[16], Called isiXhosa sengingqi ('local Xhosa'), Xhosa has several dialects. Palatalisation is a change that affects labial consonants whenever they are immediately followed by /j/. The language of instruction at universities in South Africa is English or Afrikaans, and Xhosa is taught as a subject, both for native and for non-native speakers. [15] Also, a small community of Xhosa speakers (18,000) live in Quthing District, Lesotho. The first was actor John Kani, who played T’Chaka in Captain America: Civil War and reprised the role in Black Panther. Therefore, with the help of his son, who eventually took over the duties, they taught Chadwick Boseman and the cast how to “speak” the language. Xhosa is a tonal Nguni Bantu language, part of the Niger-Congo language family, that uses Latin for its alphabet, and has a signed form of the language as well as Xhosa braille. In keeping with many other Southern Bantu languages, Xhosa is an agglutinative language, with an array of prefixes and suffixes that are attached to root words. The language of Black Panther is indeed a real tongue, spoken by millions of people. The story behind the language spoken in 'Black Panther' Xhosa, known affectionately as the 'click click language,' takes its name from a people in mostly southern Africa … They are better described as slack voiced than as breathy voiced. When aspirated clicks (ch, xh, qh) are prenasalised, the silent letter k is added (nkc, nkx, nkq) to prevent confusion with the nasal clicks nc, nx, nq, and are actually distinct sounds. (In fact, to correctly pronounce “Xhosa,” the “X” begins with a click.) Xhosa /ˈkɔːsə, ˈkoʊsə/[5][6][7] (Xhosa: [ᵏǁʰɔsa]),[missing tone] also isiXhosa, is a Nguni Bantu language and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. In 1996[update], the literacy rate for first-language Xhosa speakers was estimated at 50%.[16]. I guess you could say that it just clicked in as a natural fit. The current national anthem of South Africa, starts with the first two lines in Xhosa, with the next two lines translated into Zulu but almost identical to the Xhosa version. But those who speak the South African language of Xhosa know that what Noah actually said was "white people don't know I'm lying." That connection between Africans and the African diaspora enocuraged Coogler in his portrayal of Wakanda in Black Panther. RELATED: Black Panther's Suit Got Serious Upgrades After Civil War Thanks to Black Widow "The language we used for Wakandan is called Xhosa. Nguni languages are, in turn, part of the much larger group of Bantu languages. All about Xhosa, the real language that Wakandans speak in 'Black Panther.'. Like, almost identical,” Coogler described. There was a scene where Tchaka and Tchalla talk in private. (They may also be voiced between vowels in some speaking styles.) It’s one of the way the much anticipated Black Panther … The prenasalized versions have a very short voicing at the onset which then releases in an ejective, like the prenasalized affricates, while the phonemically nasal clicks have a very long voicing through the consonant. T’Chaka’s actor Kani is actually African and knew a genuine african language Xhosa from South Africa. We’re happy to answer any questions … The /i/ vowel will be long in the penultimate syllable and short in the last syllable.[17]. [8][9] Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8.2 million people and by another 11 million as a second language in South Africa, mostly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng and Northern Cape. The South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts in Xhosa on both radio (on Umhlobo Wenene FM) and television, and films, plays and music are also produced in the language. All of that being said, we are a friendly, honest company, based in London, UK, and this document is far scarier than we are! Kani believed having them speak an African language to one another instead of English was more authentic and there you go. The following table gives an overview of Xhosa noun classes, arranged according to singular-plural pairs. isiXhosa, the Language of Wakanda: Black Panther Unpacked #3 South African audiences must have felt a certain kind of wonder and excitement when they first heard the elegant language of their very own Xhosa people spoken by the Wakandans. The idea to use isiXhosa, one of South Africa's 11 official languages, in Black Panther came from South African actor and cast member John Kani who plays the father of the king T'Challa. Aarons & Reynolds, 2003, "South African Sign Language", in Monaghan, ed., The following languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa are the officially recognised languages of Zimbabwe. There is a series of six dental clicks, represented by the letter ⟨c⟩, similar to the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk"; a series of six alveolar lateral clicks, represented by the letter ⟨x⟩, similar to the sound used to call horses; and a series of alveolar clicks, represented by the letter ⟨q⟩, that sound somewhat like a cork pulled from a bottle. The more notable characteristic is their depressor effect on the tone of the syllable.