Xhosa Tongue Twister Lesson in South Africa - Very cool!

(lots of background noise, music)

(singing in xhosa, unintelligible talking)

Now in the Xhosa language, we have three clicking sounds.

Which makes this language, a bit of a different, goony language

because Zulu's a bit similar to Xhosa,

Swati and Dbele

but Xhosa has got these three clicking sounds.

the first one is 'c', so

the pronunciation of 'c' is [ǀ] (dental click)

[ǀa ǀe ǀi ǀo ǀu] (repeats twice)

Can you do that?

(he cannot do that)

Yes, and then there is...

...sort of like Chinese, eh?...

(laughs good naturedly. THIS IS NOT LIKE CHINESE)

The second is 'x'

the pronunciation is [ǁ] (lateral click)

[ǁa ǁe ǁi ǁo ǁu] (he says it twice)

(other guy tries to do it)

I can't do it when I'm saying it at the same time.

is it ...(tries again)?

Yeah, that's difficult.

Okay.

Then the last one is the 'q'

'q' = [ǃ] (postalveolar click)

[ǃa ǃe ǃi ǃo ǃu] (repeats)

(other guy tries it - it's pretty wrong)

You are a very excellent student!

(laughs)

And then let me do the sentences since I'm not...

yeah yeah

...gonna make it hard for you.

to make, to repeat them.

(laughs)

But that will be the clicking, um, sentences

starting with the 'c' one.

(these sentences have many clicks)

(they are in Xhosa, so I can not transcribe them - but they go in order)

So the meanings

(first sentence, lots of 'c' [ǀ] sounds)

'close the door tightly, so that no air will penetrate'.

The 'x' one (lots of 'x' [ǁ] sounds)

'The old man had an appointment

with his friend. HIs friend did not turn up.

He panicked, became very angry

and moved to another place'.

The 'q' one (lots of 'q' [ǃ] sounds)

'A squirrel went up the top of the hill

decided to roll back to the bottom'.

(more background noise)

(music)