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/):

• Audio:

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Pronunciation

• (GenAm) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊ.sə/, /ˈkɔ.sə/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkəʊ.sə/, /ˈkɔː.sə/

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), Khosa
• Albanian: gjuha Xhosa
• Arabic: الْكُوسِيَّة f (al-kūsiyya)
• Breton: Xhosaeg
• Bulgarian: кхоса (khosa)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 科薩語／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)
• Korean: 코사어 (kosa'eo)
• 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 (kōśa)
• 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

Further reading

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