[21]. Valiant efforts paid off, however, as the use of Xhosa adds an extra dimension of authenticity to the fictional world of Wakanda. Wakanda Is a Fake Country, but the African Language in ‘Black Panther’ Is Real Women in their traditional Xhosa attire in Durban, South Africa. Contextual translation of "black panther" into Xhosa. In those same interviews, he also shared how Black Panther was extra special for him, because of the fact that Xhosa was part of it: “And it was extra special for … When consonants are prenasalised, their pronunciation and spelling may change. Now, in the wake of “Black Panther,” the language is having a moment. That’s because the language of Wakanda, is largely Xhosa. Now when I was cast to play again in the Black Panther I had already been asked what or how would you say this in Xhosa. Constructed language (conglang) is a consciously created language that resembles human or human-like conversation. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages. That is, da may be pronounced [dʱa̤] (or, equivalently, [d̥a̤]). Danai Gurira at the South African premiere of Black Panther. Besides pulmonic egressive sounds, which are found in all spoken languages, it has a series of ejective stops and one implosive stop. For the movie Black Panther, the actors learned isiXhosa, which was their remake of Xhosa. A language that involves clicking noises. Xhosa is the English-given name for both the language and the people who speak the Xhosa language, distinguished by those speakers as AmaXhosa for the people, and isiXhosa for the language itself. Aspirated clicks become prenasalized ejected clicks. It’s also really hard to learn, according to the film’s actors, but the importance of an authentic African language in a blockbuster superhero movie cannot be underestimated. [16], The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. 2 is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. John Bennie was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary and early Xhosa linguist. Their use in education has been governed by legislation, beginning with the Bantu Education Act, 1953.[12]. [23], Proportion of the South African population that speaks Xhosa at home, Webb, Vic. Even the foundation of Nobel Peace Prize-winner and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu, who rarely makes public statements these days at the age of 86, pointed out this week on Twitter: “Archbishop Tutu comes from a #Xhosa background as well.” [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. As in other Bantu languages, nouns in Xhosa are classified into morphological classes, or genders (15 in Xhosa), with different prefixes for both singular and plural. For Black Panther, the actors learned is isiXhosa, a Buntu language characterized by click consonants. Otherwise, they tend to be tenuis (plain) stops. However, some of the letters have a different pronunciation than as in English. While palatalisation occurred historically, it is still productive, as is shown by palatalization before the passive suffix /-w/. Fricatives become affricates. Despite Wakanda being an isolated country hundreds of miles away from Coogler’s native Oakland, Wakanda is still a place where sisters can prank their big brothers. “Ryan and I went back-and-forth and talked about it, and I said it just makes sense,” said Beth McGuire, the dialect coach of Black Panther, in an interview with Slate. The Xhosa language employs 26 letters from the Latin alphabet. It takes a lot more than what happened to us to take that out of us.’”. The decision to have Xhosa be the official language of Wakanda was solidified by Chad, a … Still, it was a process during shooting, where last-minute edits to the script would have the actors unlearning what they just learned. Human translations with examples: mnyama, umbala, ingcuka, iibhloko, ndiyoyika, clonetype, ecaleni kwe. The influence came from John Kani, the actor who plays Black Panther’s father. Xhosa culture shines on Black Panther movie premiere Read more Home; About Us. It has 18 click consonants (in comparison, Juǀ'hoan, spoken in Botswana and Namibia, has 48, and Taa, with roughly 4,000 speakers in Botswana, has 83). iliso (eye), uluhlu (list). John Kani, who plays King T'Chaka in … The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Whenever /w/ follows a labial consonant, it changes to /j/, which then triggers palatalisation of the consonant. 1 Before monosyllabic stems, e.g. There are moments and words that are dropped all over the place to locate that these people’s indigenous language is not English. AmaXhosa – Southern Ngunis. Coogler was further inspired when he took a personal trip to South Africa prior to shooting Black Panther, where he befriended local people who spoke Xhosa. Verbs use the following prefixes for the subject and object: The following is a list of phrases that can be used when one visits a region whose primary language is Xhosa: Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. The decision for Black Panther to speak Xhosa was quite a big one not just for Captain America: Civil War, but for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, too. (eds), These are analogous to the slack-voice nasals, "Xhosa alphabet, pronunciation and language", "isiNdebele for beginners. Tone, stress and vowel length are not indicated. 