Xhosa (isiXhosa)

Xhosa is written in the Latin script, spoken by about 10.2M people across 2 regions.

Unicode blocks used

Where it's spoken

Lesotho, South Africa

Notes

Marks for tones (◌́ high, ◌̀ low, ◌̂ falling) are not used in the orthography but are used on vowels or nasal consonants in some dictionaries. The nasalization mark (◌̃) is only used in a few dictionaries. The 1937-1955 orthography used ɓ Ɓ, ɼ (capital ɼ not in Unicode), ʃ Ʃ, they are now b B, rh RH, sh SH. The 1937-1955 orthography used ˈ for high tone, ˌ for low tone and ˈˌ for falling tone, for exemple bˈethˌa for bétha 'hit' and bˈoˌnˌa for bôna 'see'. Before 1937, ◌̔ was used to indicate aspiration of the previous consonant on vowels, as well as on r. ◌̇ was used on q and r.