Vowels
The Xhosa language has 10 vowels. This is as a result of making a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels thus each of the vowels a, e, i, o and u appear in two distinct levels (long and short).
| Front | Back |
|---|
| short | long | short | long |
|---|
| Close | i (i) | iː (ii) | u (o) | uː (oo) |
|---|
| Mid | ɛ (e) | eː (ee) | ɔ (u) | oː (uu) |
|---|
| Open | | a (a) | aː (aa) |
|---|
Consonants
The Xhosa language uses four airstream mechanisms to produce consonant sounds; pulmonic, velaric (clicks), implosive, and ejective. It has a total of 66 consonant phonemes, 18 of which are click consonants (velaric) found only in fewer than 2% of the world's languages.
Clicks
| Dental/Alveolar (central) | Dental/Alveolar (lateral) | Postalveolar |
|---|
| plain | [kǀ] c | [kǁ] x | [kǃ] q |
| aspirated | [kǀʰ] ch | [kǁʰ] xh | [kǃʰ] qh |
| slack voice | [ɡ̊ǀʱ] gc | [ɡ̊ǁʱ] gx | [ɡ̊ǃʱ] gq |
| nasal | [ŋǀ] nc | [ŋǁ] nx | [ŋǃ] nq |
| slack-voice nasal | [ŋǀʱ] ngc | [ŋǁʱ] ngx | [ŋǃʱ] ngq |
| glottalised nasal | [ŋǀˀ] nkc | [ŋǁˀ] nkx | [ŋǃˀ] nkq |
Plosive
| Labial | Dental/Alveolar (central) | Postalveolar | Velar |
|---|
| tenuis/ejective | [pʼ] p | [tʼ] t | [t̠ʲʼ] ty | [kʼ] k |
| aspirated | [pʰ] ph | [tʰ] th | [t̠ʲʰ] tyh | [kʰ] kh |
| slack voice | [b̥ʱ] bh | [d̥ʱ] d | [d̠̥ʲʱ] dy | [ɡ̊ʱ] g |
| implosive | [ɓ] b | | | |
Affricate
| Dental/Alveolar (central) | Postalveolar | Velar |
|---|
| ejective | [tsʼ] ts | [t̠ʃʼ] tsh | [kxʼ] kr |
| aspirated | [tsʰ] ths | [t̠ʃʰ] thsh | |
| slack voice | [d̥zʱ] dz 3 | [d̠̥ʒʱ] j | |
Fricative
| Labio-dental | Dental / Alveolar (central) | Dental / Alveolar (lateral) | Post alveolar | Velar | Glottal |
|---|
| voiceless | [f] f | [s] s | [ɬ] hl | [ʃ] sh | [x] rh | [h] h |
| slack voice | [v̤] v | [z̤] z | [ɮ̈] dl | [ʒ̈] zh 2 | [ɣ̈] gr | [ɦ] hh |
Nasal
| Labial | Dental/Alveolar (central) | Postalveolar | Velar |
|---|
| fully voiced | [m] m | [n] n | [n̠ʲ] ny | [ŋ] ng’ |
| slack voice | [m̤] mh | [n̤] nh | [n̤ʲ] nyh | [ŋ̈] ngh 4 |
Approximant
| Dental/Alveolar (lateral) | Postalveolar | Velar |
|---|
| fully voiced | [l] l | [j] y | [w] w |
| slack voice | [l̤] lh | [j̈] yh | [w̤] wh |
Trill
| Dental/Alveolar (central) |
|---|
| fully voiced | [r] r 1 |
| breathy voiced | [r̤] r 1 |
Tones
Being a tonal language, Xhosa employs pitch levels to make phonemic tone distictions to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning in words. In Xhosa there are two (2) phonemic tones (pitch levels); high and low.
| Word | Meaning | Root |
|---|
| ubulele | you killed | bulala (kill) |
| ubulele | s/he killed | bulala (kill) |
| ubulele | you were sleeping | lala (sleep) |
| ubulele | you thanked | bulela (thank) |
| ubulele | s/he thanked | bulela (thank) |
| ubulele? | did you kill? | bulala (kill) |
| ubulele? | did s/he kill? | bulala (kill) |
| ubulele? | where you sleeping? | lala (sleep) |
| ubulele? | did you thank? | bulela (thank) |
| ubulele? | did s/he thank? | bulela (thank) |
