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Xhosa

Southern Africa

The Xhosa are a southern Nguni people who settled South Africa’s Eastern Cape region by around the 14th or 15th century, expanding under the royal line founded by the chief Tshawe. From the late 18th through the 19th century, they fought a long series of Cape Frontier Wars against expanding British and Boer settlement, among the longest sustained African resistance to European colonization.

Did you know?

IsiXhosa's click consonants weren't originally Xhosa: they were absorbed centuries ago from Khoisan languages as Xhosa speakers moved west, and today about 15% of Xhosa vocabulary traces back to that contact.

Proverbs (4)

Hands wash each other.
One hand can't properly clean itself; it takes the other hand's help to get fully clean. This proverb uses that small, physical fact to make a bigger point: real community runs on direct, mutual exchange, not one-sided giving.
The foot has no nose.
A foot can't smell danger coming and walks wherever the path leads, blind to what's ahead. This proverb uses that image as a warning: you never know whose help you'll need later, so treat everyone, even those who seem unimportant now, with real respect.
The child's sack is not thrown away after the death of one child.
The carrying-sling exists for whichever child needs it next, not just the one who used it last. This proverb refuses to let one loss close off the future entirely: there may yet be another child, another chance, still to come.
Greatness is not rushed for.
Rushing toward greatness, this proverb suggests, usually just produces a smaller, hastier version of it. Real standing takes the time it takes, and trying to force the timeline tends to undercut the very thing being chased.

Names (4)

First names
Luthando
isiXhosa for "it is love".
Nkosana
isiXhosa for "prince".
Nkosazana
isiXhosa for "princess" (female form of Nkosana).
Thamsanqa
isiXhosa for "blessing", "fortune", or "luck".
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