Talk:Xhosa people/Archive 1

Archive 1

Bulelani Ngcuka

Any source on the claim that Bulelani Ngcuka is Xhosa? I distinctly remember how he testified about applying for a home in KwaZulu on the base the he is an ethnic Zulu. --21:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed while it seems under dispute --21:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Bulelani Ngcuka's wife is ethinic Zulu he is Xhosa. The Zulu equivalent of his name would be. Bongani Mpisi

Bulelani ( Xhosa) = Bongani ( Zulu) Ngcuka ( Xhosa) = Mpisi ( Zulu)

Therefore he is Xhosa.

Famous Xhosa People

Osama Bin Laden is not Southern African and the article Osama bin Laden states no evidence of his ever leaving the Middle East. Even if he might speak Xhosa he is not a member of the Xhosa people. Please remove his name.

Removed. But in the future, with Wikipedia--YOU can edit the pages. Be bold! Joewright 04:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Xhosa/isiXhosa

Please decide which you are going to use for the sake of consistency. I prefer 'Xhosa' because it is correct in British English, and is the more logical >> [Xhosa is to isiXhosa as German is to Deutch]. (Which English is supposed to used in Wiki anyway??) DawnTreader196.207.40.213 19:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Completely agree with you — "Xhosa" is the correct name of the language in English (in all Englishes, not just British English, by the way). If you are talking Xhosa, you would refer to the language as isiXhosa. But it is a silly pretension to call the language isiXhosa when you are speaking English, just as it would be to say "Huberta's mother-tongue is Gaeilge" when what you mean to say is "Huberta's mother-tongue is Irish".

(You get pretentious people saying the same about other languages which have initial inflexions, thus "There are many seTswana speakers in Johannesburg" when what they mean is "There are many Tswana speakers in Johannesburg".)

As for consistency, I find this article to be pretty consistent in using the correct form, Xhosa, for the language. Thus the fourth paragraph of the intro states, correctly, "...As of 2003 the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 5.3 million, live in the Eastern Cape..."

And the section about the language states, correctly, "...Xhosa is an agglutinative tonal language of the Bantu family. While the Xhosas call their language "isiXhosa," the most common name in English is "Xhosa." Written Xhosa uses a Latin alphabet-based system. Xhosa is spoken by about 18% of the South African population, and has some mutual intelligibility with Zulu. Many Xhosa speakers, particularly those living in urban areas, also speak Zulu and/or Afrikaans and/or English..."and "...Among its features, the Xhosa language famously has fifteen click sounds, originally borrowed from now extinct Khoisan languages of the region. Xhosa has three basic click consonants..."

&cet. Brockle 11:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it is common practice to put the name of the language as said in the language itself at the top of language articles, so that's what I've done. Exploding Boy 18:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 20:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Amagqira

Corrected the spelling of "amagqira". The voiced verision of the alveolar click is spelled "gq". It is spelled correctly in the word "Qongqongthwane" (=the knocking beetle), however. The click song contains the word "igqira" (singular of "amagqira"), btw. Ake Torngren (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm quite certain that should be amagqirha, with the h...

(You're absolute right. "rh" is the modern spelling for the sound similar to

"g" in Dutch/Afrikaans. However, one often seems "r" for that sound in names, and in

older taxts. "Radebe" comes to mind.... Ake Torngren (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC))

You've spelt it properly in the article. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 20:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Changed "q" to refer to palatal rather than alveolar clicks. It is correctly referred

to in the table under the heading "Consonants" in the article "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language".

Ake Torngren (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Clicks are a confusing bunch. I've just read the Click consonants article and had a few lightbulb moments.

I can't remember the exact source, but I do remember reading somewhere that many isiXhosa speakers have a tendency of pronouncing the palatal click as a retroflex (alveolar) click. I think I've heard this pronunciation myself, but I'm not entirely confident in my real-world phonetics skills. Also, many sources (such as Doke and Mofokeng's classic Textbook of Southern Sotho Grammar) call this q click "palato-alveolar."

There also seems to be some confusion over whether these clicks really have a velar closure or whether its uvular (certainly, in my own native Sesotho pronunciation I simply can't pronounce the clicks if I try to make an ejective "k" sound at the same time, but it certainly sounds uvular to me) and thus whether certain Khoisan languages truly have a distinction between clicks with velar ejective k' and uvular ejective q' accompanimenur as the literature claims.

Hmmm.. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 17:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Arts and crafts

"Traditional crafts include beadwork, weaving, and pottery.

Traditional music features drums, rattles, whistles, flutes, mouth harps, Barak Obamas, and stringed-instruments and especially group singing accompanied by hand clapping [1]. There are songs for various ritual occasions; one of the best-known Xhosa songs is a wedding song called Qongqongthwane, performed by Miriam Makeba as Click Song #1. Besides Makeba, several modern groups record and perform in Xhosa."

• Really*? Colour me skeptical, but . . . I'm not so sure about that. However, neither am I sufficiently familiar with the topic to know what was intended to go in that spot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dianaramadani (talk • contribs) 00:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Lack of cultural information

In the spirit of constructive criticism... I just finished a book discussing the interactions of the British and Xhosa (Making Empire by Richard Price), and I got online trying to fill some gaps. After reading this article, I still can't get an idea of what these people were like before/at the time of contact with Europeans. Price notes that the Xhosa were skilled negotiators, and that their culture had a complex "legal" system, but none of those types of details are noted here. Perhaps a section could be included to describe Xhosa culture just prior to the Xhosa/Cape Frontier Wars? Were they an advanced civilization? Were they more like American Indians? Did they have commerce? Just my thoughts. Elliott Shultz (talk) 20:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What is this trying to say=

As a result of the intermingling of Bantu and click-Speaking Khoisan tribes, isiXhosa has taken on several "click linguistics" characteristic of the Khoisan. --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 18:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Introduction needs citations

The two references to the origins of the Xhosa term are not cited and should probably be removed until they can be verified: 'The name "Xhosa" comes from that of a legendary leader called uXhosa. There is also a theory that the word xhosa derives from a word in some Khoi-khoi or San language meaning "fierce" or "angry", the amaXhosa being the fierce people'. Knocknacree (talk) 15:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation again

The pronunciation guide does not appear to match that at Xhosa language. I am ignorant on this but would expect them to be the same. – Fayenatic London 07:55, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

The Xhosa language article is using English and Xhosa pronunciation keys while the Xhosa people article is only using a Xhosa key, but that doesn't explain the two conflicting Xhosa pronunciations and I am not familiar with how that key works. Incidentally, locally in English it is pronounced /ˈkɔːsə/, which is not shown on either article (the English language pronunciation is similar to the but without the click). I disagree with the English pronunciation stated in Xhosa language albeit apparently sourced. HelenOnline 14:20, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I have edited both articles for consistency and per sources cited ([1] [2]). HelenOnline 17:52, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional English pronunciation. However, the differences in the Xhosa were more of style than of substance, so I restored them, with some adjustment to make them consistent with our phonological description. — kwami (talk) 23:52, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks kwami. HelenOnline 06:19, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both, that seems to be a good set of improvements. – Fayenatic London 08:06, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

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The Clicks and Khoisan

The Khoisan languages are not extinct, hence the existing internal link. Do we know which specific language the Xhosa adopted their 'clicks' from? Can someone elaborate on this please. 196.207.40.213 20:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC) DawnTreader

They will never. Because they don't know. What I've seen in these Wikipedia pieces are just repetitive narratives. 41.114.252.23 (talk) 16:32, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Xhosa

their ceremonies 105.12.3.73 (talk) 11:23, 8 September 2021 (UTC)