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IsiXhosa Language
Xhosa (, ) also isiXhosa as an endonym, is a Nguni language and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. 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, Northern Cape and Gauteng. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click. Classification Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele. Nguni languages effectively form a dialect continuum of variously mutually intelligible varieties. Xhosa is, to some extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Nguni languages are, in turn, classified under the much larger abstraction of Bantu languages. Geographical distribution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the ''tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity, the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse, and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). The forward closure is then released,This is the case for all clicks used as consonants in words. Paralinguistically, however, there are other methods of making clicks: ''under'' the tongue or as above but by releasing the rear occlusion first. See #Places of articul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Load
In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load, or phonemic load, refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language. In other words, features with a high functional load distinguish more words from others in a given language; the omission or mishearing of these features leads to more confusion than features with low functional load. Overview The term "functional load" goes back to the days of the Prague School; references to it can be found in the work of Vilém Mathesius in 1929. Its most vocal advocate was André Martinet, a historical linguist who claimed it was a factor in the likelihood of a phonological merger. The first suggested measurement for functional load was the number of minimal pairs, but that does not take into account word frequency and is difficult to generalize beyond binary phonemic oppositions. Charles Hockett proposed an information theoretic definition in 1955, which has since been generalized.Surendran and Niyogi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Languages Of Zimbabwe
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Chewa. The country's main languages are Shona, spoken by over 70% of the population, and Ndebele, spoken by roughly 20%. English is the country's lingua franca, used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools. English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans, Greek, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population. Deaf Zimbabweans commonly use one of several varieties of Zimbabwean Sign Language, with some using American Sign Language. Zimbabw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Official Languages Of South Africa
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their superior and/or employer, public or legally private). An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election. Officials may also be appointed ''ex officio'' (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited. A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent. Something "official" refers to something endowed with governmental or other authoritative recognition or mandate, as in official language, official gazette, or official scorer. Etymology The word ''official'' as a noun has been recorded since the Middle English period, first seen in 1314. It comes from the Old French ''official'' (12th century), from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language. An exonym (from Greek: , 'outer' + , 'name'; also known as xenonym) is an established, ''non-native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words. For instance, is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonym ''Germany'' in English, in Spanish and in French. Naming and etymology The terms ''autonym'', ''endonym'', ''exonym'' and ''x ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh University Press
Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh in 1992. Books and journals published by the press carry the imprimatur of The University of Edinburgh. All proposed publishing projects are appraised and approved by the Press Committee, which consists of academics from the university. Since August 2004, the Press has had Charitable Status. In November 2013, Edinburgh University Press acquired Dundee University Press for an undisclosed sum, with a stated aim to increase textbook and digital sales, with a particular focus on law. Brodies advised Edinburgh University Press on the terms of the acquisition. Publishing Edinburgh University Press publishes a range of research publications, which include scholarly monographs and reference works, as well as materials which are available on-li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gallaudet University Press
Gallaudet University Press (GUPress) is a publisher that focuses on issues relating to deafness and sign language. It is a part of Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., and was founded in 1980 by the university's Board of Trustees. The press is a member of the Association of University Presses. The press publishes two quarterly journals: ''American Annals of the Deaf'' and ''Sign Language Studies''. Mission statement Gallaudet University Press is a vital, self-supporting member of the Gallaudet educational and scholarly community. The mission of the Press is to disseminate knowledge about deaf and hard of hearing people, their languages, their communities, their history, and their education through print and electronic media. Series The Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies Series The series' editor is Kristen C. Harmon. The first volume of this series, published in 1998, was a reprinting of Albert Ballin's book ''The Deaf Mute Howls''; which was originally printed in 1930. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signed Xhosa
In South Africa, manually coded language is used in education, as a bridge between South African Sign Language (SASL) and the eleven official oral languages of the country. These codes apply the signs of SASL to the grammar of the oral languages, resulting in Signed English, Signed Afrikaans, Signed Xhosa, Signed Zulu, etc. They are not a natural form of communication among deaf people. Manually coded language is commonly used instead of SASL for simultaneous translation from an oral language into sign, for example at the Deaf Forum that is held annually at different locations in the Western Cape. The result is that, while deaf people from different language communities can communicate with each other without difficulty in SASL, they cannot understand "sign language" interpreters unless they have been schooled in the particular manually coded language used by the interpreter. That is, while they share a common language in SASL, they differ in their understanding of Signed En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ditema Tsa Dinoko
Ditema tsa Dinoko ( Sesotho for "Ditema syllabary"), also known by its IsiZulu name, ''Isibheqe Sohlamvu'', and various other related names in different languages, is a constructed writing system (specifically, a featural syllabary) for the ''siNtu'' or Southern Bantu languages (for example, for Sesotho, Setswana, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SiSwati, SiPhuthi, Xitsonga, EMakhuwa, ChiNgoni, SiLozi, or Tshivenḓa), developed in the 2010s from antecedent ideographic traditions of the Southern African region. Its visual appearance is inspired by these, including the traditional litema arts style. It was developed between 2014 and 2016 by a group of South African linguists and software programmers with the goal of creating a denser writing system to avoid the slowness in reading caused by the word length and visual homogeneity of Southern Bantu languages written in the Roman alphabet. The Ditema / Isibheqe syllabary has the capacity to represent the full phonological range of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xhosa Braille
Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See also * * Khosa (other) * Kosa (other) Kosa may refer to: Places * Kosa, Azerbaijan * Kosa, Croatia, a village in Croatia * Kōsa, Kumamoto, a town in Japan * Kosa, Russia, several places with the name in Russia * , a village in Bolhrad Raion, Ukraine People * Kosa (surname) * K ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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