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:(file)

Pronunciation

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.
    • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, pages 14-15:
      my father remained aloof from Christianity and instead reserved his own faith for the great spirit of the Xhosas, Qamata, the God of his fathers.
    • 2011, Xoliswa Ndoyiya, Ukutya Kwasekhaya: Tastes from Nelson Mandela's Kitchen, page 49:
      In many Xhosa households, Wednesday is umngqusho day. It's the way we all grew up. Like Fridays in the Eastern Cape are always dumplings with meat day.
  2. (uncountable) The language of these people, a Bantu language related to Zulu.
    • 2020 April 28, Christina Macfarlane, “‘There is nothing worse than hunger,’ says South Africa hero Siya Kolisi of helping townships during lockdown”, in CNN‎[1]:
      “With the food packages that we drop off, we are adding messages in the local dialect of Xhosa, because this is predominately for the Xhosa areas,” Kolisi said.

Translations

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Oxford Advanced learner's Dictionary
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 “Xhosa” (US) / “Xhosa” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 “Xhosa”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Further reading

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