AY Honors/African Lore/Answer Key

The Xhosa people live in South Africa. The name refers to one of their legendary chieftains of old. They refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and their language is known as isiXhosa - another prefix-oriented Bantu language.

Although they are distributed across the country, they are concentrated in the Eastern Cape Province. Under the pre-1994 South African system of bantustans, they were allocated to Transkei or Ciskei, now both a part of Eastern Cape.

Historically they were pushed west by expansion of the Zulus, as the northern Nguni put pressure on the southern Nguni, known as the Mfecane. They may have absorbed some local Khoisan and Griqua populations, with a consequent impact on the language.

Nelson Mandela is Xhosa, and they provide a significant portion of the African National Congress leadership.

The "Xh" in the word "Xhosa" is pronounced as a clicking noise.

The language strongly relies on the use of concord. Verbs are influenced by the subject by means of a subject concord and often by the object by means of the object concord. The following sentences demonstrate this.

Umntwana uyathetha. [The child speaks.]

Umntwana uyasithetha isiXhosa. [The child speaks Xhosa.]

Bantwana bayatheta. [The children speak.]

Bantwana bayasitheta isiXhosa. [The children speak Xhosa.]

In the first sentence the subject concord u- is derived from the noun's prefix um-. In the second sentence an object is present and there for verb must implement a object concord -si- that agrees with the object's prefix isi-. The last two sentences shows the plural form of the previous two. As can be seen, the plural is indicated with a prefix, rather than a suffix as would be the case in many European languages.