Talk:Xhosa language

message: On "The Click Song," someone with Makeba's album should double-check the lyrics.  I don't hear "bathi" in there at all.
Also, my Xhosa textbook spells igqirha with an rh, but the lyrics here have *igqira.  I notice in the table of consonants above, there is an rh and a gr, but no single r.  I think the correct spelling must be rh (which is in IPA /x/), not a simple r.  Compare with a recording.
--Dupes 20:35, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "The Click Song" and Xhosa r/rh

message: Are you sure there's ever an exclamation point there?  I think you're confusing Xhosa with the Khoisan languages.
You are absolutely right; Ethnologue mentions many names for Xhosa, none with an exclamation mark. arj 19:55, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: are you sure?

message: To call this a gender system, to me, is really strange as there is absolutely no correlation with gender. There is also something like 15 classes, none of them with any relation to gender. Many of the classes pair to form singular-plural pairs. My knowledge is about Zulu, but I'm quite sure its the same for Xhosa.
The original meaning of "gender" is "kind, type", and not "sex". I agree it can be confusing, and in languages with more than two or three genders, these are often termed "noun classes" - which the article uses as the primary term. "Genders" in scare quotes should stay, in my opinion, since many non-linguists are not aware of the proper term, nor of the existence of languages with many noun classes. arj 18:43, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Gender is a standard linguistic term for this. The meaning of 'sex' is recent, and derived from the linguistic term. Danish, Dutch, Swedish and at least one of the |Norwegian languages do not distinguish masculine from feminine nouns. ColinFine 12:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Gender system" 

message: The IPA isn't very good at conveying the sound of the language---or even, really, how to pronounce Xhosa. Is anyone (or does anyone know) a native speaker and have access to a mic? There doesn't seem to be a place for speech sample requests for esoteric languages. grendel|khan 13:30, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
 sample of a native speaker pronouncing the word 'Xhosa'
:: found some here https://archive.org/details/XoliswaMatrokkoIbaliXhosa Victor Grigas (talk) 05:17, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Samples? 

message: xhosa is one of the african languages i'm attempting to learn. i've been listening to an xhosa audio course for... i think it's been several years now.
Gringo300 04:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: learning xhosa

message: As a native speaker of Xhosa (Gcaleka, Bomvana, Rharhabe and Mpondo dialects), I certainly agree that to replace Xhosa clicks with 'k' would simply make no meaning in the language or worst it could create great confusion as to the intended message. One simply has to learn to pronounce the 'q', 'x' and 'c' and the combination of these consonants or at least try to be closer to the real sound. For those looking for help in pronounciation, I suggest to contact several South African universities with Xhosa departments e.g Fort Hare and Rhodes in the Eastern Cape Province or Cape Town and Western Cape in the Western Cape province.
Lastly, the language the amaXhosa speak is referred to as isiXhosa. Only English speakers refer to it as 'Xhosa'. The name of a language is not conjugated in English but of course it also is in a few cases. So to say that "Bathetha isiXhosa" can be directly translated as "They speak the Xhosa language" or "Uthetha isiNgesi" as "She or he speaks the English language"
Zintatu, 03 november 2005213.209.160.58 10:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Xhosa pronounciation 

message: :Long vowels are phonemic, but are usually not written, except for â.
I've never seen a diacritic in written Xhosa, except in a dictionary (where they indicate tone). Doubling a letter indicates length, but is only ever used in the noun prefixes oo- (class 2a) and ii- (class 10). So I've changed it. --Taejo | Talk 12:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long vowels 

message: I've removed the following text:
"In the fictional Star Trek universe, a freighter is named after the language."
It's a link to an off-site wiki, and not being familiar with the show, it just feels crufty to mention it anywhere in this article, especially the lead paragraph! Graham talk 10:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Totally agree; thanks for removing that cruft. — mark ✎ 11:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star Trek reference 

message: I never got far with my Xhosa, but my impression was that ngx etc. were prenasalized, not nasalized. Can anyone verify?
kwami 21:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  name; phonemes 

message: There is a Xhosa translator which enables you to translate English sentences to Xhosa, Xhosa sentences to English.
Old English to Xhosa translator
English to Xhosa translator
Original Xhosa to English translator
New Xhosa to English translator (which it is under heavy construction)
Regards, --Blake3522 02:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translator 

message: Lots of noise as if an old cassette recorder was used and other stuff not belonging to the actual pronunciation. Or cut the sample (can't edit .ogg here) -andy 84.149.101.243 (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can anyone please replace the sound sample? 

