Xhosa

Xhosa

See also: xhosa

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Xhosa (ísí)Xhosa (“Xhosa language”) and (úḿ)Xhosa (“Xhosa person”), where the sequence xh denotes a click (/ˈǁʰoːsa/):

.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊ.sə/,[1][2][3] /ˈkɔ.sə/[2][3]
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkəʊ.sə/,[2] /ˈkɔː.sə/[1][2]

Noun

Xhosa (countable and uncountable, plural Xhosas or Xhosa)

1. (countable) Any member of a Bantu people from South Africa, most of whom live in the Eastern Cape.
2. (uncountable) The language of these people, a Bantu language related to Zulu.

Translations

Xhosa language

Afrikaans: Xhosa (af) Albanian: gjuha Xhosa Arabic: الْكُوسِيَّة‎ f (al-kūsiyya) Breton: Xhosaeg Bulgarian: кхоса (khosa) Chinese: Mandarin: 科萨语 (zh) (Kēsà yǔ) Chuvash: коса чӗлхи (kos̬a č̬ĕlh̬i) Dutch: Xhosa (nl) Esperanto: kosa lingvo Finnish: xhosa (fi) French: xhosa (fr) Galician: xhosa m Ido: Xosa-linguo Irish: Cóisis f Italian: xhosa (it) m Japanese: コサ語 (ja) (kosa-go) Limburgish: Xhosa (li) Navajo: Xhosa Dineʼé bizaad Polish: xhosa Portuguese: língua xhosa f, xhosa (pt) m Russian: ко́са (ru) (kósa) Spanish: xhosa (es) m Swahili: Kixhosa Swedish: xhosa (sv) Xhosa: isiXhosa Zulu: isiXhosa

Xhosa people

Afrikaans: Xhosa (af) Arabic: كُوسِيُّون‎ m (kūsiyyūn) Bengali: কোসা (kosa) Esperanto: koso (eo) (man or woman), kosino (woman) French: Xhosa (fr) m or f Swahili: Mxhosa Swedish: xhosa (sv) Xhosa: amaXhosa

See also

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Xhosa terms
• Xhosa - English Dictionary: from Webster's Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition.
• Xhosa - English & English - Xhosa Translator at Albion College

References

1. Oxford Advanced learner's Dictionary
2. “Xhosa” (US) / “Xhosa” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
3. “Xhosa”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Further reading

• ISO 639-1 code xh, ISO 639-3 code xho (SIL)
• Ethnologue entry for Xhosa, xho ⁠