
| |||||||||||
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.