Xhosa
Nguni language of southern South Africa
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Summary
Xhosa is a natural language[1]. Xhosa ranks in the top 7% of natural language entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (7,277 views/month).[2]
Key Facts
- Country: South Africa[3], Zimbabwe[4], Lesotho[5]
- Instance of: modern language[6]
- Subclass of: Nguni[7], Zunda[8]
- Writing system: Latin script[9]
- Commons category: Xhosa language[10]
- Wikimedia language code: xh[11]
- Topic's main category: Category:Xhosa language[12]
- Language regulatory body: Pan South African Language Board[13]
- Number of speakers, writers, or signers: 8,177,300[14], 7,600,000[15], 11,000,000[16]
- Topic has template: Template:Lang-xh[17]
- Native label: isiXhosa[18]
- UNESCO language status: 1 safe[19]
- Indigenous to: Xhosa people[20], Quthing District[21], Qacha's Nek District[22], Eastern Cape[23], Free State[24], Northern Cape[25], KwaZulu-Natal[26], Pondoland[27], Western Cape[28]
- Exact match: http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/XHO[29], https://concepticon.clld.org/languages/xhosa[30], http://data.linguistik.de/bll/bll-ontology#bll-133079600[31]
- Ethnologue language status: 1 National[32]
- Linguistic typology: subject–verb–object[33], agglutinative language[34], tonal language[35]
- Category for films in this language: Category:Xhosa-language films[36]
Why It Matters
Xhosa has Wikipedia articles in 30 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[37] Xhosa is known by 46 alternative names across languages and contexts.[38]