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Language code: xh

Technical information about ISO 639 language code xh

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Xhosa language, designated by the xh code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

xh

Name

Official

Xhosa

Native

IsiXhosa

Family
Bantu
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
GcalekaGaika (Ngqika)NdlambeHlubiMpondoMpondomiseThembuBomvana
Related languages
ZuluSwati (Swazi)Southern NdebeleNorthern Ndebele
Key facts
Uses three main click consonants adopted from Khoisan languagesEmploys tone to distinguish meaning between otherwise identical wordsWritten with the Latin alphabet enriched by digraphs and additional letters such as xh, hl and ngqVocabulary contains many loanwords from Afrikaans and EnglishThe language name comes from a legendary ancestral chief called uXhosa
Sample phrase

Molo, unjani?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Xhosa belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, specifically to the Bantu subgroup. It is one of the official languages of South Africa. Though primarily concentrated in South Africa, there are also Xhosa speakers in Zimbabwe and possibly a small number in Botswana due to migration. Xhosa is written using the Latin script (Xhosa alphabet). It is estimated that there are between 10 and 20 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

South Africa

12M

Zimbabwe

33K

Botswana

9.3K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Xhosa speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

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