History
Xhosa-speaking peoples have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the sixteenth century. The members of the ethnic group that speaks Xhosa refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and call their language isiXhosa, while the language is most commonly known as "Xhosa" in English.
Almost all languages with clicks are Khoisan languages and the presence of clicks in Xhosa demonstrates the strong historical interaction with its Khoisan neighbours. An estimated 15% of the vocabulary is of Khoekhoe (Khoisan) origin. In the modern period, Xhosa has also borrowed from both Afrikaans and English.
Read more about this topic: Xhosa Language
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)