message: Kaffer, Caffre, and Cafre are very derogatory terms, and I would say obsolete ways to refer to the language (having adapted a more general meaning of "black people," and equivalent to the n word in America). I understand if we want the article to include these terms, as historically the word Kaffer was used by European settlers to refer to the language, but there should be a qualifer.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.218.226.243 (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derogatory terms should include qualifier 

message: In the second paragragh, I changed "q" to refer to palatal rather than alveloar clicks.
This is correctly described in the table under the heading "Consonants", however.
Ake Torngren (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While I do not know Xhosa well, I believe it is in fact a post-alveolar click and not a palatal.  The IPA symbol [!] is the post-alveolar while the palatal is [ǂ].  So either the second paragraph is wrong or the consonantal inventory is.  I will change the second paragraph back post-alveolar. Theoretick (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, and believe it is the lateral click, but I'm unsure. David Spector (talk) 12:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

text: Might be odd to some, but it's very relevant to the article. David Spector (talk) 12:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: place of articulation

message: Assessed as C-Class. Falls short of B-Class on a few issues, take a look at the assessment guidelines for ideas on improving the article. Good luck! Ron2K (talk) 20:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:SAFRICA]] assessment

message: Should we not add a section on the work of Missionary John Bennie who played an important role in the development of the writen form of the language.
http://www.fhiser.org.za/Workingpapers/16Opland.pdf
"Brownlee was joined in November 1821 by two Scottish missionaries, W.R. Thomson and John Bennie. Bennie set himself to learning Dutch, and then turned to Xhosa, ʻreducing to form and rule this language which hitherto floated in the wind,ʼ as he put it.5 When a printing press arrived at Tyhume with John Ross in December 1823, Bennie was ready with his transcription of the Xhosa language: three days after its arrival, on 19 December 1823, the first sheets of printed Xhosa emerged from the press."
as far as this shows, Bennie was the first person to print the Xhosa language and also played a role in the development of the writen language
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/isixhosa.html
"The Presbyterian missionary John Bennie wrote the first Xhosa vocabulary list in 1824. Bennie’s work set the scene for the establishment of a printing press, which later became known as the Lovedale Press. Through this press isiXhosa had, by the early twentieth century, established the strongest African language literary tradition in the country."
http://www.genealogyworld.net/missionaries/missionaries_b2.html
see the section on John Bennie
--Scottykira (talk) 13:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Bennie 

message: The 7.9 million people, is linked to Xhosa, I am sure sure (as they say in SA) that that 7.9 is not exclusively Xhosa ethnic group. there must be an easy link to the fact that it is the native language of Xhosa people and in the first line have a link to that article. BUt I have just noticed other language do not follow this convention. except Hebrew Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 18:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor issue 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There was a group of Xhosa speakers that settled in Zimbabwe. In fact, Xhosa is even considered an "official" language of Zimbabwe. It would be good to update the distribution map to include this. I don't know whether data is available for Lesotho and Swaziland, but if so, making the map more regional and less country-specific would seem like an improvement.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwkudu (talk • contribs) 09:35, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speaker distribution 

message: Hello, I have a question regarding the phonological inventory of Xhosa within the Xhosa page. How accurate is the phonological chart that is presented on the Xhosa page? What source is the phonological information from? If the source is not a reliable source, which source is a good one for finding the phonology of the Xhosa language? If there are any experts on the Xhosa language or any people with a reliable source on the language that want to help improve the page, please give me a holler. I would love to be able to improve this page, and help correct the phonology if needed. If anyone has a good source and may be able to correct it themself, that is great too. Thanks Fdomanico51997 (talk) 07:21, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonology of Xhosa  

message: Can someone please change the pronunciation audio because as a Xhosa person it doesn't sound how I would say it which could be misleading to someone who is not familiar with the language in terms of hearing it instead of reading it. 41.114.232.17 (talk) 07:01, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good suggestion! I agree that it sounds pretty distinctly non-native. I noticed there's a comment above with a link to an audio; it says the word Xhosa is in the story, but I listened to the whole thing and did not hear it. I will try to make a new recording to use. WmGB (talk) 19:20, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation audio