2002. “The clicks are no joke,” Lupita Nyong’o, who stars in the film as Nakia, told the Associated Press. Xhosa is, to some extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and Northern Ndebele, and other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Tones are rarely marked in the written language, but they can be indicated a [à], á [á], â [áà], ä [àá]. The film Black Panther instead, used the already existing South African Xhosa language, which is also the native tongue of Nelson Mandela, as the language of the Wakandan people. An estimated 15% of Xhosa vocabulary is of San origin. Northern Ndebele language in Africa", "South Africa Population grows to 44.8 Million", "Isixhosa Ulwimi Lwabantu Abangesosininzi eZimbabwe: Ukuphila Nokulondolozwa Kwaso", "Wakanda Is a Fake Country, but the African Language in 'Black Panther' is Real", Xhosa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database, Commission for Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Community Rights, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Xhosa_language&oldid=999100104, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2003, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles needing examples from December 2018, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 1996, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. “I found out that his tribe – he was Xhosa – the rituals they do are very similar to things I do with my family. AmaXhosa migrated to the east coast of Africa and came across Khoisan-speaking people; "as a result of this contact, the Xhosa people borrowed some Khoisan words along with their pronunciation, for instance, the click sounds of the Khoisan languages". James tries to learn Xhosa in Cape Town, and hears why its important for people there. It is a Methodist hymn written in Xhosa by Enoch Sontonga in 1897. The original stanza was: Additional stanzas were written later by Sontonga and other writers, with the original verse translated into Sotho and Afrikaans, as well as English. [14] There is a small but significant Xhosa community of about 200,000 in Zimbabwe. Xhosa Culture Learn Xhosa Language | history | Customs & more facebook; twitter; google_plus; Email; Xhosa Culture Browsing tag. Their use in education has been governed by legislation, beginning with the Bantu Education Act, 1953. See Sands & Gunnink (2019) "Clicks on the fringes of the Kalahari Basin Area." Another reason the Black Panther team decided on using Xhosa as Wakanda's official language has to do with one of the movie's central actors. Xhosa is a tonal language with two inherent phonemic tones: low and high. A conglang has vocabulary, grammar and phonology that are the same as a natural language. But, as with any language, Xhosa had a rich history of oral traditions from which the society taught, informed, and entertained one another. Fricatives become affricated and, if voiceless, they become ejectives as well, at least with some speakers: mf is pronounced [ɱp̪fʼ], ndl is pronounced [ndɮ], n+hl becomes ntl [ntɬʼ], n+z becomes ndz [ndz], etc. BBC Correspondent Pumza Fihlani who is a native speaker of Xhosa, very graciously offered a quick tutorial of useful phrases that may come in handy should one find themselves in Wakanda. No change when the following consonant is itself a nasal. Additional phonemes are using sequences of multiple letters. Hlubi is the dialect in the former Ciskei; there is the more distinct Hlubi language further north, where Xhosa meets SeSotho. About XhosaCulture.co.za; Xhosa People; History. “They got lines that morning.”. Marvel’s Black Panther is a bonafide cultural phenomenon, with a current worldwide gross of over $700 million in just two weeks. Surprisingly, John Kani, the actor who played T’Chaka, is a speaker of Xhosa. Agreements usually reflect part of the original class with which the word agrees. For Black Panther, the actors learned is isiXhosa, a Buntu language characterized by click consonants. Others call constructed language as invented, planned or artificial language. Kani is a native of South Africa who speaks Xhosa. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther, the language spoken in the fictional African nation of Wakanda is Xhosa. [16] In the modern period, it has also borrowed, slightly, from both Afrikaans and English. Approximately 19 million people in the world speak Xhosa, and it’s recognized as one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, and one of the 16 languages of Zimbabwe. In the Marvel Universe, Wakanda exists as an isolated country that thrives thanks to its exclusive rights to the space mineral vibranium. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is part of the national anthem of South Africa, national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia, and the former anthem of Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Xhosa noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. They are truly voiced only after nasals, but the oral occlusion is then very short in stops, and it usually does not occur at all in clicks. Literary works, including prose and poetry, are available in Xhosa, as are newspapers and magazines. Long vowels are phonemic but are usually not written except for â and ä, which are each sequences of two vowels with different tones that are realized as long vowels with contour tones (â high–low = falling, ä low–high = rising). “The language we used for Wakandan is called Xhosa,” Civil War co-director Joe Russo said to EW. The breathy voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] is sometimes spelled h. The ejectives tend to be ejective only in careful pronunciation or in salient positions and, even then, only for some speakers. This language however was difficult for the actors to learn. Various parts of speech that qualify a noun must agree with the noun according to its gender. The word order is subject–verb–object, like in English. Why we care: The Wakandan language we hear characters speaking in Black Panther is totally real. Director Ryan Coogler was inspired to use Xhosa for two reasons. isandla/izandla (hand/hands). 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