A Xhosa song

Nelson Mandela just celebrated his 90th birthday recently, so I thought it would be proper to post something on his native language, isiXhosa. Mandela is a member of the Xhosa group (isiXhosa means "Xhosa language" with the isi- noun class prefix) , who speak a southeastern Bantu language. Since Xhosa, like many of its closest linguistic neighbors such as isiZulu, siNdebele, and so on, is located near the San (Bushmen) areas, it would be natural for these languages to adopt a number of click consonants that San languages are famous for.

In fact, the "xh" digraph in Xhosa/isiXhosa is a click consonant - it's a voiceless aspirated lateral click. Make the click that one uses to call horses, and then say that with a puff of air immediately afterward.

Here is a clip with another well-known Xhosa, singer Miriam Makeba, singing one of her top hits "Qongqothwane" - otherwise known as the Click Song, featuring the clicks q, gq, and ngq (i.e. voiceless unaspirated, voiced, and nasal voiced alveolar clicks - they're all different consonants in isiXhosa). This is an adaptation of a Xhosa wedding song:

Igqira lendlela nguqo ngqothwane
Igqira lendlela nguqo ngqothwane

[The witchdoctor, who is a black beetle (2X)]

Sebeqabe legqithapha ahi uqo ngqotwane
Sebeqabe legqithapha ahi uqo ngqotwane

[is coming to our village (2X)]



(If you aren't familiar with the San, check out this clip from the classic film "The Gods Must Be Crazy!" - the main character is a San.)