Affiliation and Distribution
Xhosa is the southernmost branch of the Nguni languages, which include Swati, Northern Ndebele and Zulu. There is some mutual intelligibility with the other Nguni languages, all of which share many linguistic features. Nguni languages are in turn part of the much larger group of Bantu languages, and as such Xhosa is related to languages spoken across much of Africa.
Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, while the most widely spoken is Zulu. Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole. As of 2003 the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 5.3 million, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225). A minority of Xhosa speakers (18,000) exists in Quthing District, Lesotho.
Read more about this topic: Xhosa Language
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