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The Bantu Migration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2022
Long-haul tourists visiting South Africa are always fascinated by the clicks of isiXhosa. Foreign to their ears, the eighteen click consonants can be grouped into three types: the ‘c’ is a dental click made by the tongue at the back of the mouth, the lateral ‘x’ is made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and the alveolar ‘q’ is made by the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth.
IsiXhosa is part of the Nguni language group, which also includes Zulu and southern and northern Ndebele. Yet few of these or the other South African vernacular languages have clicks, and those that do have them use them far less. How is it that isiXhosa came to use clicks so commonly?
One clue comes from the other languages of southern Africa that also make use of clicks – and there are lots of them.
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