Languages Spoken in South Africa - IsiXhosa

Infomation about the IsiXhosa language, one of South Africa's 11 official languages brought to you by Conference Venues South Africa.

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. It is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, about 18% of the South African population. Click consonants feature prominently in the sounds of this language. Even the name, Xhosa, begins with a click.

The name Xhosa refers to one of their legendary chieftains. The members of the ethnic group that speaks Xhosa refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and call their language isiXhosa.

The language represents the most southwestern branch of the Nguni subfamily of the Bantu languages. As mentioned, Xhosa is natively spoken in South Africa, mostly in the Eastern Cape Province.

Xhosa is also spoken in the Western Cape - including Cape Town - and in Johannesburg. Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole.