Eyes of Fire | Bucky Barnes

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There are 11 official languages in South Africa, of which Xhosa is one of the most widely spoken.

Xhosa falls under the umbrella of the Bantu languages and is a representative of the south-western Nguni family. It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. As a result, South Africa is known to be the native land of the Xhosa (both the ethnicity and the language). This is especially true of the Eastern Cape, where the language is spoken extensively and taught in the schools.

The word "Xhosa" is derived from the Khoisan language and means "angry men", mainly due to its' unusual sounds. The sounds are relatively aggressive; this is as opposed to soothing and melodic languages like Italian or French. Most of the languages in South Africa that involve tongue-clicking originate from the indigenous Khoisan people, characterized by a number of sounds, formed by the tongue, represented by the letters c, x and q.

They comprise English sounds, ejectives, an implosive, and 15 clicks. These are divided into three groups: dental clicks - where the tongue presses against the person's teeth; alveolar clicks – where the tongue presses against the palate; and lateral clicks - where the tongue presses against the side of the mouth.

Xhosa is a tonal language with two inherent phonemic tones: low and high. Tones are rarely marked in the written language, but they can be indicated.

Xhosa is an agglutinative language, with an array of prefixes and suffixes that are attached to root words. As in other Bantu languages, nouns are classified into morphological classes, or genders, with different prefixes for both singular and plural. Various parts of speech that qualify a noun must agree with the noun according to its gender. Agreements usually reflect part of the original class with which the word agrees. The word order is subject–verb–object, like in English.

The Xhosa noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. Using the prefixes, nouns can be grouped into noun classes, which are numbered consecutively, to ease comparison with other Bantu languages.

Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. Ancestors of the Xhosa migrated to the east coast of Africa and came across Khoisan-speaking people; as a result of this contact, the Xhosa people borrowed some Khoisan words along with their pronunciation.

The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous, but English is spoken everywhere you go.

English is the language of the cities, of commerce and banking, of government and official documents. All of the road signs and official forms are in English; at any provided service, the staff will speak to the guests in English. It is at every corner.

But Xhosa? Xhosa is the language of home. It is the language of power and family and soul and pride.

In African culture, names tell a story, and last names are the base of the narrative. Like in most cultures, they show where a family is from. Africa has many countries and if you're well-versed in the different cultures, you can pinpoint the country or nation a person belongs to just by knowing their last name.

It is why Wakandans take such pride and power in their names, what it symbolizes. It is tradition to ask a Wakandan who they are and listen to them respond with a sense of strength and self-love that is irreplaceable and rooted in heart.

And so, I request:

Tell me who you are.